Dispatch from the Bench

I love best the people who love what is unlike themselves.* I love the small woman being tugged down the street by her huge wilderbeest of a dog, the two men walking hand-in-hand whom you wouldn’t have placed in the same multiverse, the mother embracing her anomaly of a child. Always the friendships of Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart, Mark Twain and Helen Keller, Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell. That Marilyn loved Ella, that Joni loved Prince and Prince loved Joni, that everyone loves the glorious alien Tilda Swinton.

I love those who love who others are, rather than how they reflect themselves. I love the love that says I see your spark and am honored to keep it ignited. Like may seek like, but love in its purest form seeks no mirror and carries no conditions. It simply shines.

*Does this mean such people are unlike me? I’m ill-prepared for such a philosophical conundrum except to say I love everyone from the periphery of the madding crowd.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy