Some people say that love is more than a feeling. They say love is an action. A verb. To love is to do, to show up in a way that is good and kind and compassionate. I disagree. I do believe that love is more than just a feeling, but it’s not an action. It’s something else entirely. I think that love is a place.

Think about the phrase “falling in love.” Those words evoke a powerful image: letting go, losing control, falling into the unknown. But I think those words are much more literal than we’ve ever given them credit for. I think it truly is a falling in; I think that to fall in love is to gain access to a hidden, secret place inside of us that isn’t a part of our physical existence. It’s a holy place, a room filled with light and softness that has been created inside of us to give God somewhere to live.

I have fallen in love many times, with people and places and things. With moments in time. With words and ideas and with memories. I read a quote recently that said, “Sanskrit has ninety-six words for love; ancient Persian has eighty; Greek three; and English simply one.” One is enough for me, because it’s all the same. There is no distinction between falling in love with a man and falling in love with the way the earth smells after it rains. Each one is powerful and frightening because each one topples me into that space inside me, the room hidden somewhere in the middle of my ribcage, where the only thing that exists is something sacred. I have learned that love doesn’t come from me. I am a scabby, broken little thing who, when left to my own devices, can do little more than simply survive. But love trumps everything, can even outlast survival, and that is much too large a concept for my itty, wee brain to comprehend. It is bigger than me because it has nothing to do with me at all. It exists everywhere, all the time, whether or not I’m paying attention to it. But every once in awhile, if I am very, very lucky, something will happen that will push me past the barriers of what is human and will throw me headlong into that place where love lives. I know when it’s happening because it’s shocking- it takes my breath away. It’s like walking down an empty hallway, feeling lost and alone, and suddenly a door opens and the air is full of voices and laughter and the scraping of chairs. There was something big going on inside that room, but you would have never known, would have just kept on walking and missed it completely, unless someone happened to open the door just as you passed by.

The trick is learning how to have access to that place of love all time. I imagine true happiness comes when falling in love stops surprising us because it’s continuously going on. Something happens and we fall, then before we get the chance to dust ourselves off and climb out of that sacred place into the world of more familiar things, we fall again. It happens over and over and over until we finally decide to stop trying to leave. We throw up our hands, look around us and say, “Well, this looks like a good spot to rest.” We roll out our mats in a comfortable corner and before we know it, that place has begun to feel like home.

There’s a poem by Rumi that begins, “This is love: to fly toward a secret sky.” Like getting on an airplane bound for some distant city, love is a destination. Thankfully, it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to get you there. All you have to do is close your eyes, and let yourself fall.