Essay: what is love?

DAY

Valentine's Day is an opportunity for this collective of fourteen women and one man to give us their respective vision of what love is in a book that is aimed at both the disillusioned( e)s of love only to “lovers”.

Maryse Hamelin, who defines herself as “a procrastinating anxiety”, opens the ball by telling us Quite frankly, love is complicated. After having wandered between stable loves and foraging, she says she is still and always anxious when the time comes to cross the Rubicon and go towards the other.

Mylène Mackay warns us against dangerous love. The greatest mistrust is imposed on certain types of men, such as the inveterate huckster, the “bad Messmer line” guru, the know-it-all, the inconsolable fake feminist, the one who seeks the model nurse , the one who speaks ill of his last loves and his mother, the calculator and other false guides of humanity, etc. 

Raphaëlle Corbeil recalls how love passion, what she calls “its little moments of eternity”, very often fades over time, while deploring the emotional imbalance within heterosexual couples, in disadvantage of women. Despite everything, she is not ready to give up on her quest for love.

“Shortening up”

Laura Doyle Péan denounces what she calls “the shrinking of women”, both through the unbridled pursuit of thinness through diets, various surgeries and anorexia, as well as second-class roles in the sphere of work.

For Maude Neveu-Villeneuve, the pandemic has been an opportunity for several women to come out of the closet and reorient their sexuality. “Heterosexuality was too restrictive, we had to add strings to the bow of our loves,” she says, because the confinement forced greater introspection.

Carmélie Jacob questions the notion of celibacy and the place that friendships should occupy in our lives. “Even as a couple, there is not only one important person in our lives. “

Véronique Alarie delves into her childhood and adolescence to express the love she experienced “in secret” for his teachers. “We sometimes forget how much the relationship between teacher and student is first and foremost one of love”, she notes.

Takwa Souissi tells us that his love of the French language took a hit when the government imposed the Charter of the French language. Love doesn't have to be, she says. “I started to cherish her less, respect her less, talk about her less. I no longer owed him my loyalty.” Too bad.

Julien Gravelle, the only man in the collection, confesses his love for a dog, he who was a guide and musher, that is to say driver of dog sledding. He thinks of the day when the beast will die: “I will hide neither my sorrow nor my tears for the one who offered me my most beautiful races in the forest”, he admits.

Anne Peyrouse happily takes us from the Swiss Alps to Quebec via the streets of Havana, between beauty and decay. “Love crosses borders,” she says between two splendid journeys and her nomadic writings.

Loneliness

Mélanie Michaud admits to knowing nothing about love, despite her 41 years and her more than ten romantic relationships, she who has given too much and not received enough. And she admits to being better off alone. “People should learn to live on their own. It’s very liberating and, above all, very healthy,” she concludes.

Maude Landry recounts her crush on a man she met by chance. While Fabiola Nirva Aladdin wonders what love is: “Is it simply a series of chemical reactions that animate our body at the sight of a person, such as the pulse which accelerates or the pupils who expand? Is it rather the desire to live the same life, accompanied by someone whose individuality we appreciate?  

For Michèle Nicole Provencher, solitude is a precious good that allows her to better enjoying her life. ” Until proof to the contrary, writing and ambition, in my eyes, go hand in hand with celibacy. 

Finally, Ouanessa Younsi, in a very touching text, says prefer to “know” to “like” someone. “ Both evoke duration, learning, “being born with”. ”

Now it’s up to you to say what love is.