Love Has a Shape

Love has a shape.

And its precise contours and dimensions map exactly onto a person we know intimately. That’s why in that person’s absence we feel an emptiness that no one else can fill. When love says, “you” that you is not a generic referent but the precise delineation of an identity.

The gesture, a habit of speech, the idiosyncratic likes and dislikes, a peculiar expression, a story funny or sad—are the things love treasures up in memory in an effort to paint a picture of the beloved in his or her absence. To think of a loved person is to call up that face and those shoulders and hands that are as familiar and close as ones own.

When love recollects these particulars, the laughter comes easy and is often mixed with tears. But though these acts of remembrance bring a momentary solace and pleasure, they are images flickering on a screen. Love cannot embrace a shadow.

Love’s embrace is not an effort to possess and hang onto. Rather, the embrace leaves an imprint on love, which is a memory of a shape and a presence, a person known to us and without whom life cannot be imagined or—not imagined fully.