The Ides of March

      Have you ever attempted to define the undefinable?  I've been thinking about love a lot lately (Hello, March 15th).  Naturally I posed the questions of "What is love?", "How does one know if they're experiencing it?" and "Is it conditional or unconditional?"  Difficult to answer; but yes, those questions beg an response.  At least for me.  Some may be satisfied by a simple 'yes' or 'no' when asked about love, but I feel I need to know why.  There's something in the details.  I blame Ed Smith, former painting and drawing professor at Louisiana State University, for this.  He'd repeatedly emphasize the importance of knowing why we did what we did when conceiving and creating a work of art.
      "You've got unlimited freedom here; you're only constrained by the objectives you yourself set out to achieve.  So do what you will.  I ask, however, that you know why you did what you did.  If you can't answer that then you're admitting the arbitrary and pointless nature of the elements in your work."
      "Admittedly, there will be the extremely rare moment where you won't be able to defend your actions as it'll just feel 'right'.  I'll give you one of those during the critique...just know that it'll be looked at like a cheap and lazy excuse." he'd finish saying with a smile.
I wanted to omit 'it just feels right' when attempting to describe love.  I wanted the challenge.  I wanted to look past the obvious as well: because she's gorgeous beautiful (I was once told that I couldn't use that word), because she loves me back, because we were meant to be together, because we only think in cliches.

      But what happens when you're not only certain that love is real but you want to clearly characterize it?  How do you assign meaning to the incomprehensible when you feel it but you can't see it, you can't quantify it, you can't gauge it?

      When separated, have you ever been missed by someone or been the one doing the missing?  Have you wished that you were somewhere else regardless of circumstances?  And it's not only about their presence.  It's about how it felt when you moved about them; through them, with them.  It's just something that has always existed in the back of your mind, hopeless to shake.

      What about their scent?  There's something about being apart and forgetting what that distinct smell truly offers.  And how it all comes flooding back once that long-awaited encounter is finally initiated.  This is one of the things often taken for granted.  We often don't realize that we were missing it until it's been gone far too long and (hopefully) returned.

      The comfort that can be had in certain sounds is another attractive quality.  The routines of a day in love produce a soundtrack that we become pleasantly accustomed to.  And the lulling sounds at night is something one can easily find soothing.  Occasionally we even find a love with a gift for music whose songs are the only thing we long to hear.

      In spite of conflicts arising between you and your beloved, they're never deal-breakers.  The things that others do which may piss us off or drive us insane are inexplicably forgiven.  The far-too-early mornings or way-too-late nights, through sunshine and thunderstorms, whether harmony or anarchy.  Things that may be sizable issues shrink to minutia when it pertains to love.

      So how was that?  My attempt to measure or calculate what love actually is in such a way that only I could do...overly-thought and overly-logical.  Here's the fallacy in my conclusion – love is a concept.  It isn't a solid, visible, tangible object.  You can't apply logic to the illogical.  When you are in love:
Even when you don't look incredible, you look incredible
Even when you smell bad, you smell great
Even when you sound loud and obnoxious, it's the most melodic cacophony
Even when it was the roughest night, you still wouldn't want to sleep anywhere else
Even when you're in too deep and terrified, you can't find comfort any other way

      I'd like to believe that I'm currently familiar with all of this on a first-hand basis.  Her name is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit but you may know her as Bangkok - the City of Angels.  Despite her sights, sounds, smells, the scorching infernos she calls days, the pure psychosis that the nights can be, I'm in deep.


"How can you be certain?"


It just feels right.    : )

Bangkok is truly a city of the haves...

...And the have nots.

March 15th is always love