The comfort zone

"I have known great love. At various levels - at its most evocative, its most poetic, its most humourous, its most heroic and its most heart-breaking. I have felt the moments of lightness that falling in love brings. I have felt the spiritual epiphanies that keep human relationships going. I have wrapped my legs around the smoky, sultry, hazy, smooth comfort of love on cold nights. I have slow-danced to those soft percolative rhythms that hearts beating in harmony make. I have marvelled at the infinite beauty and yet, the irrepressible fragility of it all.

Now, through a pint glass, darkly, I have seen contempt and affection cancel each other out, as familiarity grew. Sometimes, I have felt I have a bigger propensity to err than I thought I did. Other times I have felt, after I'd done all I can, standing on the steps with my heart in my hand, that maybe its got nothing to do with me. I have realized that listening to music is intense for me, with the abundance of tiny wisdoms that surrogate older brothers and uncles like Al Green, Kurt Cobain and Lou Reed offer, whilst morbidly ruminating about love and life. I have spotted little grey blocks of literature in places I never expected, that conceal tales of love stolen away too soon. I see people with all kinds of reactions - wry, sardonic, depressed, tragic romantic. Practical.

Love is a battlefield. Love is tender trap. Love is like oxygen - you get too much, you get too high, not enough and you're going to die. Love bites, love bleeds, love is the drug. But with the realization that love never dies comes true balance."

And then, he smiled and sat around with a beam of peace over his head, calmly gathering knowledge and pleasure from all the flowers that still grew around him.

Sounds of the moment:

Angie - The Rolling Stones
Inside of Love - Nada Surf
Black - Pearl Jam
How to save a life - The Fray
Move on - Jet