Yearning.....

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh...

            — Edna St. Vincent Millay

Writing quote by Sylvia Plath

 "Write to create a mood, an incident. If this is done with color  and and feeling, it becomes a story."

              — Sylvia Path, journal 1959

Quotes

“She tastes like nectar and salt. Nectar and salt and apples. Pollen and stars and hinges. She tastes like fairy tales. Swan maiden at midnight. Cream on the tip of a fox's tongue. She tastes like hope.”

                              — Laini Taylor

The Embrace by Wilhelm List

The Embrace by Wilhelm List

But what about The Fly?

There is a flower that Bees prefer—

And Butterflies—desire—

Emily Dickinson.

Illustration for The Conference of Birds by Attar of Nishapur

 

Habiballah of Sava for The Conference of Birds 

by Attar of Nishapur aka Farid ad-Din Attar.

Desire

“Sex is our deepest form of consciousness. It is utterly non-ideal, non-mental. It is pure blood-consciousness.... It is the consciousness of the night, when the soul is almost asleep.” — D. H Lawrence

Barber's Adagio: Students and supporters play to protest closure of musi...

Romantic Love

 

🎨 Richard Borrmeister

If there is one thing I have learned in life, is that love is grand. Desire. Love is pretty much everything. All kinds of love. Romantic love is beautiful, even if it doesn't last. Remember, nothing last. All things end. I often live on the memories of the romantic loves that I have experienced, all of them, but mostly my marriage. I want to say that 'we fall in love many times in our lives if we are lucky.'

Love is a bit of a mystery to many people, but it possesses certain ingredients. 

It takes meeting someone, noticing them, feeling an interest, and then it takes two, both people expressing that same interest and attraction. Desire again. Sometimes curiosity helps. Love does not thrive properly if proximity does not feed it, and for that matter, some good experiences too. Desire leads to touching. Intimacy is critical.

Somewhere along the way, if love is thriving right and if attraction wins over ego, a firm commitment happens. Each person wants the other person's happiness. Desire grows. Love manifest itself in a visible form. This is best if the two people are independent and emotionally mature. 

But what makes Love and Passion last? Years and years and years of desire. That's compatibility. If two people are not compatible in most issues, love can die. This is why I tell people, if you value a good conversation with your lover, that's a big plus for the relationship. Good communication feeds love, because life is not just about falling in love. There is a reality of pain and stress and suffering outside the realm of love and desire. Also, people change over time. They may discover new loves and desires which alter a relationship. Some relationships survive. Some do not. But nothing negates what people once felt for one another when they first fell in love. While love fades with disappointments and absence, love is really stronger than one can understand.

I'll end this little post on love by adding that one of the gifts that modern people possess is the ability to experience what we now call Romantic Love. It was not always so. As cultures have evolved over time, fairness and love and passions have developed into an ideal Romantic Love, even for many very ordinary couples. But it not so for all people in this world. Some cultures have not evolved enough. For some of these people, love and desire leads to unhappiness and even tragedy.

If you can love, do so. Be happy in the doing of it. 

What I am Reading Next

 Reading this for the pleasure of language and a wildly new take on a situation. Longlisted for the Booker.

3.6 rating leaning up as it was sad, and not as good as Maugham. Smiling. Beautiful language. It did not move me emotionally though. Reading books is so subjective and even shadowed by moods. I could pick this book up and reread it next year and feel completely different. That's why books are forever. That every read is a new experience.