a brief note on love

a (late) st. valentine's offering

My mother wrote down fragments of things my sister and I said as we were growing up in one of those notebooks with a little space reserved for each day in a year. This document — of love and attentiveness — is one of the most precious things in existence to me. On the 24th of October, 2006, when I was four years old, she writes down:

Ik voel me zwaarmoeding, knuffel Hendrikje en zeg “O, ik wou dat ik jou was!” Zegt Hendrikje, blij en met waarheid in haar ogen: “Maar ik been ook jou, ik ben jou mama!”

I feel heavy-hearted, hug Hendrikje and say, “Oh, I wish that I was you!” Hendrikje replies, happily and with truth in her eyes: “But I am also you, I am you, mama!”

I find it difficult to read and write these lines without tears filling my eyes. In my notebook, where I write first drafts and thoughts, I write with her pen and the same shade of blue ink that fills the pages of her book of recorded phrases. At four, somehow, I had figured out how to put into the clearest of words what it means to truly love someone. I am me, but I am also you. You are you, and also me. We carry one another with us; it is not a heavy burden to bear.

To recognise them unexpectedly in the shape of your eyes or a phrase of theirs you’ve absorbed into your own language or a painting you think is beautiful. What a blessing it is to know someone so well that the borderlines between your perspectives sometimes get a little fuzzy. Not to loose yourself in somebody else, but to find a piece of you rooted in piece of them, too.

Walking together on the beach, my mum tells me that she and my dad never run out of conversation. Apparently, a few weeks before, a young woman my age told them they looked ‘cute’ together. I am very lucky. A little later, we find a dried ball of whelk egg capsules — hatched out on the seabed somewhere and washed up on shore. I don’t know what it is, but I think it’s beautiful with its delicate lines like veins. It looks a little like a curled up chrysanthemum. I pick it up: we look at it closely and then put it down carefully where it lay for someone else to find.

A year or so ago, Sam and I were visiting his parents and sleeping in the “barn”¹ at the foot of the garden. When we turned in to go to bed, one of his cats (Fluff) followed us in, having chosen us as his companions for the night. I cuddled up to Sam and felt Fluff curling up in the small of my back. Both fell asleep almost instantly, snoring gently. It often takes me a longer time to fall asleep — the nighttime an opportunity for my anxious thoughts to run away from me. At first, I felt overwhelmed between these two bodies, unable to roll myself onto my side I usually sleep on without disturbing their rest. But then I eased myself into the bind: I listened to their individual patterns of breathing, felt as Fluff’s small body twitched almost imperceptibly (he must have been dreaming), and absorbed their warmth. I let myself float away with it. It is very important to not let convenience override love.

In the morning, Fluff woke me up by repeatedly putting his paw on my face. He wanted to be let out into the cold morning air. Cats aren’t afraid to ask for what they want. I got up, unlocked the door and felt the breeze on my feet as he lingered at the doorway before stepping out into the garden. I slipped back into bed, but we were both awake because the light had been let in. Oh well. We laugh about his impatience and the hairs he left all over the covers. Before too long, we hear a scratching at the door and a half-formed ‘mrreow’ asking to come back in.

Victoria Adukwei Bulley says it better than anyone:

hey baby, I like the way you wake me in the morning before dawn, pawing the French windows to be let back in, even though I sleep, even though I’m all at sea in dreams, you know? babycat of course it’s not rude of you, it’s not rude of you at all, to know what you want & go get it — & what a go-getter you are, oh yes doesn’t the world just love folks like you! I wasn’t dreaming of much anyway, & can’t remember now anyhow, sweet furry thing, it’s no bother. really. you wanted out so I let you out. then you wanted in & so I let you in. whatever you want, you insist upon it & thats what we call: assertiveness! sheer CONFIDENCE, babycat. won’t you catch a little for me & lay it at my feet still breathing? oh babycat, won’t you one fine day please bring me some of that?²

the beast in question

My mum has told me that, as a baby, I would rest on her and let all of my weight fall onto her chest. I would be so in tune with my body (and hers) that I would get physically heavier. So trusting in my environment that I wouldn’t be holding any part of myself up or back; I would just let myself fall into her. I think love is a very animal feeling, a feeling that closes the gap between mind (“I”) and body. Sometimes it makes you realise how much you are your body, as well as your mind.

Often, we assume a posture of possession in the language we use to describe our physical selves: we say, this is my body, and talk about changing it as though it were something outside of ourself, something we owned. But, in love, your body can remind you that you do not own it, you are it. That it is not something to be controlled or tamed or pushed around. When I first fell, fully, in love with Sam, my hair started to curl like crazy. Some of my waves turned into ringlets, and it looked several inches shorter. People asked me if I’d had a haircut. Sometimes we know before we know, we’re sure before we’re sure.

Around this time, Sam gifted me a poetry collection by Lavinia Greenlaw that has become one of my favourites. I return to it often, especially the poem ‘Skin Full’ which makes extraordinary sense to me. I think it is amongst the most beautiful and genuine representations of love I have ever read.

You say that life is a three-legged race. 
They show us the door and we have some difficulty, 
bound like that from thigh to ankle. 
The street is a blanket. We will sleep 

with you on your front, me on your back. 
The night will be endless and we will be endless, 
layer on layer, infinitely warm. 
I sing as we lie shoulder to shoulder

and tell you there is no such thing as anything 
that is not a small circle. Now it is morning.

³

p.s. happy (late) valentine’s day <3

1. The name Sam’s parents have given to the fancy shed in the back of the garden. It has a sofa bed and a tv and somewhat insulated walls, so to call it a shed would be unfair.

2. From ‘toby’. Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Quiet (Faber & Faber, 2022), p. 47.

3. From ‘Skin Full’. Lavinia Greenlaw, A World Where News Travelled Slowly (Faber & Faber, 1997), p. 21.