Jonathan Dodd‘s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
Everybody loves a good love story. In fact we all love Love in all its manifestations. We love the fresh air, and holidays, and pizzas. And we love Corrie and East Enders and Game of Thrones. Some people love fishing, or shoes, or thrash music (whatever that is). There are lovers of football, or maybe of only one team, and lovers of alcohol or other recreational substances.
We love dancing, and running, and throwing the javelin, we love dressing up and slouching in our inelegant casual wear, occasionally we meet someone who even loves their job. Religious people have been known to love their deity or deities, or their holy saints or angels. And sometimes they believe their deities etc. love them back. They love everybody, or their brethren, or sinners, or even their enemies.
Watching the swifts zoom across the sky
We love sharing things. Food, or cakes, or presents, or nights out. We love that sense of community, of belonging. We love the comfort of rituals, whether it be Sunday Service or the Opening of Parliament or going to the theatre. Or even the making of tea. We love films, and opera, and art, and singing, either participating or as an audience. We love fashion, and laughter, and playing games, and getting our hair cut, or having a massage, or feeling clean after a shower.
We love water, to drink, or to fill a bath for us to lie in, or to swim in or dive under. We love cups of tea, and fresh coffee, or any kind of coffee as long as it’s strong. Or weak. And we love fruit juice, and milk. We love wildlife, and Nature, and gardening, and feeding the birds, and watching the swifts zoom across the sky. We love going to the zoo, or the circus, or the beach. And we love going for a walk.
Especially when someone makes it for us
We also love our pets, our dogs and cats and budgies and gerbils and rabbits and snakes and fish. We love our sitting rooms, and our sofas, and our beds. We love fresh sheets. We love a well-laid table, with glasses of wine and food steaming on clean plates. We love conversation, and watching the television together. We love turning out the lights and going up to bed, and we love lying-in in the morning, when we get the chance. We love a glass of water at night, or a cup of milk, or some hot chocolate, and maybe a biscuit, and we love a cup of tea in bed, or coffee, before getting up, especially when someone makes it for us. And we love making it for them sometimes too.
We love praise, and compliments. We love watching our children play and grow up, we love watching them with their friends, playing or competing in sports and contests. We love our parents, even when we can’t stand them, and we love seeing our relatives, at least for a while. We love having house-guests, as long as they don’t stay too long. We love our routines, washing up and washing clothes, the places we put everything, and we love being able find things when we need them.
Presents that we hope the people we love will love
We love shopping, at least for ourselves or looking for presents that we hope the people we love will love. We love going to other towns and noticing the differences. We love going on holiday, living a temporary and completely different life, and we love to get back home where everything is familiar. We love our friends. Sometimes we love people that we shouldn’t, and sometimes we get into trouble over it. Sometimes we love the excitement. Sometimes we love the fear of being discovered doing things we know we shouldn’t.
We love our cars, or our bikes, or our skate boards, or our football boots. We love our instruments, our tools, our pianos or violins or guitars or drum kits. We love the way they feel in our hands and the sounds they make or the things that we can make them do. We love painting, or drawing, or acting in Am Dram productions in village halls, or we love Morris Dancing, or Ballroom Dancing, or Ballet classes, or horse riding, or walking with Llamas. We love to take photographs and climb hills and mountains. We love looking at views.
We love it that we can do both
We love our mobile phones, and email, and tweeting. And Facebook. We love writing letters and receiving letters, and we love reading books, or reading on our tablets. We love listening to music on the radio or CDs, or through our earphones as we travel to work or run in the gym. We love things that make us laugh, and sometimes we love things that make us cry, and we love it that we can do both, even at the same time. We love being able to do things after waiting for a long time. First time behind the wheel, first solo flight, first dance, first dinner out. And we love still being able to do things even though we are older.
We love the past. History books and television documentaries, old buildings, researching our families, museums and art galleries. We love new things too, laptops and tablets and smartphones and smart watches and bigger, clearer televisions. We love to reminisce, remembering shared experiences, looking at photographs, clearing out old clothes. We love antique shops and boot fairs and the Antiques Roadshow, and that show where they auction things. We love to dance.
Up in the glow of the evening air
We love those smells too. Like oranges being peeled, or toast. We love the smell of bacon, and vanilla, and strawberries, and the taste of peas, and chips, and tomato sauce, and pesto. And we love the colour of red wine, the froth on the top of our glass of beer, the brandy swirling round that large glass balloon in the cup of our hand. We love to see straight lines of trees, and the beauty of bridges, and a butterfly at rest slowly open the glory of its wings. We love seeing lambs gambolling and rabbits leaping and all those starlings behaving exactly like shoals of fish, up in the glow of the evening air.
We love the sun, in its pomp and fiery heat, and at its rising up and going down. We love seeing the stars in all their myriad wonder, and the phases of the moon, and the tides, and all the splendours of nature. We love great rivers and tiny streams, swathes of cloud and storms pummelling us with fat raindrops or rattling hail. We like being inside too, watching it all. We love the wind.
The faraway swish of the lighthouse light
And we love sand. And earth. And the small waves that lap at our bare feet. And sails on the horizon, and the sound of the foghorn or the faraway swish of the lighthouse light. And we love to breathe. And we love the air, the glorious feel of fresh air right inside of us.
And some of us love making lists, and some of us love writing, and some of us love it when other people read our words.
If you have been, thank you for reading this. I love you too.
Image: Before My Ken under CC BY 2.0
Image: Public Domain under CC BY 2.0
Image: Public domain uploaded by Petrusbarbygere under CC BY 2.0
Image: Nathan Wong under CC BY 2.0
Image: David Shankbone under CC BY 2.0
Image: Walter Baxter under CC BY 2.0
Image: Kamil Porembinski under CC BY 2.0
