In the cause of love, we do many foolish things. We go out on limbs not built for climbing in order to be gallant and free. We rise up to challenges and escape seemingly hum drum lives casting our hearts into the unknown. We start wars. We end wars.
This is love, we say, never knowing where we will be struck next. And some are touched for entire lifetimes. And some are struck repeatedly in an agony of relationships that start well and end, just as well. We fall in love all too readily.
We know all the clichés of soul mates, life mates, true love, perfect love, etc. etc. We find them heartwarming and grand, romantic even. But when we fall out of love, we fall hard for it is much more difficult to fall out of love than into it. There is nothing very romantic about a broken heart. We cavalierly declare that it obviously must not have been true love; otherwise, we would still be together. And we peer around corners hoping beyond hope that he or she awaits us.
And some love with their bodies and some with their minds and some find even deeper solace loving to the depths of their souls.
For some love like life is a journey. My parents have been married 58 years their offspring divorced at least once. Love is a certainty for my folks. They cannot and will not imagine one without the other. I have never thought that this was the love affair of the ages or one filled with passion and romance. There is a symbiosis between them, an odd dance non-stop for almost 6 decades. I wonder what keeps them going, that secret formula that keeps them together year after year.
I admire them and often stand in awe. I often have enough trouble living with myself let alone another lately. But their marriage is not all hugs and kisses, lovey dovey type thing. In fact, I barely remember the last time I saw them in love’s clench. Actually, I remember quite well as it was their 50th Anniversary. My family is not the huggy type. However, it has improved with living. There is a magic something that links them together from morning to night. The romance is hidden but secreted in their hearts and undying vows.
My romanticism leaps from speeding trains, screams from rooftops and dares to be overcome. I love being in love. Nevertheless, these extreme bursts of romantic fervor last years and not a lifetime as my folks have accomplished. It makes one wonder because it cuts to the core of a lifetime of passion. My parents are a miracle I think to myself. I admire their perseverance and patience.
We speak the words of love. But do we understand the intricacies of what makes love work? Do we know how to love another being let alone ourselves? And which comes first loving ourselves (that whole me thing) or loving someone else? And can you truly love another if you are rather misanthropic about yourself?
How much do you need to know about the soon to be significant other in order to fall in love? Jeez, I know many questions. Well you see I am taking this thing called love apart into all its facets so questions have to come up in order for the answers to be arrived at. I am using my parents as a model because they are still doing it after all these years and what makes them persist as they do?
Love is a Kevlar vest for my heart
I know about my loves and lacks thereof. I tend to dive right in without looking to see if there is water in the pool, without thought, fear or concern. Once in love I feel invulnerable like love is this Kevlar vest over my heart. With hindsight, I can see this is a rather one-sided view of things. A kind of ego ridden love that is so overwhelming that I would need a SuperMate not a SoulMate. Nevertheless, I love the sudden explosiveness in my universe that love brings, that impact of emotion and energy. I live for that passion. I would not wish to go through life without it! However, maybe this explosive passion flares so brightly and then seemingly burns itself out.
Then again, perhaps not, mayhap that flame would be eternal. I have learned much from each of my loves. I have learned that boredom is the fiercest of diseases and punishments.
Redefining love
And I have learned that love must be redefined to be successful. Old school concepts of one heart, one soul, and one love are out the door. The most important lesson being that true love is more the separateness of things than it is the mushing of things together (note: that is a technical definition).
Love is the willingness and the desire for each to be whole, undivided and unique. Co-creation means one creates a team of love (as corny as that sounds). It is the granting of beingness of another and not the desire to be “one” is the complete acknowledgement of your love.
Romantics will of course decry this and what I am about to say. They will feign broken heart malaise and woe is me and other assorted inanities. They will beat themselves with bungee cords or some such. But the fact is when you take into consideration the state of current romantics and climbing divorce rates, what the heck do they really know anyway?
Again, I state most emphatically, it is not the togetherness of things, of two lovers glommed together with Madison Avenue wallpaper and notions of what love should be. No, it is not the togetherness but the unique separateness that counts and if that uniqueness is admired and given life, love blossoms forth.
All too often, we hum these clichés until we run out of tune. Your LifeMate, your SoulMate, etc. is not half of you, they are entities unto themselves. We in a relationship are not halves of anything; we are whole entirely and uniquely whole.
Team Love
The ridiculousness of this popularized notion of this one beating heart concept is best illustrated when observing the rest of life; like say sports (am a guy ain’t I). Nowhere in the annals of sport does anyone say one player. Players with individual capabilities, characteristics, skills, etc all go into making a great team. The individual is not suppressed by his or her teammates; to the contrary, skills and abilities are enhanced. Some teams even take their comradery off the field and hang out together. Why should love sanely and logically be any different? How did we get the quaint notion that somehow we must divide ourselves down the middle and join the other person to make one whole person? When did we decide to be our soulmate instead of ourselves?
Strength is determined and created by two beings creating together, not whittling down to one or even two with broken hearts. It is the uniqueness of the players that make a great team, not the identicalness of them. This is after all the game of love.
There are those that may now shout that I am removing the romance from love with such analytical statements. And draining the tragedy from broken hearts is blasphemy and sacrilege. I gotta tell you, there is nothing at all romantic about abuse and divorce.
Is it not time to put love on a new level with new ways to measure its impact and affection? We live in the 21st Century now and communication capabilities have truly sped up our lives that are just full of yesterdays and some tomorrows. We live with hindsight have little foresight and I would recommend midsight, i.e. looking at now and seeing what is without hindrance of past or future.
