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174 – Love v2

Click the video above for 2 minutes of background waves while reading.


I like to walk on the beach. It is good for the mind, body, and soul – and refreshing on my feet.

I’ve already written one essay about love, so I made sure this one is different. I also know that love is a big topic. Besides, as I write this, I know Valentine’s Day is soon, so these thoughts are good timing.

Love is a word that we use in different ways. In all cases, love is a positive expression, but stronger than like. Maybe I should say I love walking on the beach.

Love may be a special feeling for another person – but love is also a great interest: a pleasure in something.

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

We express love for many things – for music, food, sights, sounds, passions, places, and things – for the stars lighting the night, for the moon’s reflection twinkling across the water, for beautiful flowers, or just a single rose – a friend, pet, parent, or spouse. Yes, love fits all these.

Love is a basic human need. Most people want love in their life – to love and to be loved. People want a partner to love and share aspects of life. Having a trusted best friend for sharing goals, thoughts, and concerns is a blessing. I think about the difference between loving and being loved – but I wonder, which is easier? I don’t know.

I think about other words we associate with love: adoration, attachment, desire, devotion, endearment, fondness, idolization, tenderness, warmth, worship, and yearning. Romantic love also involves intimacy and passion.

Love involves desire, the heart, infatuation, lust, romance, a union, and intense deep affection. Any list must also include compassion, concern, friendship, goodwill, kindness, respect, sympathy, and unselfishness – but there are more.

Love is an appreciative, committed, respectful, and romantic attachment – yet love at the strong friendship level is without romance.

Photo by Jasmine Carter on Pexels.com

Love is a strong state of emotions ranging from the sublime to the divine; from the friendly to the romantic; from the compassionate to the consummate; from the platonic to the passionate, and more. Love can also be a wild ride of the hills and turns of a roller coaster.

Love is a glue that binds, anchors, motivates, and guides while also being a test of courage, patience, respect, and trust.

I think about love starting as a warm flame – then the next match ignites another level that may lead to an out-of-control fire. In the end, love has a way of wrapping two together into one because people feel stronger as a unit of one.

Love affects our entire body – the beating heart, the blood moving throughout the body, the look in the eyes, light and warm touch of fingers on the skin and through the hair.

Love is more than liking, appreciating, or enthusiasm, Love is more than a taste of fresh honey dripping from a honeycomb. Love is relishing, savoring, cherishing, and treasuring – but more than liking or friendship. – more than a sexual attraction or being a lover.

I think about the commonality between love and the waves. Both can be gentle and rough, good and terrible, and endless continuous ebb and flow. While both can crash over us and drown us, waves and love also have a way of shaping what they touch.

Love is like the wind because we know it is there. We feel its presence, but we can’t touch it. Yet, both are unstoppable and range from gentle to torrent.

Photo by Trung Nguyen on Pexels.com

I expand my thoughts to other aspects of the beach. Love is like the sun because both are constant, comfortable, warm, healing, reliable, and true. Love is like sand because it needs to be held, but not squeezed too hard because it will slip away.

I enjoy adding whimsical sentences to these essays with idioms and song titles. I had some for this walk, but then I got an idea. Can I write an entire essay with love idioms and song titles? Maybe I could have that ready for Valentine’s Day 2024.

As my walk ends, I can say that love is also the wind, sand, sun, waves, and tides of this place. It’s also the squawking seagulls, the soaring pelicans, the frantic sanderlings, and the stoic herons. It’s good to love, be loved, and be at the beach as a snowbird thinking about love. After all, I love to walk on the beach. It is good for the mind, body, and soul – and refreshing on my feet.

See what other bloggers have posted about Love

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103 thoughts on “174 – Love v2”

  3. Love in its true sense is the feeling of complete connectedness in the moment, and it can be ‘fleeting’ and ‘eternal’ at the same time, Frank.
    (I was going to say the same as Jo about that paragraph)
    Here’s to more of that connectedness! 🙂

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  5. Love is such a special connection……with a person or a thing or an idea or just about ANYTHING. I have been fortunate to have had that connection as a large part of my life for so many years. When I’ve LOST it – which I have several times – I move on with hope in my heart to find it again. Love is a topic that has no end……but many beginnings.

