“So, is the cold war over?” asked he as he turned towards her with a twinkling in his eyes while she joined him in the leisurely evening walk. She looked at the sky, not immediately responding, waiting for him to say something more, then looked into his eyes -which were waiting for an answer to his question. She smiled, “there was no cold war”! He laughed out loud and retorted “Oh, so what has been happening between us for the last two days, is just normal”? She remained silent … not answering immediately, thinking to herself …”what was it that happened?”
She started talking slowly and deliberately, not wanting to create unpleasantness but also eager to reach him. She knew he had been hurting for the past two days, waiting for her to reach out to him, to touch, to love and to invite him into her world again. He made his attempts to reach her and was stopped by an angry, heavy but polite silence – he did not know what else was there to do, except to wait for her to emerge from her cave, her self imposed silent withdrawal.
They started talking as the evening crimson sky slowly turned to bluish grey and then assumed a dark slate colour, to finally retire for the day.
“So do tell me what are the unresolvable issues between us?” “They may not be solvable now, but perhaps some other time, they would seem different to us” He sounded eager and hopeful …. She nodded in agreement … “it was true” she thought “how does one know what to resolve and when?”
They slowly walked backed to their home as they talked …. time for evening tea. He walked into the kitchen to make tea, she stood by the door, watching him and waiting for… and then she realised that she did not know what to expect next? There was a surrealness about the conversation. On one hand they were discussing about issues of inequality, acceptance, judgements, opinions, respect and dignity in their relationship with one anther, and on the other, they were punctuated by threads of daily mundane statements like “the milk is on the first shelf of the refrigerator” or him saying “i dont like this strainer, I think we need to buy another” …….
She took the cup of tea that he offered to her … sat on her side of the dining table and continued the discussion. “I think what I am talking about is that perhaps we both don’t know how to love and more important than that, how to be loved” She said in a sad voice. He listened as he sipped his tea waiting for her to continue. She looked straight ahead but kept talking and checking for his reaction from time to time.
She said: “I can see that my sense of being worthy comes more often from my sense of achievement, than my being loved” — “It’s not that I don’t feel loved by you but the moment I pick up a discordant note, the ground slips from under my feet”. She was feeling quite heavy now: “As though I don’t even know how to love or to be loved …. perhaps never learning to forgive and accept the other has taught me to do the same to myself as well. And,and, I think I justify my not forgiving the other by a rational of staying true to my world view, my values and my opinions, while in fact I am waiting for the other to change to be the kind of person I believe he should be”.
She stopped for a while, not feeling quite sure of what she wanted to convey, but continued nonetheless: “The way I would like to love is to love the whole person, not half the person and wait for the other half to become what I wish him to be – that is not love, that is perhaps wishing the other person to turn into being me. This is the not the way I would want it to be” She thought for a while and added: “may be this whole idea of love is just a fantasy in my head”.
He was inspecting the table cloth with deep concentration all these while. He looked at her sideways, smiled and said softly:”May be it is not such a fantasy. May be we all love like that, we only love half the person”.
She said passionately but wistfully:”But I do want to love the full person, I want to love you with all your angularities and learn to forgive you”. She added: “But it is not just about forgiveness, it is about not expecting the other to be who you want him to be, to not turn the world into a shadow and an echo. I know that I have been waiting to learn from you how to forgive and love, and since neither you nor I can forgive each other very easily, we only wait for the other to begin”. She stopped and then thought to herself: “May be the day I learn to love like that, I will understand what spirituality mean to me”
He nodded and remained quiet joining her in silence. The conversation was over, for the time being.
What does loving between two individuals who are in love,mean? for some love may mean complete acceptance and merger, for some it may mean giving and receiving, for some other it may mean mutual understanding and companionship, and again for some other it may mean keeping the passion alive and for some others …. one can go on and on…
What does loving mean to you?
Sarbari's Blog 
Hello.
Visiting from the group Bloggers.
That is indeed a question to which many will or will not have the answer.
As humans, we were created to love and be loved in return. Loving someone means all those things you mentioned and so much more.The heart has many emotions…the greatest of which is love…but to be open to love and forgiveness, one must first learn to love and forgive oneself. Both are not easy to do.
For me, I would not want to exist in this world if I did not have love. I exist for love…it feeds my soul & my being…love is my religion…love is what I write about…love is what I am.
A wonderful post!
Thanks for sharing.
