We like to talk about true love, how wonderful, how precious, how longed for it is, but true love can be like a vapor, something imagined or dreamed about. Talk to me about real love, which puts footprints on the ground, real love which is centered in the act of loving. Sometimes it isn’t pretty because it can be found in the trenches of life. When I think of real love, the old platitude, “blood, sweat and tears,” comes out of mental rubric and becomes alive in the world, for real love lives in the heart that sings and also bleeds.
Real love wakes me up...
The thought of true love makes me want to listen to the love song from the movie, Titanic, when I can get all misty eyed gazing into the horizon. Real love wakes me up to the sometimes gritty demands of the day when it may need to hit the ground running. There is nothing more real about love than when you are sitting by the bedside of a loved one, quietly holding hands, keeping watch through the hours that grind along in tantalizing slowness. Sometimes the battle for health and vigor is won, sometimes not, but the act of loving is not diminished either way.
Real love holds compassion...
There is no loss when really loving, for the exercise of it cannot fail to strengthen, whatever outcomes may come to pass. Real love may hold romance and sexuality, and it may be simply the extension of one heart’s silent messages to another. Real love holds compassion in its wings. Has not the Dalai Lama said that they must occur together? Both are necessary, I think, for elevated, human living.
Real love grows dearer...
I recall old marriage vows that once spoke of embracing both sickness and health, and we will have both, but real love grows dearer when engaging in either. Real love, shared between couples, lovers, family, friends or animals makes it possible to thrive and to endure, to stretch to the heights and to crawl up from the depths.
Whether we earn multiple degrees or strive for none, real love is, I think, the greatest teacher of all.
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