love is not a castle you build

i'm learning what love is and where to find it

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I woke up late this morning, two hours later than usual. Now that I don’t have social media, the notifications I wake up to are scarce. This morning, I only woke up to a Co-Star notification: “Love is not a castle you build.”

In a dreamy haze, I thought of a sand castle called Love emerging from the beach as I stood there with a shovel and a bucket, a first-prize winner. I spent the rest of the day trying to understand this one-sentence daily horoscope. It meant love was not strong, planned, and protective like a castle. Love is not a perfect creation rising over you, but the waves that wash over it, the sun that warms the ground, and the wind that ruffles your hair.

It’s not selective, it doesn’t tower over you, and it’s not something you can hide behind. Love is grand like a castle, but it isn’t a monument to marvel at from afar. Love is everywhere and it’s everything.

I’ve spent so much effort seeking love instead of loving. I tried to find the “right” people a girl like me should be loved by and I constantly pushed a narrative of the “right” love for myself in a flawed relationship. I begged people to love me and stayed in places I never belonged because I thought I could squeeze love out of them.

I could bring a knife to someone’s throat to feel loved. I didn’t want to understand love; I wanted to control it.

If it were up to old me, I’d strip off my flesh, give my bones away, just to feel loved. I’d let love consume me whole because I thought that was the right thing to do. I never knew of the love I carried within, overflowing as I searched for love elsewhere.

I thought I needed to suffer, struggle, and get uncomfortable for love. Love itself was gentle, but I didn’t know the road to love too could have soft hands to caress me.

I didn’t understand the point of love unless it didn’t come from a person directly. I didn’t think love could reside inside the contents of an oyster, a conversation between two friends, a quote from a book, or a work of art.

I wanted all the love in the world, but I only wanted it from people, depriving myself of all the other beauties of love. There was a world beyond simple “I love you” and I’d turned a blind eye to it because I’d held the former in higher regard.

Love is not something you build brick by brick, it’s everywhere. How the sun stroked my cheeks, the tea that trickled down my throat, and the crow's feet my friend gets when she smiles was love.

Over time, I started to find love in places that required no bricklaying, no suffering, only awareness and gratitude. Love is within and love is all over the place; here are places I’ve discovered love, places I never knew harbored love.

1. art

   Creation and basking in creations are the purest forms of love. My photography oozes with passion and love and I find love in every brushstroke at the galleries I visit.

   

   the red studio, matisse, 1911 — my favorite painting ever

2. books

   Elif Batuman wrote in her novel Eiter/Or “Falling in love was the essential feature of a novel.” Words are love, the craft of writing is love.

   

   love in the time of cholera, gabriel garcia marquez, 1985 — a summer read

3. food

   Love resides in my mother’s cooking and the meals I cooked with my friend. It is the culinary adventures I’ve embarked on, all the oysters I’ve slurped down.

   

   oscar wilde, new york city — bites from summer 2023

4. views

   There’s nothing more romantic than looking at a view, alone or with friends, simply basking in its glory. Try it, try it, try it.

   

   burgazada, istanbul — a view enyojed with a friend and gulls

i love you,

lola <3

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