What We Talk About When We Talk About Words

Words, I think, are like wild animals. You can't keep them in cages. For one, language is always changing, and two, reality doesn't care for language.

We use words, invented language to define our world: we feel a twisting in our stomachs and call it "hunger" or call it "guilt" and in knowing the name of our butterfly-insides, we can move on, or we can dwell on the feeling, but the naming changes it, somehow. It's like the old comparison of English vs the Eskimos: we have a few words for snow where they have dozens. How does this change our experience of it?

In What We Talk About, they all recount their stories and ideas about love. Mel and Terri both give their soapbox speeches right out, in drunken rants and old arguments, and Nick and Laura briefly mention a pro-love ideology, but their love is shown more through their actions. Laura seems to be, at least in this brief window into their day-to-day life, seems to be Nick's center of gravity, and he's content just to look at her, or feel her hand in his. Of course, they're also newlyweds, but I digress.

The point is that they've all defined love differently. Terri stayed with a man who "dragged her around by her ankles" and "tried to kill her", threatening both her and her new husband repeatedly after she left him, claiming even now that his behavior was a manifestation of "love." Mel "loved" his first wife, but now he "hates her guts." Nick and Laura, as far as we can see, neither beat each other, nor constantly inform the other that if they died, they could move on pretty quickly, but when we see them, they're newly married.

The heart of the story seems to be the definition of love. To Terri, Ed's love was terrifyingly real, and nothing will dissuade her from the point. To Mel, love is something that you travel into and can get out of like driving through the bad part of town. Nick and Laura have yet to survive the period of "love" where you treat each other like glass. If the author had a less cynical view of love, I think we would have seen Nick and Laura as tried-and-true, as opposed to the couple whose opinions can be discounted because of their stage in life.

What they're all talking about, to my definition, to the way these words define my life, is codependence (Ed and Terri), infatuation (Nick and Laura), and a state of kind, but shallow, affection that can be killed with time (Mel).

But that's the crazy thing: you can't keep language in a box, because it isn't something stagnant. Language grows and words lose their meanings, and ideas represent different things to different people. The way I define life is the only way I'm capable of it. I cannot see through someone else's eyes; I cannot stand firm in their convictions, I cannot understand what I do not understand without study and convincing. If I try to describe to a blind man what I see, he may not see it.

Someone can say "and then he put a sharp metal blade against his skin and dislodged little pieces of himself," and think they're being perfectly clear, but I probably wouldn't (as you probably didn't) get a picture in my head of someone shaving.

To me, Love is patient; love is kind. Love does not envy; it is not proud.

Or, Love is:

1.	a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.

2.	a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.

3.	sexual passion or desire.

4.	a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.

5.	(used in direct address as a term of endearment, affection, or the like): Would you like to see a movie, love?

6.	a love affair; an intensely amorous incident; amour.

7.	sexual intercourse; copulation.