In some part of the world, a father is teaching his two year old daughter how to finger paint. He dips her fingers in the paint and gently guides them along with a hand on her wrist, making the paper a mess of bright colors. Thirteen thousand years in the past, a distant ancestor of his, in what would be known in the future as the Rouffignac Cave, would hoist his child up onto his shoulders and take her wrist, guiding it along the ceiling of the cave. The fingers leave a mess of scraggly marks in the film of clay on the roof, a little sign of the art lesson that had been going on in that fleeting moment thousands of years ago. There wasn’t any intention between the parent or their child that their tender moment would be solidified into rock and found by archeologists hungry to learn of some obscure past, but it would be a reminder of a trait that humans will never be able to shake: love.
In some high school during prom season, a teen drafts a love song during a math lecture. Her plan to ask her girlfriend to the dance, seen as a cheesy gesture by most, had been written over and over again by thousands upon thousands of different hands. In ancient Greece, a man, Seikilos, finds himself writing a love song to his greatest treasure, his wife Euterpes. His sweet words will find themselves on his dearest’s tombstone, etched into the smooth marble in hopes that if some part of her were still somehow awake, she could see it and be reminded of him. “As long as you’re alive, shine,” reads the first line, something so small that reveals how much Seikilos wanted his beloved’s beauty to be known, to make so many others smile with just her presence, so they could know just how important she is to him. Maybe, if he were still alive today, Seikilos would tell that teen girl to keep writing, to cherish the girl that she loves and to make her feel like she could shine.Â
In an area swarming with tourists, a college student and his friend pose for a selfie. The college student finds the perfect spot for them to stand and pose despite the massive crowds and he makes sure that the lighting is just right to capture this moment. He takes many photos of him and his friend together, wanting to immortalize not just the fact that he and his friend had gone to another country, but the fun and joy both had shared and the memories they made together. Perhaps Raphael wanted to do something similar in 1520, when he painted Self-Portrait with a Friend. With only a canvas, brush, and paint, he worked tirelessly to capture his buddy who he thought was special enough to capture permanently in a work of art. Though no one truly knows who the friend in the painting was, it doesn’t matter. The deep connection that Raphael had with this man is the most important subject of this piece – it’s not just him the artist wanted to capture, but his relationship with him. The college student may not have had the same skill in painting as Raphael did, but he did capture the same platonic love he had for his friend that the old master did.
A picture in a little scrapbook depicts two young girls playing at the park, and a woman looks at it fondly. The glossy photo holds a memory of her and her older sister playing tag under a warm summer sky. She remembers that day vividly, she and her sister split off shortly after the photo was taken to go play with others, as they had gotten into a fight over who was “it”. But as soon as a boy had started making fun of her, her older sister had swooped in to start yelling at him. Perhaps Louisa May Alcott had thought of something similar when she had written her novel Little Women, a story with characters she based directly on her own sisters. One could only assume that she thought of thousands of little memories of her and her sisters as her pen danced along the page with the love and care one could only have for their sibling. It only begs the question of what she had been thinking about when she wrote, “I could never love anyone as I love my sisters.” Maybe she had also been reminiscing on a time when her sisters had defended her; maybe it was just a simple scene of them sitting next to each other as they warmed near the fireplace. Whatever it could’ve been, it must’ve been near to her heart, just as so many memories are for us.
Somewhere out in space floats Voyager 1, a labor of love itself made by scientists who cherish humanity enough to want to devote their lives to its expansion into space. On that spacecraft sits a message to aliens in the form of a golden record. The record contains lots of things that have been important enough to present to other intelligent beings: Greetings in several different languages, Music from all over the world, and a multitude of sounds from Earth. But most importantly among these sounds are a kiss and a mother comforting her crying baby. They are the second and third sounds to appear on the record, only coming after the sounds of a pulsar near our planet. Many claim that humans are born violent, simply evil and greedy creatures that only care about themselves. But from the moment we began to draw on walls to the moment we sent out a craft to the stars and beyond, the message that has repeated over and over throughout time has always been “I love you”.