Voices
February 2007 Whom Do We Love?
An editor’s letter for a magazine’s issue on the theme of love must be a love letter, right?
But what kind of love?
We have our great loves, our unbidden loves, love requited or not, agape, filial, parental, and parietal. We love the movies, music, words, chocolate, our kids, our friends, our patient pets, and sometimes snow. Often we love unwisely, wildly, or wrong-headedly. Love seems to seep out of us like strange syrup, a by-product of humanness. And sometimes its corollary — hate — gushes out with equal abandon.
When I was in my adolescence, a great epoch for maximum emotional leakage, my mother warned me to be aware that hate was not the opposite of love. She said indifference was. My mother was a great believer that life is to be lived with gusto and passion; and if you stumbled on your mistakes, your misplaced emotions – well, life offers do-overs, forgiveness, and opportunities for redress.
Our February issue offers plenty to love: oysters, books, stories, hard facts, and abounding inspiration. We know you may hate some and love others, just don’t be indifferent.
— Wickham Boyle
