Love conveyed in intimate language, language you don't often hear, rarely in a lifetime, soft and low toned. It is together-language, sometimes between a couple, sometimes among a few.

I got my idea about this from the children's book called The Tomten. What language was the Tomten speaking, and why couldn't we understand him? The Tomten was creeping around at night looking at people sleeping. He walked in the farmyard silently in the muffled snow, always alone.

My mother read a lot of Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka books to us, myself and my siblings, when we were children, and also Snip, Snap, and Snur. As the twig is bent, so grows the tree, as the saying goes.

Despite the prowling aspect, the Tomten is about love, and just as often, about sorrow and understanding. It is often about all three.

If you hear the Tomten at all, it will be barely audible, so soft and low. The sound becomes something that soothes rather than elucidates. Yet, it is understood. It is an intimacy that the oppressed share with each other under the shadow of their oppressor. It is salve, soothing wounds. Is the Tomten among the oppressed?

The secret is spoken between lovers after years together and many battles. The words are, more often than not, mundane. If you listened carefully to each word, you would not find out a single secret.

Old husbands sit next to their wives and talk about the coming rain or a crop or something that needs fixing, resting their elbows on the table, maybe, or looking into their coffee cups. Small talk meaning nothing and everything.

This kind of talk is understanding of sorrow, disappointment, trouble, love, passion, and death.

It is a gift of comfort to another soul.