Week Word: Love

This week's word, love, was chosen by Emily at Ready for an Adventure in honour of Valentine's Day. Go and see her post to see who else is participating this week.


I must admit, I struggled a bit. Not with the concept of love (I hope!) but to think of a way to depict it without getting too cheesy or obvious. 


(That I don't like either cheese or obviousness very much can probably be guessed if I tell you that for our 'romantic' Valentine's night out, Nick and I went to an allyoucaneat place in Staines. And were the last to leave.)


So I thought, and doodled, and googled, and didn't come up with much. And then I remembered this poem, Shakespeare's Sonnet 130. (Does Shakespeare always have the answers? Like some sort of Elizabethan equivalent to Smarties?)


Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
   As any she belied with false compare. 


I think that's love for me; loving the real person, not the dream or the ideal, and acknowledging that their flaws and imperfections are what makes them so real and loveable. 


And maybe a worthwhile thing to remember when we're feeling a bit meh in the face of yet another impossibly perfect (photoshopped) image in a magazine. Everyone, really, treads on the ground.