Concerning Love. A Generational Wealth.
Concerning Love. A Generational Wealth.
I believe we concern ourselves with that which we most have, or that which we don’t have enough of. We concern ourselves with what we deeply yearn for and for many of us, our inner lives, and most meaningful work begins to revolve around around bringing ourselves closer to what we desire most.
I’ve always been deeply concerned with love, and when I start writing more about it I felt for some time that, in the way of subject matters, it was a frivolous pursuit. I understand now that this feeling was more of a reflection of the way in which the paradigms of love, in western culture, are narrow and finite. In reality, the multifaceted nature, and necessary role that love actually plays on both an individual and communal level is immense.
We cannot do without love. Full stop.
We can get by on a lacking of love, or limited capacity of love, but the lack and limitation overtime greatly impacts who and how we are, our connection to others, and our connection to ourselves. And love, as a word, is one dimension of a deep and multidimensional way of being. A way of being that is essential to our wholeness, and togetherness.
Besides bell hooks’ literary classic ‘all about love’, there have been a number of other texts and writers who have helped me broaden my own understanding of what love is and how it serves, nurtures and amplifies other aspects of our lives and alive-ness.
Recently while re-visiting ‘Toni Morrison: A Writer’s Work’, a 1990 interview done with broadcast journalist Bill Moyers, I was struck by these words [time mark 5:40]:
“You know people say, ‘I didn’t ask to be born’. I think we did, and that’s why we’re here. We are here, and we have to do something nurturing that we respect before we go. We must. It is more interesting, more complicated, more intellectually demanding, and more morally demanding to love somebody, to take care of somebody, to make one other person feel good.” — Toni Morrison
Morrison goes on to discuss “thick” love, love that might be considered excessive and too much. Bill Moyers asks, “How do we know when love is too thick?”. Morrison says,
“We don’t know [when love is too thick], we really don’t. That’s a big problem. We don’t know when to stop […] When is it too much, and when is it not enough. That is the problem of the human mind, and the soul. But we have to try that, we have to do that, and not doing it is so poor for the self. So poor for the mind. It’s so uninteresting to live without that. It has no risk, there’s no risk involved, and that just seems to make life not just livable but a gallant, gallant, event.”
I have considered myself an over-lover. A result of loving too many, both friends and significant others, who were not able, free, or willing, to receive, or reciprocate, my love. After much consideration, I have decided that I am not an over-lover. My love is, as Toni Morrison has written, a thick love. And thick love, regardless of those that are incapable of receiving or returning it, is and will forever be deeply necessary.
My Mother says that my sister and I are her gifts from the universe. She thanks us, often, for choosing her, for teaching her. She also says that we first learn our worth in the world through our families. They are our first reflections, and definitions of love. I am incredibly grateful and infinitely lucky to have the foundation of love that I do. Love is in fact a, “type of generational wealth we don’t talk nearly enough about". {*source} It is also one we consistently devalue, and misuse because we collectively fail to recognize not only it’s value but its essentialness.
Love is an eternal binding that, despite all that has been done in effort to sever its weaving, has been unbreakable. Love is the thread that binds us together, with and in ourselves and to one another. Love sets us free, keeps us safe, calls and brings us home. Love challenges us, lifts us, fights for us, guides, nurtures and keeps us. Love anoints and heals. Love knows. Love is both the armor that protects and the arms that hold, and we do need holding.
I wish, and I hope, and I endeavor to remind us always that Love, and this kind of intimate and thick ability to protect and care, is one of our most valuable and priceless gifts and contributions, to ourselves, our communities and to the world.
— ẹniafẹ isis
*Sources:
‘Toni Morrison: A Writer’s Work’ interview with Bill Moyers
Tweet: “Love is a type of generational wealth we don’t talk nearly enough about". — K. Miles
