A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.

Beginning my talk about the short story Dr. Sexson asked us to read I'd like to quote a few lines from one of my favorite movies as a young adolescent. It comes from Ten Things I Hate About You and it goes like this:

Bianca: There's a difference between like and love. Because, I like my Skechers, but I love my Prada backpack.
Chastity: But I love my Skechers.
Bianca: That's because you don't have a Prada backpack.

Humorous, certainly, but it also shows exactly what the story "A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud." is trying to communicate to us. We as humans do not undertake a task without preparation from learning to crawl and walk, the steps to riding a bike, to learning to swim, and even how to perform our job in a satisfactory manner as we are this very moment. But when it comes to love, we certainly have little to no preparation. We start out with things like "puppy love" when we are near the age of five or so and haven't fully understood the complications that can come from being in contact with the opposite sex, mainly cooties. We then graduate to "crushes" the cute boy in our sixth grade math class that has the best shoes and coolest hair. Again I will borrow a quote from another memorable movie, Sixteen Candles. "That's why they call them crushes if they were easy they'd call them something else." We then move on to our first actual relationships, loves, and heartbreak. But nothing in life prepares us for what we will encounter on the way and nothing in life teaches us how to be good at love.

Some of us may find it hard to express our emotions, while others as shown in the Ten Things I Hate About You quote, find it immensely easy but that doesn't mean they can fully back or understand when they say "I love you." So like the author in order to understand what love means I'd like to go back to the beginning and reference what an eight year old things love means.

"Love is that first feeling you feel before all the bad stuff gets in the way."

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love."

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth."

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your french fries without making them give you any of theirs."

"Love is when someone hurts you. And you get so mad but you don’t yell at them because you know it would hurt their feelings."

"Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired."

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."

"Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate."

"When you tell someone something bad about yourself and you’re scared they won’t love you anymore. But then you get surprised because not only do they still love you, they love you even more."

"There are two kinds of love: Our love and God’s love. But God makes both kinds of them."

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore."

"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night."

"Love is when mommy gives daddy the best piece of chicken."

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."

"I let my big sister pick on me because my Mom says she only picks on me because she loves me. So I pick on my baby sister because I love her."

"Love cards like Valentine’s cards say stuff on them that we’d like to say ourselves, but we wouldn’t be caught dead saying."

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you"

"You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."

"God could have said magic words to make the nails fall off the cross, but He didn’t. That’s love."