Things We See When We Love

When we love someone,
we begin to look at them more closely.

The way their expression changes when they smile.
The look on their face when they are lost in thought.
Their voice, the way they speak,
the way they walk, the way their hands move.

We remember the way they smell when they are near,
and recognize their voice
even among a crowd of people.

Places we once shared
become different places.

And we become curious.

What they love.
What they are afraid of.
When they are happiest.
What they might be thinking right now.

We loved just one person,
and things we had never noticed before
begin to appear.

When a child begins to love dinosaurs,
suddenly, dinosaurs seem to be everywhere.

In books,
and even in an unfamiliar stone
that makes us stop and look a little longer.

When a child begins to love flowers,
the small flowers along an ordinary path
begin to catch our eye.

When we grow fond of a tree,
we notice its first new leaves
and discover the day its flowers begin to bloom.

Then we notice the birds that visit it,
the tiny insects hovering around its flowers,
and the changing smell of the soil after rain.

All of these things
were there before we loved them.

There were countless expressions on that person's face.
The dinosaurs, the flowers,
the birds and the trees were all there.

We simply hadn't seen them yet.

Perhaps love is not about creating something
that wasn't there before,
but about discovering
what had been there all along.

And the things we come to know this way
never look quite the same,
even after love has passed.

Is there something you couldn't see
before you loved?

IYAKI