By Tommy Housworth
As a teenager, I awaited Valentine’s Day with the kind of naive optimism Charlie Brown had for
winning the affections of the Little Red Haired Girl in Peanuts. My awkward high school (and
college) years were filled with clumsy, insecure attempts at courtship, met with the steady,
rhythmic sounds of unrequited silence.
The best I could hope for was the occasional Valentine’s Day card from a friend who inevitably
signed the card “Love ya like a brother,” a phrase that carved my fate in stone. Not “love ya like
the high school quarterback” or “Love ya like Patrick Swayze”, but…like a brother.
Oh, brother. February, whether through Roman fertility rituals or the persistence of Hallmark and 1-800-FLOWERS, is a month associated with love. That love is, traditionally, romantic in nature,
because the way we love our partner is wholly different from the way we love an oat milk latte,
the new Billie Eilish song, or even our faithful pet.
It’s often said that the word “love” is overused, and certainly it’s a term that gets thrown
around so often that it starts to lose some of its beauty and depth. Perhaps, though, it’s not so
much that we apply the word too often as that we are bumping up against the limitations of
our language.
The complexity of a concept so potent and vast as “love” cannot be contained in a single word
and indeed feels constrained, flattened, by that singular syllable. And, in fact, English is one of
the few languages with only one word to describe such a multifaceted emotion. Sanskrit
offers over 90 words addressing aspects of love, from Kama (sensual, erotic love) and Maitri
(compassion) to Atma-Prema (self-love) and Bhakti (devotion toward the divine).
Farsi is close behind with more than 80 words for love, while the ancient Greeks identified six
distinct types. Psychologist Tim Lomas did the heavy lifting in a broad lexicographic study to
determine that, across the spectrum of languages, there are 14 distinct kinds of love
encompassed in the languages of the world, from a fondness for certain activities (meraki) to
the “premonition of love” (love at first sight), known as “koi no yokan” in Japan.
But here in America, we like to keep things tidy, and so “love” is love. Love for a football team,
an ice cream flavor, Jesus, Allah, our Uncle Frank, and that person we just can’t stop thinking
about. And so, if we are in the habit of bundling every adoring experience under the same
nomenclatural umbrella, perhaps love’s invitation to us this month is to be more mindful in our
use of the word.
What has changed for me since those graceless school days I mentioned is that, for the past 31
years, I’ve been married to a person who generously returns my love. She is also a person who
believes in the precision of language, making our occasional arguments a minefield for me, as someone who chooses words carefully for the page, but not nearly so well in spontaneous spats.
But what my wife, the daughter of a journalist, has taught me is that words matter, and stating
how we feel about anything requires thoughtfulness and nuance. And so, I try to be more
aware of my words, stating what I truly mean instead of tossing out broad generalizations or
exaggerations. Like most of us, I’m still a work-in-progress with this practice, which Buddhists
call “Right Speech.”
Now, mindfully considering this month when love is honored, I’m for uplifting love in all its
forms – for ideals, for people, for partners, and even for pizzas. And if we lack the vocabulary to
parse the varieties of our affections, perhaps we can at least stop and notice that when we say
we “love Rimbaud,” “love this yoga studio,” and “love our children,” we mean three different
kinds of love. When language falls short, our awareness can close the gap.
And noticing how many kinds of love are available to us through all our world has to offer? Well, I love that.
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Check-out other essays by Tommy in AMT’s blog archive and on his personal substack, A Sense of Wonder.