I am still learning about love. I thought I understood it--not just mother love, but the love for one's parents, for one's husband, and for one's laotong. I've experienced the other types of love--pity love, respectful love and gratitude love. But looking at our secret fan with its messages written between Snow Flower and me over many years, I see that I didn't value the most important love--deep-heart love.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the different forms of love and recognizes the importance of deep, meaningful connections.
In this quote, Lisa See discusses her journey of understanding love in its various forms, including familial love, romantic love, and friendship. She emphasizes that, despite her experiences and knowledge about love, she has come to realize that the most profound type of love—deep-heart love—was something she undervalued, highlighting the complexity and depth of human relationships.
In practice
During a wedding speech to highlight the importance of deep love in relationships.
Nu shu means women's writing. And it was a secret writing system that was invented by women, used by women and kept a secret by women in one very remote county in China for a thousand years. It's the only language that was invented and used by women to have been found anywhere in the world.
a laotong relationship is made by choice...when we first looked in each other's eyes in the palanquin I felt something special pass between us--like a spark to start a fire or a seed to grow rice. But a single spark is not enough to warm a room nor is a single seed enough to grow a fruitful crop. Deep love--true-heart love--must grow.
When I knew I couldn't suffer another moment of pain, and tears fell on my bloody bindings, my mother spoke softly into my ear, encouraging me to go one more hour, one more day, one more week, reminding me of the rewards I would have if I carried on a little longer. In this way, she taught me how to endure — not just the physical trials of footbinding and childbearing but the more torturous pain of the heart, mind, and soul.
In love, you have loosened yourself like seawater
What do any of us really know about love?
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.
I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap
From in the shadow she calls. And in the shadow she finds a way, finds a way. And in the shadow she crawls, clutching her faded photograph. My image under her thumb. Yes with a message for my heart. She’s been everybody else’s girl maybe one day she’ll be her own.
Love is the fire that warms our lives with unparalleled joy and divine hope. Love should be our walk and our talk.
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