Thursday Thirteen #281 and Post 2000

Happy Valentine's Day! What could be more appropriate than my 2,000 post in this blog on a day celebrating love? Because I obviously love my blog. I also love my dear readers, whomever you are. Thank you for spending time with me. I always humbled and honored to know that you are sharing a few moments of your time with me.

So without further ado, some thoughts on love . . .


1. Love doesn't sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all of the time, made new. ~Ursula K. Le Guin

2. If grass can grow through cement, love can find you at every time in your life. ~Cher

3.   Take away love and our earth is a tomb. ~Robert Browning

4.  Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. ~Robert Frost

5.   You know you're in love when you don't want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams. ~Dr. Seuss

6.  Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. ~Emily Brontë

7.  Love withers under constraints: its very essence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience, jealousy, nor fear: it is there most pure, perfect, and unlimited where its votaries live in confidence, equality and unreserve. ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

8.  True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked. ~Erich Segal

9.  What "love" is I don't know if it's not the response of our deepest natures to one another. ~William Carlos Williams

10.  At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. ~Plato

11. We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. ~Tom Robbins

12.  Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold. ~Zelda Fitzgerald

13.  We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. ~W. Somerset Maugham


A Love Story

The young man met the young woman beneath the goal post of the high school football team. They stood with their circle of friends, each eyeing the other. Finally, they moved closer. They spoke of their friends, and how they had both attended the same high school but were now moving on with their lives. She asked a few questions about the game.

He asked her out on a date. She declined, citing other commitments. Nonplussed, he asked for the next night. She declined again for the same reason.

That same evening, they ran into one another again hours later. By then both had left their friends. They spent hours talking.

Thirty years later, they are still together. They've weathered good times and bad, for that is the stuff of life. He has stood by her during illness and heartache, and she has done the same.

That is my love story. It is not much on its surface.

In my experience, love is not something that burns white-hot for years and ages. It ebbs, flows, blazes anew. Sometimes the embers seem nearly gone and you might wonder what all the fuss is about. But then along comes a little breeze . . . and the red glow returns. Love also takes work, and courage. Without effort, it fails. But with that small little wind, it sparks.

My wish for you on this Valentine's Day is a long-lasting love, one with banked embers that will last a lifetime.





Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 281st time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.