Am I capable of love? The biblical definition of love says love in not selfish and does not seek itself.  Yet the people who ask me that question claim to have it – love, a great love, a deeper understanding of love and the open-mind necessary to comprehend love.
Am I capable of love?  What if I were to give you a gift right now? No matter who you are or what you have done, a gift with no expectations from you. Listen to my music, listen to me play my violin.  Do you hear it? I am giving you the gift of music.  My gift is not wrapped in a pretty wrapper or something you can display on a shelf – but it is a gift born of a labor of love.  It is the most I can give because it is the sum of all my parts.  Most say they cannot deny that I love music because they see it in me when I play.  They see love, that is.  So what makes one think I cannot see that in myself?  Is it a mistake? Do I know know what I do?  There are many things born of innocence, but intent is not one of them.  It is by my intent that I share love through music, not my innocence.
Am I capable of love?  When love has left me I have cried.  I cried with my violin, I cried with my soul and sometimes, I even cry with my eyes.  When love left, the pieces of me were so sopping wet with sadness that everything inside me was drained into shapeless, colorless, odorless pools from which the savages of depression did drink.  Yet no one questions if I am capable of pain or sadness or hurt.
Am I capable of love?  I hear a song in everything I see.  The songs of shadows sing to me in ways that people have sometimes forgotten,  Shadows do not wear social masks and are visible in even the lowest light.  And though the edges may sometime be blurry, the hope with which love is coupled still whispers its tune.  I hear love everywhere I hear music.
Am I capable of love?  Are you?
Laura Nadine