Kittens and rainbows? Love isn’t always like that

Earlier this year, Tara Ijai asked 53 people to write essays. The prompt was simple: Write about love. Now she’s compiled those essays into a book, “Love Meets Life.”

I met Ijai, who wears a hijab, a head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women, in 2017. Her faith made her a target for bullying. So Ijai wore heartshaped sunglasses. Behind those glasses, she felt less afraid.

“These are my love glasses,” Ijai told me. “I choose to see the world with love.”

Ijai gave heart-shaped glasses away. To her, it felt like a revolution, which is what she called her website, “Love Glasses Revolution.”

Since then, she’s become an ambassador of sorts, encouraging people to see the world with love.

Love, she found, comes in many forms, as evidenced by the essays.

“I believe people thought that our book was solely going to be filled with stories of kittens and rainbows,” Ijai said at a reading. Love doesn’t always look like that.

Uzma Jafri, a doctor and mother of four, wrote about the love in her grandfather’s blessing, “Keep living.”

Randy Walters wrote how sometimes love is like a chocolate milkshake.

Sandy Rogers, who got pregnant at 15, wrote about the sacrifices we make for love.

The youngest writer, McKenna Nadeau, 14, wrote about school, where she witnessed white students on the bus play “border patrol,” asking Hispanic students for their papers.

“Right now, it seems hard to find kindness,” McKenna wrote. That’s scary, especially when you’re a kid.

“At first, I didn’t think my story mattered,” McKenna said, “but I’ve learned that all stories matter.”

Stories can connect us, Ijai said. The release of the book was good timing, just as the election ended and toward the end of a chaotic year. However it’s defined, Ijai believes love is a superpower. And its story matters.