Enemy of Entropy
Archive for Love
Happy Birthday Sam!
41 years ago today, the sweetest, sexiest, most marvelous person in the universe was born. I have no idea why I’ve been blessed by his presence in my life, but I hope it never ends.
TotD: Emma Goldman on Love
Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful molder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?
Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere.
Emma Goldman, “Marriage and Love,” Anarchism and Other Essays (1911)
Diane Duane Rocks
Back when the Meisha Merlin warehouse was being cleaned out, Sam picked up a copy of The Sword and the Dragon, first volume of the Epic Tales of the Five by Diane Duane that MM put out. It contains The Door Into Fire and The Door Into Shadow.
I’ve wanted my own copies of the first three Tales of the Five books for decades, since reading an old friend’s copies. I’m still disappointed that MM never put out the next volume, which should have included The Door Into Sunset and the never-before-published The Door Into Starlight. But then, there are other people who have far more reason to be disappointed about MM matters than I do, so I can’t fuss too much. And I have this volume, and will continue to hold out hope that Duane will find a new publisher who will bring out the others sometime in my lifetime.
Anyway, I had to stop reading to show this bit to Sam. It sums up much of what I love about Duane’s philosophy.
…death is inevitable. But we have one power, as men and beasts and creatures of other planes. We can slow down the Death, we can die hard, and help all the worlds die hard. To live with vigor, to love powerfully and without caring whether we’re loved back, to let loose building and teaching and healing and all the arts that try to slow down the great Death. Especially joy, just joy itself. A joy flares bright and goes out like the stars that fall, but the little flare it makes slows down the great Death ever so slightly. That’s a triumph, that it can be slowed down at all, and by such a simple thing.
And That’s the Week
I consider Sunday the first day of the week, rather than the last.
It was a week full of appointments for the girl, and getting paperwork shuffled to various bureaucracies. Sam and I had lovely dates Wednesday and tonight, although both of us were so exhausted Wednesday that we turned in much earlier than usual.
Sam and Saturday
Yes, it was another date night. Yay! (They are the highlights of my week, with good reason.) The girl went out on a date, so we had the house to ourselves.
It still feels odd, at times, not to have any kids around, and not to even be worried about picking them up. We like the young man she’s dating, so we feel fairly good about her being out with him, and don’t get very nervous. Still, there’s a certain level of awareness that never seems to go away when you can’t personally verify your child’s immediate wellbeing.
In any case, it was a lovely evening. I do love my Sam, and he never does stop spoiling me.
