I'm Major Jackson, and this is the slowdown.

One of my favorite questions in life is when someone asks,

how much do you love me?

And then the friend, lover, partner, parent, child will say this much

and spread their arms wide apart and the gesture meant to signal a lot.

In a classic 90s film, White Men Can't Jump, Rosie Perez's character, Gloria, poses this

very question to boyfriend Billy, played by Woody Harrelson.

How much do you love me? she asked.

Billy responds, I love you, infinity.

That's not enough, Gloria says.

Billy, infinity's the biggest number there is.

Gloria, it's not.

Billy, what's bigger? Gloria, Gloria. It's not. Billy. What's bigger? Gloria. Infinity plus two. The question is a challenging one, though, because affection is not quantifiable, which is why I am always speechless or caught off

guard by it.

I feel love from the death of my being.

How can I give a calculable sense of that?

I can only reach for language and metaphor,

with hopes that my wit captures the far reaches of my feelings.

I might give a goofball answer like,

I love you more than I love my nose. The question is also challenging because love does not arrive on the daily and grand symbolic gestures. Affection is signaled in minute ways,

if at all. It is one of the lessons we mature into. A random phone call between siblings.

A box of favorite cookies brought to the office by a co-worker. The completion of a daily household

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