love is work is love

this thing they call love is a lot of work — pleasure and pain, effort and ease, day in, day out — all balled up into one. love begins as a seed of the feeling, then you must water the feeling. the feeling is made tangible in the world through work: of showing up, of being present, of nurturing, of giving part of oneself to something else. or someone else. you cannot love a passion (art, dance, a cause, an idealogy) without the labor, nor can you love another person without the daily giving. and what is the point of laboring — without love?

the things I create here are all labors of love.

and love is a thing I create with my hands.