Letters to Ukraine – 14

What is love? Is it a desire, something gut-based that wrenches us into action? Is it cerebral, a cool certitude that guides us towards selflessness? What it isn’t, certainly, is something contained in a box of chocolates or a long-stemmed rose, however strongly imbued with feeling those objects are; it really has nothing to do, in my view, with the glut of material expectations around birthdays and anniversaries, or the annual orchestration of gifts symbolised by St. Valentine’s Day. Perhaps love is an ongoing question life asks of us, especially when our decisions run against the grain of expectations those closest to us reasonably hold. Love is, after all, unreasonable. It has no logic, no profit-loss sheet; it holds no grudges, has no designs on anyone. It survives when wounded or apparently defeated. Clearly, it doesn’t run our governments or businesses; but it’s an inextinguishable ember even there, where it seems to have died down or gone cold. There it is, unbreakable beneath our most ardent follies, the deepest betrayal. It is that fabric of life itself, rich with productive flaw and difficulty. Through challenge, futility, hopelessness, it arises, fresh, as our calmest, surest truth. It is always Itself. It is always You.

© Mario Petrucci 2012