What is love? Any of you now singing the lyrics to the song by Haddaway are showing your age! Love is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It can all depend on where you are in your life.
I personally believe that love is two separate entities: the magical and the physical. Magical love is that phase we all go through at the start of any relationship. The romance, tenderness, obsessive yearning, vibrancy and passion that comes with every fresh discovery on your joint journey. It's a thing so precious and fragile that it's easy to watch it vanish as reality and routine kicks in.
Fast forward a few years and that magical love you have for your partner transforms into something much more tangible. So gritty in fact that you sometimes wonder if it's even there at all. It's there though, look closely, dig deep and you will find it.
It's in that tired smile he gives when he offers to put the kids to bed after a ten hour shift because he can see she's been with them all day. It's in the way she gets excited when he takes her to a concert in spite of the fact that she can't stand his taste in music, which they're about to go and hear. In the smile and the cuddle he gives her while she cries her eyes out and leaks snot all over his shoulder. Or in the way she tries to hold back a moan because he's going on about football and she knows it makes him happy.
Or maybe it's in the book that he goes out of his way to pick for her for Christmas. The one that he's specifically picked because her obsession with her career forced him to up his game and buy her the perfect text. The book that, sadly whilst hankering after this magical, mystical love she's been missing she's ignored for ten whole months.
Now allow me to digress in order to express a very strong personal opinion. Love Can be either magical or physical, but it is ALWAYS a two way street. You may feel love for someone who doesn't love you back (and my heart goes out to you if you do). You may feel like it's the most intense emotion you've ever had in your life. But it's fantasy, it's visions and expectations that you've built up that will come crashing down around you once you realise they simply can't be met.
Don't blame the person who doesn't love you either, it's not thier fault. Just allow yourself to let them go with love while you pick yourself up and move on.
Proper love takes work on both sides, it's not effortless. And when you feel like your love is being taken for granted, all you can do is speak your heart and remind yourself that they work hard for you cos they think you're worth an effort. It might not all be sunshine and rainbows but you keep working for them, they keep working for you and somehow you both get through.
Any relationship, friendship, partnership, involves both parties doing their best for each other. The moment one or the other stops the love dies and it can be really difficult to resurrect.
Like the words at the heart of this book 'The Lost Words'. A poetry book aimed at reintroducing lost words into the public consciousness.
It features a series of acrostic poems that revolve around the natural world. It's entire purpose is to create awareness and encourage people to learn more about the nature around them.Set out as spells it tries to turn the real into magical, invoking imagery of a lost, mystical world of wonder.
The poems are interspersed with gorgeous pages of illustrations which add to the book's magic. The language is rich and diverse, the illustrations, detailed and dynamic. It is a beautiful combination of text and colour that the reader can wallow in for hours.
Since poetry is not my strong suit I won't pretend I can fully analyse it. But I do know that the poem about conkers struck a real chord with me, instantly transporting me back to warm autumn nights in my childhood, conker picking with my siblings and friends.
The subject content is suitable for everyone but I wouldn't use it with children any younger than 8 because of the vocabulary.
The illustrations should be shown off to any children though. They are simply wonderful, warm with rich golden colours.
This is book 39 of my 52 book list and my chosen poetry book. And if one day I do run out of love because things stop working, I can look at this and say that there was once love there. And that I tried, just like the people behind this book have.
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