So what is love ? Here in my sticky space thinking about where my "road" will take me, I have to say that whilst the first two parts of the triptych relate to a concrete lover, this third is a solitary journey.
I guess it's not surprising really, a man who is calling his lover a mad useless whore is probably not that enamoured any more, if ever he was. Love chooses so often to be blind, refuses to see, hear, feel the truth so when he left, and left for good, it was still a shock. I guess that relationships that are a bit hot and cold, on off, can be almost mesmeric, the ends never feel like the end because there is always a beginning not long after, a day, a week, a month, passes and the elastic pings back, and you are waking up in bed together again, making tea, making love, as if nothing has happened. Until the next row, the next end. 
So this love affair that had taken me on a roller coaster tour of both heaven and hell was finally over. He left. And I was devastated. I was devastated but I was also free. I didn't want to be free at first. For a while I hopped about at the bottom of the cage, moping, pecking at the few seeds that were left, wishing and hoping he'd change his mind and realise he'd made a terrible mistake and loved me passionately. That didn't happen. We emailed, his emails dry and terse and deliberately dull, mine raging and desperate, I behaved badly I had no reason not to, I didn't feel bad about behaving badly I'd tied myself in knots trying to conform to him and his fridge-cold family. 
In traditional chinese medicine the flavour associated with the heart is bitter. We think of love, and hearts and flowers and all the gorgeous tender elements spring to mind, we think it should be sweet. It can be sweet. But love comes in myriad shapes and forms. I was reading a while back about a man who was climbing Everest and stopped close by to the place where another climber had perished and is now a landmark on the trek to the top. Many climbers had passed him thinking he was the landmark body and it was only when someone heard a faint groan that they realised he was not dead but dying. He had taken a rest and become frozen to the spot, aid was called but it was too late. So there that man was climbing a mountain, I'm thinking you have to be pretty passionate about climbing to climb Everest but in the end dying in that climb, I wonder how that is, would not-climbing Everest have been a different kind of death, a dreadful abandonment of lived life. I am thinking out loud. I am wondering if passion is love ?
Is passion love ? A passion for horses, for reading, for writing, for painting, for dancing, for sailing, for a lover, for a friend, for your children or grandchildren. I am sure I would fight to my last claw if someone hurt my children or grandchildren, what parent/grandparent wouldn't. Well not every parent is like that, some leave, some let go. 
Is it the holding on that makes love love ? The tenacious attachment to whatever the loved thing is, animal, vegetable or mineral. The home, the place that feels like home, the memories, the dream, the notion, the fairy tale we have told ourselves since forever that will surely one day come true. Does the holding on perpetuate or destroy love, force it to heel, make stuffy the air. Or does the holding mean that what might otherwise be a casual throwaway thing becomes a sustained note, a constant to return to in flesh or spirit or both.
Just thinking on to the page. When my love, the man I wanted to wake with forever despite the darkness of his moods, left when he said he had someone new, when the someone new no longer wanted him and he returned to drink, did I stop loving him, I didn't, I couldn't, I was mad at him, I hated him, but a flame in my heart just wouldn't die, I'd douse it with tears of fury and frustration and there a few days later it would spark up again, unwanted and yet so wanted. I was thankful for my other loves to focus on, my work, my children and grandchildren, but always it came back to this wretched man I couldn't budge out no matter how hard I tried. Friends said "let go" my children thought he wasn't worth jack ... they were probably right. Is that love tho' ? Is that love ? Or is it obsession ? Infatuation ? Addiction ? 
I'm letting myself be quite dull in this blog post, no-one really cares about a  long ago love affair that didn't stay the distance. An unrequited love. Yeah, yeah, so what, so you loved him, had a few nice holidays, took a few walks, blah, blah, blah ... And that in a way is the sum of an affair when it finishes, you split up the goods, he takes his memories, you take yours - forgive me this could be a same sex relationship too, or even a friendship tho' breaks in friendships tend to be more subtle. 
So letting words spill on to the page, what is love ? Does love need to cut both ways can it be a one way street, does a beach or a woodland love the beings that inhabit and care about it ? Is it necessary for a man to love a woman who loves him or vice versa ? Is it ok to love someone who doesn't seem to love you ? Is it ok to love generally ? Just love life, love the deliciousness of being, of existing. Is it only a problem when the lover asks that the lovee reciprocate in kind, I love you therefore you must love me. We only ask that of living beings we deem mentally complex enough to love us as we love them. If I pick up a stone, I don't ask for that stone to love me, but if I fall for a man, in order to feel safe I want there to be some kind of mirroring, some gesture that suggests he feels as I do. Enough thoughts maybe for tonight .. to be continued