“What is love” is an ancient riddle that has been pondered for centuries without anything near a comprehensible answer.  I have no clearer explanation to articulate than the generations before me.  My best explanation contains only three words: “love just is”.  

Indian guri Paramahansa Yogananda who introduced many westerners to Eastern teachings and meditation, expressed clearly why trying to define love is like attempting to nail Jello to a tree when he said “to describe love is very difficult, for the same reason that words cannot fully describe the flavor of an orange. You have to taste the fruit to know its flavor…” 

Twenty years ago in a study done jointly by the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and Tulane University they found examples of romantic love in at least 147 of the 166 cultures studied. This discovery in one swoop wiped out the idea that love is an invention of the Western mind rather than a biological fact.  Romantic love is a universal phenomenon and a human characteristic stretching across cultures.

Children have an almost clairvoyant ability to know and express the unabashed truth.  In their naïveté and innocence there can be a perceptual clarity that becomes largely lost with age.  A list of thoughts about “love” from four to nine-year olds has floated around for a while and it lends about as much accuracy as is humanly possible to the question “what is love?” Here are a few from that list:

”When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.” Billy – age 4

“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”  Chrissy – age 6

“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.” Terri – age 4

“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.” Danny – age 7

“Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.” Noelle – age 7 

“Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.” Tommy – age 6

“Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.”  Elaine – age 5
 
“Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.” Chris – age 7

“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.”  Jessica – age 8

 “It’s better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need somebody to clean up after them.” Lynette – 9

“If falling in love is anything like learning how to spell, I don’t want to do it. It takes too long.” Leo – 7)

“I’m in favor of love as long as it doesn’t happen when “The Simpsons” is on television.” Anita – 6

“”It’s love if they order one of those desserts that are on fire. They like to order those because it’s just like how their hearts are on fire.” Christine – 9 

Love will find you, even if you are trying to hide from it. I have been trying to hide from it since I was five, but the girls keep finding me.” Bobby – 8

Albert Einstein, said “How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?”  Trying to answer the “what is love” question is a completely impossible undertaking.  If Albert Einstein says so, it must be true.  I may not be able to describe love with precise detail but I sure know it when I feel it.  That is enough for me and I am grateful. 

Love is a temporary madness.  It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides.  And when it subsides you have to make a decision.  You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.  Because this is what love is.  Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not a decree of promises of eternal passion.  That is just being “in love” which any of us can convince ourselves we are.  Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.  Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two. 
St. Augustine