Tuesday, March 12, 2013

All in Love is Fair

As salaam alaikum,

It's but the grace of God that I'm able to stand strong today was able to yesterday and iA will tomorrow.

I'm just so happy in life and in love right now, I just had to document it. I'm tired and if I want at least seven hours of sleep, I should go to bed now, but I just wanted to say that I've never been happier in space and time as an adult than I am right now.

Part of this epiphany is realizing that I appreciate love for its own sake. I love love for love's sake. For the first time, nothing has to happen to it. It doesn't have to be destiny, transcendental, anything like that. My capacity to love and the way I love is enough. It's a journey, not a destination, and I love to live in it, bask in it.

It's like my story, "Caso com Luiza" (which I have decided to call it...either that, or "Caso com Você, Luiza). Their love best existed in that moment when they were young and innocent, and in that memory, and was not to go on.

And so have various loves for me.

I like to go back and revisit them sometimes. If I close my eyes, the feeling is fresh and new, like the spring breeze out of my open window for the first time in the season. Like "Pense em Mim" by Tim Maia always feels like spring, especially when I remember the first few times I heard the song.

It's the prototypical heartbreak that I feel when I think of the first line of the last poem I wrote, "I wish I would not melt into you, my oblivious haunter," and the beauty of every other heartbreak, summarized by Djavan's "depois que eu descobri que há você, nunca mais existi."

It's that electric shock I felt the first time I gazed into his green eyes. That realization that it only feels like destiny because the attraction is so strong. It's loving him when there's no sunlight to make those eyes sparkle green and everything is status quo.

It's the moment his neutral face becomes endearing. When him cleaning your nose in the same breath he kisses you goodbye is the turning point, where all the other loves don't matter because he is here now.

(Each of these are different instances and different people.)

Love is so many things. It's remembering my grandmother when she could walk and before she started her path through dementia and how I know that woman exists through it all and hopefully is not suffering too much with her own cognitive decline. It's pain, it's sadness, it's joy and celebration of a wonderful woman with a replete life of more complex love than I can imagine.

Love is the feeling I get when I think of the lyrics that remind my mother the most of my brother when he was diagnosed with autism: "You make my soul a burning fire. You're getting to be my one desire. You're getting to be all that matters to me." And understanding what it means for a mother to only think about one of her children for years and years.

And finally, this is what I want my love to be: My Love.

2 comments:

  1. Salaam sister. your post made me cry....you are a very beautiful and expressive writer, mashallah. I have an Autistic son too and you have captured it for me. I'm just crying and crying. Thank you for "getting it" and for being such a good sister to your brother. (I know its not for me to thank you--but as I'm sure you know, it feels like every autistic child/adult IS instantly beloved to people like us who have been blessed to know their incredible souls(including your brother!) When you see him, tell him a family far away send him love (and that goes to your mom too).Do you have any advice as a sister, yourself, that I can give to my daughter? She is three years younger than her now teenage brother and I know she suffers but we don't talk about it. God bless you.

    I pray your peace in love remains with you. did I mention how much I love your writing? :)

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    1. Thanks, sis!

      I hope it made you cry in a good way. :) I will certainly let my brother know. Alhamdulillah he gets love from a lot of places.

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