A Quote by Jeanette Winterson on love, essential, metaphor, and meeting

I used to believe that love was the highest value.  I still believe that love is the highest value.  I don't expect to be happy.  I don't imagine that I will find love, whatever that means, or that if I do find it, it will make me happy.  I don't think of love as the answer or the solution.  I think of love as a force of nature - as strong as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming, as drought-making as it is life-giving.  And when it burns out, the planet dies.

My little orbit of life circles love.  I daren't get any closer.  I'm not a mystic seeking final communion.  I don't go out without SPF 15.  I protect myself.

But today, when the sun is everywhere, and everything solid is nothing but its own shadow, I know that the real things in life, the things I remember, the things I turn over in my hands, are not houses, bank accounts, prizes or promotions.  What I remember is love - all love - love of this dirt road, this sunrise, a day by the river, the stranger I met in a cafe.