Perfect Love

Learn to love with LOVE FIRST and all the little things about someone second. That way, all the little things fall into the first category.

I could say that more clearly.   

Love should come first. Perfect, complete, total love should preclude anything else from really having substance. All the other little things are nice–the things they say, the things they do. But they’re just little shadows, beautiful little shadows. The only real thing, the only substantial thing, is love.

Dough and I talked about this on April 15, the Monday we drove from her condo in Tempe to the Grand Canyon. Neither of us had seen it before, and it affected us more than we thought it would. When we walked out to the lookout, Mather Point, and got our first sight of the canyon, I felt like my stomach stretched out to include the whole thing.

At the lookout, we milled around looking for potential picture-takers. We didn’t realize how obvious we were being. A woman stepped up, “I’ll take your picture.” And we laughed at ourselves for thinking we’d been discreet.

After a bit of staring at the canyon from the edge, we retreated to a higher point further back and sat on a boulder. I said, “It’s appropriate that we were talking in the car about love being so huge, being everything.” Now we were overlooking a huge canyon, the perfect setting for this thought.

I mentioned something I’d said to her before, “When I see you, I don’t see you as a physical body. When I look at some people, I see their body, and I think, ‘Oh, that’s them.’ But when I see, say, your leg,” I gestured at her leg, “I never think it’s you.” That’s just one illustration of the love I described above. I see her as perfect, and her body is secondary to that, not something all that substantial. Same with her thoughts and her expressions and her clothes. They are not her. They are great, but they are not her. Her is something in the ether, something spiritual that can’t be taken down with wind or fire.

One of the things Dough and I love about our friendship is that we are completely honest with each other. And I think the perfect love, the love that precludes all else, is what makes this possible.

Canyon sisters. April 15, 2013.
 

“If all you wanted was me, I'd give you nothing less."