It wasn’t until my late twenties that I began to interrogate my definition of love. As a hopeless romantic, I hung on the every word of singers and writers who were able to describe the type of yearning I longed for. It wasn’t until I picked up a copy of Natasha Lunn’s Conversations On Love that I realised how singularly-minded I’d been in my pursuit of it. In her book, Natasha speaks to cultural commentators people about love – the kind that transcends romance and helps us understand the ever-changing parameters of it. About the love that exists between friends, the science of sex, the virtues of falling in love slowly and the psychology of being alone. All the while interweaving her own story of finding love throughout.
“I used to think it was love that I was longing for, but I was wrong. I was obsessed with the idea of love, not the truth of it. All those years and nights I spent asking, “When will I find love?” I never paused to think about what precisely it was. Do many of us? Whether we think about it or not, love leaks in and out of all of our lives, every day, freely, cruelly, and beautifully.”
I think what this book reminded me is that romance is not just about romantic love. It’s also about all of those romantic connections you form with places and objects, feelings and moments. I find so many things romantic. The way my mother squeezes my hand whilst we’re watching something together. The smell of the air when I step off the plane in Vancouver. Sitting on the sofa with my friends on a Sunday afternoon with mugs of tea and a packet of Hobnobs. The scent of rice crisping up in butter. The curve of my favourite mug and how it was made by the hands of someone special.
Last month I stood outside the Tate Modern with our filmmaker friend Dylan, stopping people for a quick chat about happiness. I was taken aback by some of their answers when I asked what made them happy. Each conversation reminded me that ‘love’ is not really something that can be defined; merely something that you feel deep in your bones or under your skin; and it can be romantic or it can just be a simple acknowledgement that you are not alone in this world.