What is Love?
by Ian Brown
Well, it's not a thing. It's not something we can hold (although we might experience it when holding someone we love). It's not an action, although we can demonstrate and experience love in some of the things we do: in holding a child's hand in crossing the street; in mopping the brow of a friend or relative who is unwell; in sharing a moment and a few kind words with a stranger; in playing with a puppy; in nurturing a garden; in making love...
It's not an intention, although intentions are everything in helping love to work and flow; in being honest and caring, in respect and understanding.
More than anything, it's a feeling; but a feeling, unlike any other, that mere words can never truly describe. It cannot be measured, quantified, analysed or fully explained, but we all know it when we feel it, and we feel love every day. And everybody - everything - needs it. It's the tender word that banishes the nightmares away, the gentle kiss that brings magic to a day, the hug that heals more than any medicine, the one emotion, more than any other, that makes us alive. Feeling love is not only about being in love, although, in some ways, perhaps that feeling is the most intense height of the experience of knowing what love is: it's not all of it, but it's an important part, and it's something pretty special.
Sometimes, it's claimed that relationships are all about give and take. Well, perhaps that can be improved upon. Relationships, with true love, are all about giving, accepting and sharing. In a truly loving relationship, we give unconditionally: we give our heart, ourselves, anything emotionally or physically that is needed by the one we love. When we truly love, we accept - we never take - we accept the love that is offered, and we accept everything offered in the same way that our offers are accepted. And, more than that, we accept everything about the one we love. When two people know everything there is to know about each other, every habit, every "fault", every secret, and it's still all right, because everything is accepted and understood, then we have a true love that can work. And that's all about sharing, too. The first two facets bring about the third, because, when two people truly love each other, they can happily and comfortably share everything. There's a special kind of freedom in that sharing, and it makes each person more complete than they would be without that love.
In October last year, I was relaxing in a tranquil tea room in the English spa town of Bath. It was one of those delicate, colonial-style buildings, all doric columns and ferny fronds, with gentle sunlight streaming through high Georgian windows and reflecting off the black-and-white tiled floor. An elderly couple wandered in. I guess they must have been old enough to have been in their teens during the Second World War. They sat themselves down, requested their afternoon tea, chatted for a few minutes about their shopping and then simply sat there, quite relaxed, without saying a word. It wasn't an uncomfortable or strained silence. They drank their tea and ate their scones with that concentrated munching so common to older people, and then simply sat back, gazing out of the window with all the time in the world; and it was so obvious from their comfort that they knew each other so well - inside out - that they didn't always need to speak. They were so comfortable together, and yet not jaded or bored. There was happiness in their features, and a touch of merriment when they spoke and shared a quiet little joke, almost like a courting couple on a first date; and that little twinkle of humour emphasised how special was the relationship they shared: a love that had evidently weathered every storm that life could throw at them. And then they stood, gathered up their shopping bags, and left the tea room; and, as they descended the steps to the street outside, each reached out and held the other's hand, and they exchanged a quick smile and a little squeeze of the hand. And that, really, said it all.
That, when it comes right down to it, is what love is.
Love is something that lasts.