Love is Not a Good Enough Word

Readers are advised that this was written under the influence of Dean Martin, Howard Keel, Bob Dylan and Edward Elgar playlists...

Love is Not A Good Enough Word...

I'm writing a story about soulmates. In fact, I'm writing a story about what happens if the concept is abused and twisted. It has me thinking about the nature of love: its many forms and the value our society places on each...

Leaving aside the question of whether "soulmates" actually exist, who says they have to be about romantic love? From there, it's not a huge leap to "love is an insufficient word when you think about it".

Love is far too complex, varied, and bloody important to reduce to one small word.

For example, if I tell you that "I have never been loved", this is at once true and profoundly untrue.

'Tis true that I have not been loved in the way Working Title romcoms tell me I should be (not least because I'm not upper middle class). But, I have been loved and I am loved.

There's plenty of love in Team Clarabella, from my mummy & daddy, sisters, niece, my dearest friends... probably more than I know, and - though I have never loved anyone as Disney movies and Dean Martin songs say I ought - I love with the fire of a thousand suns.

The word is still insufficient. I'm sure some folks reading this (both of them) are thinking "Ah, but Clare! The Ancient Greeks got there first!" with their eros/storge/agape/philia... and yet others who might rightly note that I'm approaching this in a very Anglo-centric way because there's all SORTS of ways of expressing love in other languages... and yet more might tell me that there's plenty of words in English that speak of love.

And that's not wrong. But 'love' still doesn't feel like it runs the gamut like I want it to. 

I feel a Princess Bride quote is especially on point for this subject.

My parents are pretty awesome. I love them dearly, but in a wholly different way the love I have for my sisters, my niece, my friends. There are common notions of affection and devotion, of course. But, also a gratitude towards the parents who waited years for the 'yeah, so like, there's this baby wot needs you'. (transcript not exact). They, who fed and clothed me, who taught me to read (that affectionate gratitude deserves its own post).

How can I express the feeling for that magnificent dork who introduced me to Buddy Holly and Elvis? He, who bought me all the Beatles albums on CD because I love them, despite the fact he detests them. He, who modeled for me a cerebral and kind masculinity that did not devalue me as a girl.

Is it the same as how I love my mummy, who bought me feminist fairytales when I was a kid? She, who dislikes shouty blues music but has come to more than one of my gigs just the same. She, who made my First Communion dress from scratch, and a hundred other things since. She, who drove me to-and-from two  universities, both about as far north as I could go without hitting Scotland.

They, who paid for that education. And my guitar and keyboard lessons. They, who got me my first library card and my first Errol Flynn movie. Who looked after me when I was sick. Who taught me to fraking walk and talk and brush my teeth.

How does the word "love" contain all that?

I also defy anyone to find me a word that encapsulates the ferocity of my love for my three-year-old niece, Little Boo. My devotion, affection and pride. The anticipation and hope for Future Boo as she grows. The sweet nostalgia for her even younger self, as she learnt to say my name and who grew into affection herself.  The devotion that would see me fight any asshole who might cause her harm or pain or even slight irritation.

The indulgence to endure episodes of Max and flamin' Ruby.  (I prefer Cbeebies, to be honest. I was and ever will be a BBC kid).

Then, there's the protective streak that saw me stand up to a rambunctious Staffordshire Bull Terrier. It bounded up (unattended by its muppet owner) to her then-2-year-old self on the way home from the park. I am not comfortable around dogs (a lack of experience rather than fear), yet there I was, exerting some serious alpha authority over this dog.

Boo's laugh lightens the stony rock I keep where a heart should go. Her hugs are one of the best anti-depressants I have. Her cries make my soul hurt and there's no victory in her 'I want Clare to staaaay!' moments when it's time for me to go home, because I'm losing out too.

Tell me, how does all that fit into the word "love"?

What about the way I loved my Granddad? For the last ten years, and forevermore, coloured by a painful grief, I don't know that "love" does us justice. Can "love" express our shared affection for Dean Martin's work, or Irene Dunne movies? How does "love" begin to cover the fact he was my best friend, my flatmate, and my hero? Does it cover how we could howl with laughter, or the smile on his face when I'd walk into the room, mirrored by my own? Does it incorporate the patience he had for me and my nonsense and mess?

Indeed, does the word even fit for how I feel about Granddad's Maria, the grandmother who died long before I pitched up? I suppose it must, as it does for all those ancestors whose striving for more and for better led to me here, now, as I am.

How does it cover the admiration, respect, affection, pride and hope I have for my two sisters, who I love the same and yet differently? They are different people who deserve to be loved for themselves, not merely for a relational proximity...

I am profoundly fortunate to have a set of ride-or-die best friends, and I love each and every one of them. I will love them for as long as I live. Is that more or less than romantic love, or familial love? Is there a competition to be best? Because I love them all dearly for their differences, not in spite of them.

How does "love" come close to the depth of feeling for those bloody musicians whose music I have absorbed into my being? How do I express my feeling for John Lennon, whose work (musically and otherwise) saved me from despair when I was 15?

I'd be remiss to omit Jim Morrison, who pulled me into a dark and strange place where I wrote terrible songs and floundered in my despair but found purpose, meaning and something uniquely, proudly give-no-fucks me? How about Philip Lynott's devil-may-care-but-romantic music that helped me find my sense of Irishness? What about my all-encompassing adoration of Rory Gallagher's work? His attitude and approach to music was transformative and restorative. 

How do I reduce that to mere "love"?

How can the word explain to an outsider that without their music, I would be dead? That's not an exaggeration. How can it explain how my world turns?

What about Rudolph Valentino, whose face took my breath away? Or Errol Flynn, the OG Problematic Fave? Their movies gave me a necessary escape from the real world, allowed me to dream in a way nothing else has.

What about the love I have for my work? I'm not the world's finest writer, but it is my vocation. Is that not a form of love? Or that love for performing? It's not merely the 'high' from being on stage, it's something greater than that.

I haven't even got to my love for London, for Ireland, deep as Lake Corrib and higher than the great Dome of St Paul's. Nor to the love that Che Guevara spoke of: 'The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.'

I do love all the people, in their beautiful variety. That love manifests as recognising the value of each individual's humanity. Does it mean I love all people all the time uncritically? Certainly not.  Does it mean both seeing and valuing other folks' lived experiences? It means doing my best.

To 180 back to something less dense: what about the wave of warm affectionate safe harbour I find in episodes of Porridge and The Morecambe & Wise Show... is that not love, also?

Everything I've described so far is love without romance or sex, but is it not wonderful and marvellous in its own right? 

The romantic thing is grand, I am sure. I do not seek to devalue or deride it for a second. Yet, even romantic love isn't like Working Title tell us - at least not always.

What about the difference between giving love and being loved? The love that is returned and the love that is not? The love that burned hot once and died away, leaving something behind that is not indifference? The love that broke and mended into something else? The love that never found its right time?

The love of parents to children. The love that exists between parents because of children, without being quite of the love that lived there before. 

Unconditional but not unquestioning love, whatever its origins. Love that exists within a group of friends that is more than the sum of its parts? Love that cares for more than one's own self...

I've mostly spoken only about my own experience, and I could go on, but this is the internet and nobody has the patience.

There's so much to, for and about love. The word is completely and entirely insufficient, but perhaps in its smallness, in its breadth and scope... it is just exactly what we need.

The problem comes, I suppose, when someone else tries to tell us what love is not, and what love should be, but that's another story for another time.