In school studying to be a teacher, I learned about scaffolding. I was taught scaffolding means that we learn basic concepts and gradually move toward the more complex. Knowledge builds on itself. That makes sense to me in the way we learn to read simple texts, perform basic mathematics, and conduct elementary experiments, and as we get older the tasks we complete get harder. At the end of it all, if everything goes right, we have a basic understanding of how things work.

It is not a stretch to believe love works like that, too. Foundational understanding of relationships — our stories, our dreams, our blind spots, our soft spots, our superpowers — builds, over time, in the same way our conceptual understanding develops. The scaffolding of love builds the same kind of sturdy walls as language and literacy.

Scaffolding speaks to the way love grows. How it strengthens and deepens and expands over time. Love’s scaffolding is about seasons and tides. Love’s scaffolding is about the falling apart and falling back together. Love’s scaffolding is about the relationship between time and impermanence. Love’s scaffolding is about the beginner’s mind and wisdom. Love’s scaffolding is about bridges and bones.