    Pam

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    1. Pam,
      Love is an important part of life – maybe in more ways than we realize. I like your description – “with a person or a thing or an idea or just about anything.” It’s so true. Moving on to hope after losing it is profound, but I imagine it’s something that everyone can’t do. Then again, maybe they didn’t know how to use hope. Thanks for sharing!

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  10. Great post, Frank. Love is…complicated to say the least. These days with my finger firmly hovering over the cynicism button, it seems even more so. Overly-used and definitely over abused, a simple emotion can be incomprehensible at times. But when it’s working, it’s the most amazing feeling. Here’s to a ‘love-ly’ weekend.

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  11. I think love is one of those overused and thus watered-down words. “Awesome” is another. Love is a large emotion, one difficult or impossible to top but if we “love” everything, what’s left for the really big emotions? Enjoyed your thoughts, though. 🙂

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  12. That Jason Mraz song just filled my heart with oodles of love.
    I also loved your analogy of love being like sand. You hold it too tight it becomes hard, you hold it to lightly, it slips away…
    Happy Saturday, Frank. I am out to play in the snow – the sun is shining, the snow is sparkling, it’s a
    perfect -4℃ (25℉).

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  14. HI Frank, this is a lovely post. I always think that love for a child is the most pure sort of love. When babies are small, they are helpless and dependent. We tend to their needs out of love and it is selfless and unreciprocated in the beginning. Love for a partner is different. A lot of young people think passion and lust is love, of course, it is only one part of love. Love is commitment, loyalty and dependability. Love requires work.

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    1. Robbie,
      I appreciate your words because love is complicated and applicable in so many ways. Comparing your love for a child to love for a spouse is spot on … and both of them are different from your love for writing. But in all cases, love requires work and commitment. Thanks for walking along and sharing.

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  16. LOVE ….. “Love is a glue that binds, anchors, motivates, and guides while also being a test of courage, patience, respect, and trust.”

    YES! Your expansive definition of love I agree agree agree. I see LOVE as everything in existence … every atom, every cell, every surface, every dimension, every element ….. and then how LOVE shows itself and where. Do we recognize love when it does show or do we have to adjust the lens of our eye? Beautiful thought provoking post …. Thank you, Frank. xo

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    1. Jo,
      You’ve said a lot in so few words, so thank you! I’m with you about the world having more love than hate. That supports my mantra of the majority of the world is good. I also appreciate you identifying some of your favorite thoughts of mine. Thanks for walking along.

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    1. Kerfe,
      I can see how love would be a difficult topic to write well. Love is complex, complicated, exhausting, and much more. Then again, much will depend on the interpretation of the reader. Oh my … I would think songs with Love in the title is a long list! Thanks for walking along.

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  22. Well Frank, your timing is indeed perfect, especially if you dare to execute your plan for Valentine’s Day. It is always difficult to use words to describe strong emotions but you’ve done a marvelous job this week. There is much to love about your post 😊. I find myself wondering about other languages and cultures. Does everyone use one word to describe Love or are there dozens of words for it in other languages that differentiate the actual type of love. For example should we use the same word to describe the love of a pet vs a spouse vs a friend vs a hot fudge sundae? Just sayin!!!

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    1. Tina,
      Thank you for the kind words and wonderful thoughts. I’m right with you about the using different words for love depending on the situation. Your three examples are perfect – yet others may say that “love for a hot fudge sundae” abuses the word. Meanwhile, I admit that this post has been in th queue a long time because I was saving it for this day. Regarding my idioms challenge, that will be for next year. 🙂

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  23. Love? Actually!

    From Kevin to tennis scores to that moon that hits your eye like a big old pizza pie, you have it going on here Cincy. And my condolences to that long lost love of baseball, which hasn’t been treating the local fans so great these days.

