How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Define My Terms

I found this article while researching in the library yesterday. I think it's great.

By Nora Miller
Published in ETC: A Review of General Semantics (62): 2005

By ‘how’ I mean not only to what extent but also by what actions. Not only the degree but also the mechanism. Not only the “feeling” but also the “thought.”

By ‘love’ I refer to the extraordinary process of connection that grows out of the mutual discovery of self and other, and the fundamental sense of self-worth that comes from the unconditional acceptance of another.

By ‘thee’ I mean your own sweet self, not as I have dreamed you, but as you have shown to me in countless hours of conversation, the person that radiates out from your very core, brilliant and bright.

With terms thus defined, I answer my original query—how do I love thee?

I choose to love thee in the same way that I have chosen to give meaning to my life, as the willful act of a sentient entity. Where no meaning exists, I assign it. Where no love exists, I create it.

I choose to see beauty in your eyes and hear wisdom in your words, to build within me a structure of belief that holds you dear, to lay down the pathways that lead my thoughts every back to you.

I love thee with a heart that fills to overflowing each time you say my name with just a hint of smile in your voice and a deep play of passion in your eyes.

I love thee with a mind that marvels at the very fact of you, so new to me and yet so known and close it feels like home and for the great relief of having you to talk to.

I love thee with a body suddenly alive to possibilities and patterns of response and connection that well up at a touch from a seemingly endless source of pleasure and reverence.

I love thee as one whole person loves another whole person, a one-to-one mapping, onto and into, the union of two sets, a community of two. How do you love me?