Let us put love back on the pedestal where it belongs, something exalted and striven for not to be tossed into like a tsunami of emotion. Let us redefine love based on communication and understanding and not a dartboard.
Admiration coupled with desire and passion would indeed mean true love for it could not be anything else. And you know he or she may just be around the corner.
Larry Jaffe Bio
Jaffe is the Co-founder and International Readings Coordinator for the United Nations Dialogue among Civilizations through Poetry program and Co-Founder of Poets for Peace. Jaffe is the Editor of Poetix the poetry magazine for southern California. He has been the resident Poet/Host at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage and produced a number of successful reading series in the Los Angeles area including the popular Buddha Jam Poetry Series at the Elixir Café and Poetic License at the Moondog Café.
He has featured at numerous readings and poetry festivals throughout the United States and abroad including the Hammer Museum, Japanese American National Museum, Dylan Thomas Centre, Comedy Store, University of Texas, UCLA, UC Northridge, Los Angeles, Austin International, San Luis Obispo, London and Bristol Poetry Festivals.
Jaffe’s work can be found in numerous publications and anthologies like Short Fuse, Off the Cuff, 100 Poets Against the War, Urban Spaghetti, Saturday Afternoon Journal, Web Del Sol, PoetryMagazine.com, Will Work for Peace, The World Healing Book, The Book of Hope, etc. Jaffe’s books include Jewish Soulfood, Unprotected Poetry CD and the recently released The Anguish of the Blacksmith’s Forge. His book of poetic noir L. A. Rhapsody is getting ready for publication and Salmon Publishing in Ireland will soon be publishing his Lying Half-Naked in the Doorway.
Putting Romance Back Into
Your Marriage
by: Mark McAuley
Let me start by saying I am not a psycholigist or therapist, I am just
a guy, who was married for 16 years, until that ended about a year and a
half ago. I am now in a new and exciting relationship, which I believe
will work out great. I am forty years old and just speaking from
experience. Hopefully these tips I give you will spice up your love life
again.
Often times in a marriage or long-term relationship, couples tend to
fall into a routine. What maybe started out as a very romantic
relationship, begins to slow down as bills, children, work and all the
pressures of life conspire to give us stress and lead us away from what is
really important.
I would venture to guess that most divorces stem from this problem. You
see each other As a business partner, parenting partner, chore partner.
But not so much as a lover. You have to drive the kids here and there,
while your partner is getting the groceries. There is always something to
do,and it usually does not include being alone with your partner.
Every once in a while you remember what it was like in the beginning,
and think why can’t it be like that again. By the way, both sexes think
this, the problem is they only think it, and usually don’t talk about it.
When the kids are small, I know it isn’t as easy to make time for each
other, but the most important thing you can do for your marriage is to
MAKE time. If that means getting grandma and grandpa to watch the kids
overnight, or splurging on a babysitter once a week, it would be the best
investment you could make in your marriage.
If you could get away with your partner for a date night once a week,
you won’t regret it. Whether going out for dinner, or a movie, or a long
walk together, it will bring the two of you closer together. Plus, getting
away from the kids is a great stress reliever.
Then when you get back home, still with no kids around, a great way to
spice things up in the bedroom, is with lingerie. It may sound cliché, but
it really works. Think about it ladies, your partner sees you all week as
a mom, housekeeper, breadwinner. The last thing he is thinking of you as,
is a bedroom goddess. Believe me, if you come home after a nice night out,
and you go upstairs and put on a beautiful piece of lingerie, a nice
teddy, or corset, body stocking, or bustier, you’re partner will
definitely be put into the mood.
It will make him see you as he used to see you. More than a mom, etc.
After all, isn’t that what you want?
But, don’t stop there. A great way to spice things up is to try things
you never tried before. That could be something as simple as bringing some
food into the mix, you know strawberries, whip cream, things like that.
Then, there is always the massage, everybody loves a massage with warm
oil. Just the fact you are doing things differently will really help spice
things up. We all know that we fall into a routine in the bedroom after a
while. The only cure for that is to change things around.
Afrikaans 
Albanian 
Amharic 
Arabic 
Armenian 
Azerbaijani 
Basque 
Belarusian 
Bengali 
Bosnian 
Bulgarian 
Catalan 
Cebuano 
Chichewa 
Chinese (Simplified) 
Chinese (Traditional) 
Corsican 
Croatian 
Czech 
Danish 
Dutch 
English 
Esperanto 
Estonian 
Filipino 
Finnish 
French 
Frisian 
Galician 
Georgian 
German 
Greek 
Gujarati 
Haitian Creole 
Hausa 
Hawaiian 
Hebrew 
Hindi 
Hmong 
Hungarian 
Icelandic 
Igbo 
Indonesian 
Irish 
Italian 
Japanese 
Javanese 
Kannada 
Kazakh 
Khmer 
Korean 
Kurdish (Kurmanji) 
Kyrgyz 
Lao 
Latin 
Latvian 
Lithuanian 
Luxembourgish 
Macedonian 
Malagasy 
Malay 
Malayalam 
Maltese 
Maori 
Marathi 
Mongolian 
Myanmar (Burmese) 
Nepali 
Norwegian 
Pashto 
Persian 
Polish 
Portuguese 
Punjabi 
Romanian 
Russian 
Samoan 
Scottish Gaelic 
Serbian 
Sesotho 
Shona 
Sindhi 
Sinhala 
Slovak 
Slovenian 
Somali 
Spanish 
Sundanese 
Swahili 
Swedish 
Tajik 
Tamil 
Telugu 
Thai 
Turkish 
Ukrainian 
Urdu 
Uzbek 
Vietnamese 
Welsh 
Xhosa 
Yiddish 
Yoruba 
Zulu
