Love Is... Tue, Sep 19, 2017

     Back when I was in 10th grade, I was introduced to Kim Casali's Love Is comic strips. (If you've never seen one before, they're single-frame cartoon strips that originated from a series of love notes that New Zealand cartoonist Kim Casali drew for her future husband, Robert Casali.) I was introduced to her comic strips through the Los Angeles Times. Back in high school, I was an avid newspaper Sudoku player and one day, while playing, I decided to explore a section of the newspaper that I hardly ever touched - the Classified section. It was in that section that I met Kim's Love Is comic strips. From that day forward, I did my best to get my hands on a newspaper and when I did, I would eagerly make my way to the Classified section. There, usually on page 2, I would tear away that day's Love Is comic strip and add it to my collection. For about three years, I was able to obtain her comic strip almost each day. It wasn't until after high school that my collective habit began to fade as I didn't have much time to hunt down a newspaper in between my college courses. 

     Anyways, I mention this because this past weekend, while at my parent's house, I ran into my mini chest of Love Is. I was so glad I hadn't lost them and that they were still in fairly good condition. I think I must have sat in front of that chest for at least 30 minutes just looking at them all. And sitting there, looking at them, I realized why I enjoyed collecting them so much. Back in high school, if you were to ask me why I collected them, I would have probably said because I thought they were adorable. But now, after really thinking about the question, I would tell you that I collected them because they were (and still are) reminders of the many different faces and forms of love, that they're reminders of how simple acts of love can have enormous  effects on us, and that they're reminders of how love (in one form or another) is always around us.