182. Count the Ways – Carmen Radley
How do I love? I will count the ways.
I once heard someone say that nature is a substance called love, and it seemed right to think of love as pulsing creation—as the animating, driving force that propels the universe. Later I began to grow suspect: I wondered if it was so broad that it rendered the word meaningless.
Another impulse is to narrow love, to break it into types, to create a taxonomy and in doing so to tame it. The ancient Greeks came up with such categories, many of which we still recognize today: philia for platonic affection, eros for romantic love, agape for the selfless, unconditional compassion one extends to strangers, nature, or God. (Suddenly a mighty, swirling river is split into smaller, gently flowing streams.)
When thinking about love, especially the romantic kind, I feel myself shift between polarities. It’s fleeting yet it endures, effortless and the hardest thing. I know love—have felt it deeply, all consumingly—and it’s still somehow a mystery to me. When I try to write about love, in what’s perhaps my own effort to tame it, others’ words fly to mind: Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. Love is patient, love is kind. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Let me count the ways.
The last is from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnet 43.” The speaker describes romantic love swelling to the greatest depths, breadths, and heights her soul can reach. Her love is passionate, but also gentle and pure. She prays that it’s stronger than death.
I feel compelled by this, but want to take the concept further—through eros, to philia, even to agape—and see the multitudes it can contain. How do I love? I will count the ways. Beginning with an evening walk in mid-July, bowled over by a live oak in slant golden light.
– Carmen Radley
