Sometimes when I’m walking or driving around, I experience a spontaneous feeling of love and affection for people I see. A dusty road worker, a mother with her kids in the grocery store, an elderly man renting a movie, the fellow sweeping the subway station, a cranky old woman riding the bus… Today I realized that I love these people like I love the fictional characters I write about in poems and stories. They are dear to me in all their detriment and glory and selfishness or self-sacrifice—just people living and breathing and learning to find their way. And then it dawned on me that it’s much harder to act with love, than to simply feel love. When I interact with people throughout the day, at the cash register, on the phone, in line at the post office; can I hold on to that love and affection then? It is much harder to love in person than love from a distance. It is much harder to act love than just feel love, although one must certainly depend upon the other.(Image: Alexander Girard “Black and White” Environmental Enrichment panel, by Herman Miller, 1971)
No comments:
Post a Comment