I am sitting here today thinking about love in all its forms. It’s been a gloomy, cold week so far with snow and ice. So the peek of sun earlier today was a welcome sight. I love sunlight and how it’s melting some of the snow and ice, especially on the roads. It has been a little treacherous the past few days. I’ve stayed inside except for a couple of appointments I needed to keep, and then I went to the appointments and right back home. Luckily, I love being at home, too.

So, love can mean many things, including the mundane love of weather, places, things, and especially people, which isn’t mundane at all. It’s what keeps us functioning on a higher level, I think.

In this month that includes Valentine’s Day, it’s a good time to think about love and to reach out to those we love: spouses, family, friends, and mankind in general, and tell them how much we love them. We’re all fairly quirky in our own ways, but love can bridge gaps that may create. If you think about it, it’s miraculous that we can love each other as much as we do. And heartening. It gives me hope when so much negativity prevails at times.

Here is a poem I found that uplifted my heart:

I Love You, by Roy Croft

I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am when I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what you have made of yourself,
But for what you are making of me.

I love you for
The part of me that you bring out;
I love you for
Putting your hand into my heaped-up heart
And passing over all the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out into the light
All the beautiful things
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate could have done
To make me happy.

You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it by being yourself
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means, after all.

Write about a friend or someone else you love that embodies this poem.

Write a love poem to a friend, a lover, a family member and consider giving it to that person,

What do you love about your life? Write about it.