Love is All Around Us

Haven’t we often had trouble paying attention to our parents at dinner because we’re too busy checking our phones to see if that one person texted us back? Mom might be trying to have a conversation with us, asking about how our day went. All we’re giving is cold, short answers. We’re there, but we’re not there. I know and admit with plentiful guilt that this has been me.

Love, in a unique sense, is one’s connection to the world. An experience that we create rather than something we have to wait for to be given. But the truth is, we ever so often take little moments of love for granted. I often think about, if I ever reached a point where I only had the chance to experience one more day of life, what would I want? The answer always comes back to this. I would want to re-see and feel again, all the love and beauty that I take for granted. The music that gives me goosebumps. The feeling of putting on a warm pair of fuzzy socks in a wintery morning. The softness of the hands of a loved one. The cozy feeling of newly washed linens against my skin. The chirpings of the birds that wake me up every school morning, or the warmth on my face from the sun on a frosty day, giving the rare moment of apricity. These are the moments, the moments that connect me to the world and make me appreciate my special little place within it.

I recently took an Architecture course to try something new and different. It sounds odd at first glance, but even a rudimentary understanding of architecture and buildings gave me a deeper appreciation for them. When I stumbled across the Amazon Spheres located in Seattle, Washington, I wondered why it houses 40,000 plants from 50 different countries. Architects at NBBJ chose to build these Spheres over the last seven years with the goal of inspiring Amazon’s employees to generate new ideas through an immersion into the nature. Every piece of architecture we see on a daily basis similarly took significant amount of time and energy to build. When we connect with it, try to understand it, that’s what generates love!

“A meaningful life is built on many different forms of love”, writes Natasha in her book Conversations on Love. So there is no need to yearn fretfully for love and wonder why it isn’t here — it is right here when we start to view our world differently by recognising, love, it’s all around us…

⁃ SaaniaSparkle 🧚🏻‍♀️