Thoughts Of Beauty In The Stillness Of Dawn
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Dear Andy,
thank you for visiting and commenting. so in agreement with you about loving and forgiving oneself but I find that the hardest. I think I learn that through loving and forgiving others, I can slowly learn to love and forgive myself. In some strange way, while we are loving and forgiving others, a part of our being opens the door for recognising that part in us which knows to love and to forgive.
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It sounded just like the kind of conversation that I sometimes hold with myself or my husband. There are no answers, but I agree with Andy that one has to first love and accept oneself unconditionally to be able to love another or receive love. Wonderfully expressed.
Btw, could you please increase the font size a bit in the post? It is a little hard on my eyes.
And oh, the smile made my day. The half cut profile makes it more alluring 🙂 Thanks for taking my advice and restoring it!
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Zephyr, the conversation is real by the way and if it sounds between you and your L&M, it rings true. Ha, ha, how in a way, we are so alike. 🙂
My response to Andy will echo my response to you in part.
Re the font size, will certainly increase. Actually when I post, they are as big as quarter of an inch size – so I did not realise that looking at the same web page from some other OS, it may not be the same.
thank you for being my friend. Btw, happy diwali.
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Zephy,
I was just surfing trying to find out how to increase the font size on the free hosted wordpress.com site and perhaps have found some answers. But here is another tip for you and other readers, i.e. you can change the font sizes through your browser by pressing ctrl and the “+” key on windows, or cmd and the “+” key on mac, to make them larger. hope that helps.
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being buddies…. the arm around the shoulder kinda buddy. It’s cliched but so true.
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Gayatri,
thank you for visiting my blog and commenting. Looking forward to many more. 🙂
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I loved it. It is really beautifully written. Very very evocative. 🙂 I dont really know how I understand love and part of me loves that about the idea of love-that it is so hard to grasp and constantly morphing in different contexts and with different people. 🙂
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Mekhola, thank you for your comments. 🙂
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In relationships, where I have been in love with someone, there is of course ‘irrational’ passion, intrigue and at a more rational level struggles of understanding the other and being understood (the pursuit of being ‘completely understood’). The core of the attraction lies in the simultaneity of being alike and being different. Even if she is not ‘with’ me, in so many situations when I am in difficulty or when I see something beautiful or wonderful, I automatically ask myself ‘what would she have said now? how would she have seen this one? how would she have reacted in a situation like this?’. And then, there are moments when we respond differently in situations, and I fret – why does she have to say this? does she not see what she is doing? how can she… why does she… etc? And of course, then there is a constant pursuit of trying to unravel her mind, figure out what she is saying and not saying… it keeps my mind, heart and body completely engrossed.
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Roop, thank you for sharing. Perhaps behind the need to be understood and to understand, lies our primordial need to be loved unconditionally and hence the pursuit to understand. The delusion is perhaps that if only we understood the other person completely, we would be in sync and then there will be no differences or the differences will be easier to deal with.
While I agree with you that how important and how engrossing this is, I also see from my experience, how blocking it is to the movement of the other person and of myself.
love
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Beautifully written, by the way. Thanks for sharing.
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Hi! I know u had not been blogging for long.
I have tagged u in the ‘Versatile Blogger Award’ . Pls pick the tag if u feel like.
Hope to c u blogging soon.
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Thank you restlessmind. how have you been? will post soon and thank you for remembering me. will look up the tag.
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hi, just posted two of my posts. do read and tell me what you think. and thank you again for tagging me in the Versatile Blogger Award.
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WELL SAID.WILL IMPROVE IF MORE OPEN.RATHER THAN TREATING ESH OCCURACNSE A PRIVATE “IHAVE FEFT IT’ ONE SHE SHUILD WRITE AS A THIRD PARTY,A WITNESS(REMEMBER MAUGHAM)SHE IS GOING TO EARN MORE ACCOLADES.
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It almost felt like reading our own story. We are at a crossroads, atleast I am trying to figure out “Where is love in our relationship?” I was almost hoping I would find an answer from your post but saw you throw the question in the end :-). Looking back love did come and go in all the forms you had mentioned towards the end. I am holding on to the question where is it now? May be in silence and withdrawal…not sure..will see.
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@Priya: I firmly believe that each human life tells a unique and compelling story. however, we also have connections and patterns and designs in our lives that seem so similar and yet has its own intricate pattern woven in it. thank you for your comment.
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