By El Houssine Lahsini
By El Houssine Lahsini
Morocco World News
Casablanca, May 22, 2012
I have kept quiet so long, not choosing to discuss any of the topics that seem a bit controversial in a society full of schizophrenics, pedophiles and the like. It is about defining a word. Though it may seem simple to you, for me, it is hard to get a gist of it, which has been associated with different colors and symbols, that some associate with a red rose, whereas, others associate it with a heart, sketched on a wall or in a public street, or tattooed on a philanderer’s big arm. Such a word is not of that complex morphology but consists of four simple letters, two vowels and two consonants that sound so natural when you say it, “L O V E.” Though these letters seem so light and easy to pronounce, they are truly heavy to bear within a poor heart.
L O V E, these four letters have kept wanderers like me, philosophers who live in ivory tours, sociologist who live among crowds and the noise of the city, poets who spend their time in description and seeking revelation, authors who might have tasted cruelties of different colors and laymen who truly express their feelings in cries and barbarous laughter, all busy and tirelessly studying its latent and minute secrets. Each in his or her way, each philosophizing and claiming he or she has attained the truth, each hallucinating his or her way, each providing his or her own evidence on what facts to believe or reject. One might accept all and, at the same time, reject all, since each differs from the other.
In this article, I choose not to define or talk about what those four simple letters L O V E signify to me or what they represent to me, if I truly know what the term “me” stands for. I am not here to define or to impose my own description of what seems so obscure in reality, but seems so crystal clear within poor hearts of lovers, within what seems to you and your lover as fiction or illusion. Sometimes, it is a heavenly world where each desires to hug or embrace each other, where each dreams of no walls, no social boundaries, no obscenities, no taboos, no rejections, no inhibitions, no melancholies, and where each accepts each not caring much about their body’s imperfections, how they look like, how they speak, how they behave, or how they smile.
I wish I could invest much in words to provide an adequate description of these simple letters L O V E, which together compose a complex and a heavy word, that can cause such a hard time and to breathe with difficulty when trying to pronounce it. It is like when you close your eyes and all that is heavenly made by angels comes to your mundane world as a diamond-like butterfly, which keeps hovering above your head and you delicately stretch your innocent hand to touch it but it remains out of reach. Then you try again, not knowing what is pain, sadness, unhappiness or tiredness. It is like when you fall asleep and dream of the wild, where everything that has a soul speaks to and calls for you, where birds and oak trees call you by your name that your friends rarely call you by, where you feel like running and nothing stops you, where you feel like singing the way you like and nothing disturbs you.
L is the first letter, resembles an oak tree, tall as a stick, which the shepherd uses to hark his obnoxious sheep, and stands for Loneliness. It starts with loneliness, when you see the lover bears the heavy word within his or her poor heart, not knowing where to go, where to hide, to seek refuge within the jungle or within himself or herself, burning with fire.
O is the second letter, looks like a cycle, like a cyclone, like a ring made up by a tornado or the mouth of an outrageous volcano, and stands for Oblivion. It is when you feel Oblivious, not knowing what to do, what to eat, what to say, what to think about, what to write and so it goes. It is when you feel lost within your oblivious philosophy, like a philosopher who speaks ancient wisdom that nobody understands, and you feel totally estranged and lost within forgetfulness.
V is the third letter, resembles the wings of a bird with the head of a horse, described in the Quran, on which the prophet Mohammed (pbuh) flew to the seven skies and visited heaven and Gabriel, the angel of revelation, and stands for Will. It is the will to live, to have power, to resurrect from ashes, to regenerate and for renewal.
E is the fourth letter, looks like a well-locked door. A door to heaven, which needs an original key to be opened, stands for Eagerness. It is a key, particular to each lover, which opens a special and a particular heart.
The four letters together, though they seem simple, make ‘LOVE’, which is so heavy to bear within a heart so longing with LONELINESS, OBLIVION, WILL, and EAGERNESS.
El Houssine Lahsini is an MA student of “Moroccan American Studies” at Hassan II University/ faculty of Humanities/Ben M’sik, Casablanca. He holds a Bachelor degree in ‘English Studies’ and Licence Professionnelle in ‘English Language Teaching (ELT) from Chouaib Dokkali University-El Jadida. His is interested in applied linguistics, postcolonial studies, Gender Studies and Historiography.
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