WORDS
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| The Birthday Cake. 1914. Photograph by Harry Whittier Frees. |
For the record, I like words. Words sink reliably like bricks into the ocean of my brain, whereas numbers are cardboard boxes and float and bloat and disintegrate. That’s a messy metaphor, but I’m keeping it because I like words so much.
Actually, to be more accurate, I like language. I like imagery and idioms and rhymes and puns and acronyms and backronyms and palindromes and anagrams. However, there are some ways in which language is used and valued that I don’t like. So, I guess I am committing to writing here some of my feelings about language that I don’t like.
The best example to start with is the most maddening for me. It is the word that is given so much meaning and appears to have so much widespread, unchallenged acceptance that I feel like I’m in a linguistic nightmare when I'm faced with this word, a nightmare where everyone in the world is crazy but me.
Consider this question: Have you ever been in love?
Have you ever been asked that? How did it make you feel?
I am unusually enraged when I’m asked this question, because to answer it with honesty requires, from me, a digression about language itself. It’s like being asked to “tell me who you are.” It's a question that is a tedious chore to answer.
Maybe my subconscious goal here is to create a response for when people ask me about love. I’ll just say, “Read this. I've explained it all here.” So, to that future reader who has just asked me if I have ever been in love, this is why I kinda hate this word:
The way we use the word love suggests we think of it as a static state. The question “have you ever been in love?” is by definition a closed question: yes or no responses only. Sure, no sane person would object if you launch into a love story or add some caveats and disclaimers to your love experiences. We could say, "I was young and I thought it was love," or say, "I was in love with the idea of being in love." But we still conceptualize love as a state of being. You are in love or not. It is also something typically out of your control. You fall in love. Your breath is taken away. You are struck by cupid’s arrow. You are passive, the victim of love. Love acts upon you, like a disease.
What if we said, “Have you ever experienced love?” Or, “Have you ever fostered a connection until it reached the level of love?” Instead of the love-is-a-disease model, what if our language adopted a more love-is-a-garden model. It’s something you choose to invest time and energy in, something you cultivate, spend time on, and it is also something that has many facets. In one part of the season your peonies are in full bloom but your irises are dormant, just like how the companionship and emotional security elements of your relationship can be strong while the sexual attraction elements can be weak or vice versa. It’s still love as much as it’s still a garden.
That’s a better metaphorical framework for this emotional state, but we still have no idea what this stupid word means. Again, let’s start with the question: Have you ever been in love? How can anyone answer this with confidence or take an answer to this question as meaning anything? What does this word love mean? Deep affection? Okay, well what does that mean? I don't know, love? These are real squishy words that we—a diverse group of people with every level of emotional maturity—use in a variety of contexts. And yet saying “I love you” to someone is considered this ultimate milestone of a relationship, the definitive gamble of romantic life. Why does the act carry so much heft? Especially when there are so many other actual demonstrations of love that are exponentially more meaningful than uttering three syllables.
Why can’t we celebrate and emphasize the other firsts that actually demonstrate commitment. The first time you do someone a favor without being asked. The first time you nurse someone through sickness. The first time you comfort someone through crisis. The first time you talk about money in a real way. The first time you consider something “ours” and not “mine.” The first time you discuss long term goals. These are real markers of the story of a relationship.
How about this: Let’s take this question: “Do you love _____?” Fill in the blank with someone you may or may not love. Now, compare it to this question: “How does _____ make you feel about _____?” I don’t know about you, but I’m so much more engaged. This is a cloze sentence that puts you on a guaranteed path towards meaning!
Now, consider all the ways to end that sentence and how each of those options illuminates one facet of sharing your life with someone:
“How does _____ make you feel about yourself?”
“How does _____ make you feel about your past?”
“How does _____ make you feel about your future?”
“How does _____ make you feel about how you spend your time?”
“How does _____ make you feel about your sense of safety and security?
“How does _____ make you feel about what you are capable of?
“How does _____ make you feel about what you deserve?
“How does _____ make you feel about what everyone deserves?
“How does _____ make you feel about the world?
Answer any of those questions with just a whiff of curiosity and honesty and you and anyone listening to you will know at least one true thing about that state of your relationship.
These questions also get to the component of any strong relationship that I find delightfully self-absorbed. The phrase "I love you" connotes such a type of purity or purpose that is not only inaccurate and reductive but also pretty boring if you ask me. "I love you" is a phrase totally focused on the other, but that's not what's going on. Instead of saying, “I love you,” what if we said, “I love seeing how I make you feel,” or, “I love how you change my concept of self-efficacy and self-worth.”
Some might say that these are not sexy statements. Those people are wrong and need to grow up. Nuance, precise language, and emotional honesty are all sexy.
Here’s an even better way to articulate the cocktail of feelings one might call love: describe it in the context of your own story. We all have different needs and the people we gravitate towards fulfill those unique needs. Some of us need to be grounded. Some of us need to be challenged. Some of us need to be humbled. Some of us need to be encouraged. And then those needs change. What if we replaced I love you with something like, "Being with you has realigned my values and focused my priorities." Or, "You make me feel like I'm good at something when I've had a day filled with social messaging that I am not good at anything." Or, "I've been able to work on my trust issues by the example you set of being trustworthy."
Using the binary status of “in love” or not does nothing to illuminate these exchanges and these subtleties. If the word love is used like one would describe a disease, I want to talk about relationships and our feelings in them like one would describe an ecosystem. They are complex. Our relationships are as much about us and our deep psychology as they are about that other person. They are about our deepest anxieties and fears and traumas. They are about who we are at a specific time in our life and what we want and need at that time. They are about all the things that this other person is. And, just as importantly, they are about all the things that this other person is not. And, underneath all that, they are about biology and hormones and deeply coded physical desires.
The work of a relationship is reconciling all these things, putting them together into a coherent experience, and understanding your relationship in all its complexities so that when you are asked, “are you in love?” you can answer correctly by saying, "for what I'm feeling, I need more than one word.”
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References:
Frees, Harry Whittier, photographer. "The Birthday Cake." 1914. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2013648266/>.
Media:
Consider accompanying your reading with this Bill Evans cover from the Los Angeles environmental music project Green House:
Or this: