What do you call a thing that excites you, intrigues you, enriches and enthralls you?  Love.  Right.

Kiran Desai conjures young love in her novel, The Inheritance of Loss, with words like these:

When they would finally attempt to rise from those indolent afternoons they spent together, Gyan and Sai would have melted into each other like pats of butter - how difficult it was to cool and compose themselves back into their individual beings.

And old love with these:

Father Booty looked about at his craggy bit of mountainside - violet bamboo orchids and pale ginger lilies spicing the air; a glimpse of the Teesta far below that was no color at all right now, just a dark light shining on its way to join the Brahmaputra.  Such wilderness could not incite a gentle love - he loved it fiercely, intensely.

And here we have a modern myth shattered by a few exquisite phrases.  The myth that tells us fiery love is for the young, with a bland assortment of affection left over for the elderly.

But of course, all that warrant-less ageism serves no one, for all of us do age.  Why not face the truth of inexhaustible ardor?

I've developed a keen attraction to making video.  The learning curve is steep, especially as I migrate from user friendly iMovie editing to the more complicated Adobe Premiere Pro.  I need the granularity of the high end tool.  Here's what the respective pick-up lines of the two might sound like:

iMovie:  Here are some rocks.  Pile them however you want.  Voilà.  Your movie is done.

Premiere Pro:  Here's the beach.  There's the sea.  We'll build a castle, or anything else in the universe you can possibly imagine.

I'm devoted to these grains of sand.  Even dry tutorials fill me with longing.  Look what I will be able to do with this art form!  The anticipation is excruciatingly rich, imagination way ahead of my skills, which only encourages me more.

For two days I've struggled (an experienced techno-therapist at my side) with project settings and how they effect output.  A headache inducing affair.  But the prospect of bringing my technical aplomb up to speed with my desire is worth the agitation.

Young love.  Old love.  New love.  Bold love.  Forget what you've been told love.

I think we know the operative word here.

Photo Ajith Rajeswari, Sand Sculptor, Harrisons Hot Springs, BC, Canada - Creative Commons 3.0 Unported