The Book of Love has music in it...

"The book of love is long and boring...

no one can lift the damn thing.

It's full of charts, and facts, and figures,

and instructions for dancing.

But I....I love it when you read to me,

and you...you can read me anything."

"The book of love has music in it

In fact, it's where music comes from.

Some of its just transcendental,

some of its just really dumb.

But I....I love it when you sing to me.

And you...you can sing me anything."



"The book of love is long and boring,

And written very long ago.

It's full of flowers and heart shaped boxes,

And things we're all too young to know.

But I...I love when you give me things.

And you...you ought to give me wedding rings."

I learned this song from some friends over break, and only caught snatches of the words.  I just remembered to look it up.  After looking it up, I cried (of course), and realized, with a start, that this is my new Love Song.

  As my relationship goes on, there comes a moment where I just hear a song and know it's the one to describe my life at this stage.  There was the cutesie puppy love song, the sweet song, the melancholy song...and now this.  Okay, and I should provide a footnote: no, I do not want a wedding ring.  I mean, I do someday.  But I am 18. I am fine with being a girlfriend. More than fine. Ecstatic. Anyway.

  Somehow, hearing this song and writing out the lyrics has captured everything I would say about love.And, here's the peculiar thing about love--if you were to ask me to describe it, I think I could to a fair job.  It would take me awhile, and I would draft, and edit, and sit and stare at the paper for a bit, and tuck the pen behind my ear, and laugh at some memories, and cry at some others.  I would love it; I would moan over how long it was taking me, but secretly I'd fall asleep thinking about what to add.  As the song says, the book of love is long.  I'd have maybe two hundred pages, all written out in flowy cursive, that would contain every fragment of pain and longing, joy and euphoria, that I have experienced in the last ten months.  And then I would present you, wrapped in a long red ribbon: well written and grammatically correct paragraphs about love that would let you know how I felt about it.  But let me sing how I feel about love, and...ah.  You could feel it, too.  The words that looked pretty on the page are gorgeous when they soar over music and melody.  The things that felt right in my head make themselves whole and perfect in a song.  They hold themselves out of time.  I think one of the reasons I love writing and singing so much is because they both suspend animation--it pulls at my memories of sweet kisses in the snow, of rolling around in the grass, of playing, of laughing, of all of the little tiny things that make up the vast definition of love.  In my memory of this song, and of this short piece of writing, I will always be 18 and two months and 13 days old, deeply in love, and happy. If that is not magic, I don't know what is.