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    1. Marc,
      I will admit that I initially scratched my head with your Kevin reference … but then I smiled .. .and your Dean Martin reference is wonderful! Regarding the Reds, I remember running into my second grade teacher after she retired. I remembered my love for baseball and the Reds, so that’s how far back I go. no longer want to be duped. Thanks for the kind words for this essay.

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      1. I happen to believe the Reds will be back There’s too damn much great history in that ballclub, as great as any club that ever lived. And I just can’t believe it ends like this. Just have to ditch the owner first and bring in someone who gets it.

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  26. Some relationships are platonic and some plutonic – I feel that the platonic ones are just as loving as the passion-filled. But the plutonic describe a more rocky relationship where love maybe a thin veneer to disguise the hard truth of control and narcissism…

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  27. Oh yes, love is still the answer! I enjoyed the Jason Mraz video very much, thank you for sharing it, Frank. What you said is so true, we can feel love’s presence, like the wind, but we can’t touch it. But we can see and feel its effects.

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  28. Love that video! This was an excellent post. I love the way you likened it to the sun and the wind and the sand. Definitely, love is the answer but it is also the question and the reason. I like that.

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  29. Pingback: Seventeen – K.

  34. I liked the statement “Love is the glue that binds,” as I think that’s so true. When I think of love my first sense is to think of my husband and then the wider circle of my family. But then, as you describe, there are so many different ways that I can identify love in my life. Beautiful post, Frank.

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    1. Debra,
      Thanks for letting me a statement that struck you. I like your idea that I will call circles of love. I’m picturing concentric rings with the center containing/receiving the most love. That idea also fits different levels and applications for love. Thanks for walking along and I hope all is well with you. Happy Valentine’s Day.

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  37. It started with the early Romantic philosophers like Schlegel and Schelling that love as a feeling of oneness with a non-I (how Fichte expressed it) became taken seriously in philosophy. It was a reaction to the thinking of Enlightenment.
    We avoid using the word ‘love’ as it is so much used and with so many different meanings that it says nothing anymore.
    Thanks for sharing your little text
    The Fab Four of Cley
    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Klaus,
      Thanks for adding a bit about the early Romantic philosophers – especially because philosophers have so much to add. As a term, love can be overused, but it also has many meanings. At least some languages address that issue with different words associated with love. Thanks for walking along and sharing.

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  38. Hi Frank
    Love is such a rich topic I can see why you have covered it twice … and in this post, which was so lovely (ha). My top takeaway is this quote:

    “Love is like the wind because we know it is there. We feel its presence, but we can’t touch it. Yet, both are unstoppable and range from gentle to torrent.”

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    1. Yvette,
      Love is unquestionably a rich topic. Not only is this the second edition, I have a third in early draft form based on reader comments from the first two. Plus I have an idea for a fourth. But time will tell on both of them. Thank you for sharing the part that touched you because I enjoying knowing that! Thanks for walking along.

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      1. well the town he is from is where my boys played sports for a few years and also did Scouts.
        They take a lot of pride in their town and town name – so much so that when I taught art there at a private Christian School (2008 to 2010) one of my students, Jonathan Bottoms, took first place at The Mariner’s Museum art show.
        Well! he got a congrats letter from a senator that was from “Mechanicsville” because it is such a small town – and it made it into the local little newspaper they have.
        and so sometimes people criticize Mraz for not syaing Mechanicsville Virginia in interviews – he usually says “Richmond” because most people know that city – but he is from Hanover county – which is north of Richmond
        anyhow, a few years ago he had a concert in richmond near christmas and I thought “it must be fun to have a concert in your hometown area and then spend christmas there”

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        1. Should be a good day. I hope to take a short walk on the beach this morning to watch the sunrise. It’s something I like to do on my birthday. Actually, I took the backdrop image here a few years ago on this day.But, there is a line of rain approaching, so I don’t know if the walk will happen. We’ll some snowbird friends this afternoon to celebrate – then I may catch some music this evening. So the day is shaping up to be a good one. Still in outside of Paris?

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              1. There’s a never ending dispute with Marseille as to which is France’s second biggest city. Regardless, compared to Paris, it is cheaper, a tad warmer and the Mediterranean Sea is just a couple of hours away.

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