I ran across this quote while doing some other reading:
Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
~ Zora Neale Hurston
This image really struck me, perhaps as a contrast to the overly strategic tasks that have occupied my brain lately, or perhaps for reasons that have little to do with my brain. The resonance and reverberations are a bit hard to put into words. Most simply, I guess, it feels like it speaks to (and for) the hiding that we all do, while offering another way of being, both for the one who bravely steps out of safe familiarity and into new possibilities, and also for the one(s) who invite (love) the other (or oneself) out into life. I also appreciate that it "crawls" out -- slowly, exhaustedly, not even with baby steps, yet also perhaps with the strength of a survivor. I really like this image, and hope I can carry it with my as I trudge strategically onward :)
(BTW, I don't know where she wrote/said this -- let me know if you do!)
i've been thinking about/considering love a lot here lately. this quote assumes some sort of commitment to that which it is crawly out for. or, there is some impetus, love, that beckons. i'm not sure about all of it...
ReplyDeletei do appreciate your naming of hiding. i also appreciate the bravery.
its early and my thoughts are beginning to become jumbled. i enjoy the quotes and the reflection around the quotes. thank you!
Good morning. It's early for me too, and the coffee hasn't fully kicked in yet. But my first response is that part of what I appreciate about the quote is its openness (and perhaps, this is partly a position of privilege/appropriation because I don't know its original context or citation). I think one could read the quote as assuming many things, or as signifying a few specific things. But as I read it, I am thinking of it not so much as a specific activity, level of engagement, or relationship that is "love," and rather am envisioning love in some ways as a quality. The resonance of the quote for me comes in the mental pictures it evokes. Love as the sunshine that draws some of us outside on a clear-sky day, or the clouds that help some of us relax and breathe in the overcast spaces -- in either case, allowing us to crawl out of our hiding spaces. Love as the environment of trust, respect, curiosity, and humility that enables a classroom to be a place where each learner can be present. Love as a way of looking at each other with interest, and of looking forward together with commitment and hope, in ways that allow even institutional budget meetings to be something other than rituals of entrenched self-protection.
ReplyDeleteZora Neal Hurston may have meant or been evoking something quite else in the original quote, and I would guess that most of the folks who repeated it on the numerous quote lists and blogs where I found it online might also have had something more particular in mind -- love as erotic, or related to partnering, or building off of parenting, or linked to commitment. I don't know whether she imagined "love" as a noun or a verb, a lure from the hiding space or a space that allowed hiding to ease away. This morning I'm leaning toward the latter -- that love in this story might be like fresh air or sunshine or clouds or laughter. Not a force pulling us out (which is how one might read her "makes your soul"), but perhaps something more like how the bell of the ice cream truck (or the billboard for starbucks) "makes" us run/drive in that direction -- an invitation to a space for possibility, a way of being that reminds us that there are other options than hiding, a hope that lets us wander into those spaces with some sense that where we might go can be better than where we have been. In other words, what I'm appreciating here is both the possibility for a breadth of interpretations, and also the one particular image (of livable, honest, hopeful, challenging, enjoyable, breathable space) which strikes me today.
Thanks for the invitation to keep thinking and writing about this.
Loved your offered image of love as "an invitation to a space for possibility". It reminded me of something I heard. On Valentine's day, at my church, over lunch, we shared stories of friendship and love in all forms and shapes. We heard from a woman who has been in a relationship for 56 years and she said that loves is not so much a feeling, it is an act of trusting, of taking the first step and allow love to grow. Love she said, allows us discover differences and celebrate them and grow with them instead of trying to overcome them or pretend they don't exist.
ReplyDeleteI think of love as a verb, an ongoing opportunity to experience life and creation everyday through different lenses, from different perspectives. I think it is an act we choose to engage sometimes with fear or hesitation, sometimes full of joy and hope in what could be possible.
by the way, the last comment was me, Nancy R. I am not that anonymous!
ReplyDelete