themarginalian.org · 6 hours ago

Love Anyway – the Marginalian

Maria Popova weaves together Louise Erdrich, Loren Eiseley, and her own quiet reckoning with mortality to arrive at something that feels less like an argument than a recognition: that choosing love and joy in full knowledge of loss is not denial, but the deepest form of courage. Erdrich's words anchor the piece - "You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up" - not as warning but as invitation. What lingers longest is Eiseley's scene of small birds gathered in a forest glade after a raven has taken one of their own, their grief slowly, haltingly giving way to song: "they were the singers of life, and not of death." It is a reminder that the impulse toward beauty and connection does not require the absence of darkness - it rises, stubbornly, from within it. To love anyway, Popova suggests, is not naivety but the very point of being alive.