Spring is here and love is definitely in the air. Not the hot, heavy, raunchy kind; I mean the more difficult loving. Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote that there is scarcely anything more difficult than to love one another--it is work, day labor, day labor, for God knows that there is no other word for it.

Most of us hope to someday experience a deep love. But I wonder if in the search (or wait) for a great love, we aren’t passing up great love? Our minds are so wrapped up in romantic love that we forget that this love can only happen where there’s been much forgiveness, much patience, much prayer, much learning, much death to self. And to have that deep love, one must have a certain level of enlightenment; and must have worked on themselves really hard, and collected and saved for it, and gathered honey.

Not a simple task, but, after living for a couple of decades, and going through a rollercoaster of emotions and experiences, you begin to understand (and appreciate), that it is love to hold the hand of a friend or family dying from AIDS and tell them it’s going to be okay, and prepare them a meal every so often, as opposed to judging their colorful past. It is love to forgive the lover that abandoned you when you had his child. It is love to embrace a parent that abused you and said you’d never amount to anything. It is love to let your husband be who he wants to be. It is love to forgive your boyfriend when he says he’ll call and he doesn’t (I read somewhere that when someone says they’ll call and they don’t, you must ask yourself “well, do I want them to call or do I want them to be happy?” Please note that this only applies to a normally available man, not the catch-me-if-you-can type of guy.) It is love when you can forgive yourself for a sordid past and look forward to the future, with more room to err. It is love to refrain from asking someone how in heaven’s name they messed up so badly.

Here, at Wakilisha Magazine, we share with you some of our labor of love--bringing you stories of some incredible Africans in the Diaspora. We certainly hope that you linger in our home. The music playing in the background is Ingele from Somi’s (our cover girl) new CD, Red Soil in My Eyes, which is available wherever CDs are sold.

In our Heart Matters section, our contributor Dorothy Ghettuba writes about a personal search for happiness; its elusivity, and how it led her to an incredible journey towards self-discovery . In the Miles section, Sylvia Lyall writes about her trip to Syria, where she had a spiritual encounter of her own. Loyce Kareri, in our Society section, wonders if we--the generation X-ers--are not a tad too dazed and confused. In our Africa Issues section, Laban Opande discusses the political crisis in Zimbabwe. Don’t forget to browse all our other exciting articles--and as always, drop us a line.

Have a fabulous Spring and we hope to see you in the heat of summer, July, for our next issue. For now, enjoy your journey to true love--and remember it’s okay if you falter on occasion. We’ll cut you some slack and give you some big love.

Aluta Continua!

--kerubo