Tag: romance

Re: Claudia

In any journey to understand words, in whatever language you use, I feel that emotion often supersedes meaning. For instance, some of us might have trouble even saying a word like Love, let alone trying to define it. The word Love is rich with meaning within the context of a sentence and exquisitely profound when used to understand the depth of a relationship. Let’s face it, some words are utile only. Other words are magical enough to carry a spirit.

Proper nouns are amazing in that regard. The naming of someone immediately makes the qualities of that person unique. Claudia is a Spirit Grandma to three beautiful grandchildren who were born after she died. I love the way her being is honoured with this evocative title. Claudia was once my best friend, my wife and a mother to three precious sons. She and I shared a quarter of a century together before she succumbed to a quickly spreading cancer. To the very end, Claudia was resolute that she had had a good life; one filled with activities, challenges and people who mattered.

Claudia is an uncommon name, befitting a woman unusual for her time. She loved things that resonated with the past. In a time when being a homemaker was losing its efficacy, even looked down upon as a career choice, Claudia enrolled in a University program focussing on Home Economics subjects. In the early seventies, the Macdonald Institute at Guelph University was often derided as leading to a Mrs. Degree. One of the first things that fascinated me about this woman with an old fashioned name was that she made her own clothes. She had been doing it since elementary school, won several contests, entered many fashion shows and was now specializing in the textile arts. I met her at a party, hosted by her friends, where she told me all this as I fell in love with her. Later, when we were planning our marriage, she stated emphatically that she aspired to being a homemaker. I couldn’t have asked for a better mate in that regard. Our house was a very, very, very fine house.

I wonder when a word becomes more than a word. A person’s name is an extraordinary use of a single word. It’s when a noun becomes a proper noun, almost giving it more value. When parents struggle over what word to use to describe their child no wonder there is much to debate and decide. Claudia is indistinguishable to me. Probably because I loved the person attached to that name. I’m sure there are other folks with the name Claudia, but none come to mind when I think of that word.

On paper, in text, Claudia is just a word. It is hard for me to type this word without all sorts of sights, sounds and feelings tumbling out of my brain. Before her death at age fifty, Claudia told me that she had lived the life she wanted, however short. Others, who knew of this particular Claudia, could tell you their own marvellous stories.

Re: Crush

The emotion of love has many synonyms but crush is my favourite. I’ve been in love with the female gender for all my life. I sat in the grade two row of a one room school house in rural Ontario when I was so overcome with infatuation that I blew a loud kiss to a beautiful girl in the sixth row. The much older girl had helped me make awesome structures out of piles of fragrant leaves during recess. I was smitten by her giggles. The teacher caught my love gesture and made me come to the front of the class where I was made to kiss the length of the blackboard. I sat back in my place, lips all chalky and feeling the blush of shame.

Later, now a student in a suburban school, I chose to share brown bag lunches with a gorgeous brunette. She was in my grade but in the class across the hall. We both sat at the back of our room so when the doors were open we could wave to each other. She was my one and only valentine. When my mother expressed alarm at a Parent/Teacher meeting about my crush, she was told not to worry as it was only puppy love. I think she thought I was obsessed for a while but it was really, singularly, merely a friendship. We liked teaching each other card games. I cheered her on at hopscotch or while she dazzled me with double dutch skipping. When I stepped up to the plate in baseball I could hear her calls of encouragement. I went to her house on fireworks day but felt regret later for missing our family’s traditional balcony extravaganza. I remember the pang of ending our relationship, whatever it was. My heart wasn’t broken. I felt relief that summer’s freedom was within reach. A shrug seems cruel.

Interesting how the word Crush seems apt for the unexplainable emotions connected to the first blossoming of romantic feelings. When we are older we may get a crusher of a headache or feel the crushing weight of responsibilities. In our youth holding hands can be enough to send our thoughts to the moon and back, smashing all thoughts of school projects/tests or parents’ demands to clean our rooms. I can see why some cultures are afraid of the notion of adolescent crushes. Kids are still kids in many ways, yet the maturation process is an uneven thing.

I don’t recall any connection to my sexuality with my crushes. One gal broke up with me because I didn’t want to take things “to the next level”. Phewff, she was aggressive. I was a late bloomer that way and was likely naive to any girl who showed physical attraction towards me. When I look back through grade school my connections were about friendships, first and primarily. In adulthood too the intensity of my love for another is of the steady beating kind; not necessarily measured by explosive fireworks but like the consistent lap of waves upon a shore.

Re: Love

I’ve hesitated a while before doing a posting on the word Love. Many people are either uncomfortable using this word or frustrated because it doesn’t do justice to their feelings. Love is impossible to explain yet easy to know: Like trying to describe a colour. Metaphors and similes bring you close to an understanding but the uniqueness of love resists analogies. It can come in spectrums, shades and categories. Love as a theme can be overused and also under appreciated. It’s likely the most talked about word in the English language but we find it hard to say the phrase, “I love you.” The language of love may have its very own unlettered alphabet. Love is felt but not seen. We know it though; just as the movement of a leaf can tell us that air exists. Perhaps love is undefinable, yet it is as real as in this heartfelt song by John Denver. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKhBPps7_Fc

In an effort to define love, we often try to qualify it. We talk of unconditional love, puppy love, unrequited love or romantic love in a desire to place the love-ness into a category. I recall a conversation with a friend when I had told him I thought I had fallen in love. To confirm my news he asked, “So do you Really love her?” Without that qualification he just couldn’t accept my announcement. Funny, how we feel a need to know the kind of love being discussed before we can buy into the reality.

I don’t believe any art form can be created without love. In this way I believe Love equals Art. A life’s creative work cannot be summed up in any other way but without referencing love. Poems of love tell of yearning, exultation, catastrophe and pain. Painters have described love as the light by which they work. Plays and novels have used countless words in exhilarating ways to give meaning to this single word; Love. Art tends to avoid any kind of labelling or judgement, when it comes to love. A song about love is open to the listener’s interpretation. We can judge, if we want, who or what the singer is referring to. Or we can just bask in the splendour of loving words, such as those found in this masterpiece by Rolf Løvland, sung by Josh Groban. https://www.youtube.com/watch/aJxrX42WcjQ

Growing up, we soon learn that love can hurt, be used against us, bring us hope or lift us to heights unimagined. Love can tangle us in knots of indecision or leave the way clear of doubt. As I get older I’ve lost the need to categorize love. People can have loving feelings towards all manner of things; human or not, living or not. Love is energy, moving out from us and returning. Love supports us, enabling us to be the best that we can be. My advice to the lovelorn is to be watchful. Love is everywhere. It is there when someone says, “I’ve got your back.”