Hello you,
Let me tell you an incomplete love story. It’s not the happily ever after kind, it’s a story about the doing of love. Down in the mess and muck of the everyday, rather than tucked away, static, in some castle somewhere.
It’s a story in list form. No beginning middle or end to speak of, just a broad sketch of the ways that I’m practicing love right now. Does that count as a story? I think so. Perhaps some additional context might help you to see it as one too.
See, I forgot how to love myself. And when I say love myself, I mean a rich, full-bodied kind of love. The kind that makes space for all of you, even the bits that are pointy or embarrassing or so strangely formed that you’re certain you must be the only one that comes in that shape.
It’s the kind of love that bell hooks speaks about in her indispensable book, All About Love. Have you read it? She speaks of love as a verb. A choice. Intention and action woven together. She says that “to truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients - care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”
And I’d forgotten. I think so many of us do. Because that kind of love is inconvenient as fuck. It doesn’t fit nicely into who we’re supposed to be. That kind of love requires you to be who you actually are. It requires having your own back, and tending to your own needs. It requires hard choices, showing your tender underbelly, and letting yourself unabashedly love what you love.
As I said, it’s an unfinished love story. Unlikely to ever come to a storybook ending, it feels too real and alive for a that. But as the practice unfolds, on this day dedicated to love, this is the story of what I’m doing to embody love right now:
Making myself extraordinarily earnest playlists
Working with a teacher who supports me and challenges my shit in equal measure
Weekly budgeting
Releasing force and urgency wherever it arises
Teaching rest
Building altars
Calling my family
Dancing on the wood floor in soft socks
Giving myself external accountability
Writing morning pages
Reading books on monsters and witches
Sitting with the uncomfortable
Letting myself be seen, even when it’s vulnerable af
Playing with new ways to dress
Letting myself shamelessly love uncool things
Watching the parakeets in Victoria Park
Buying new underwear that fits
Getting clear on what’s mine to hold, and what isn’t
Baking babka
Lying like a cat in the sun
Holding space for clients to be nuanced and messy and human
Acknowledging what’s true beyond what’s convenient
Meditating on ancestral roots
Voicenoting friends
Reminding myself (over and over and over) that I don’t have to figure it all out alone
Do you have your own practices of love? Drop a comment and tell me about them, won’t you?
Pillow forts are my love language
I’ve recently taken on a new restorative class, accessible both online and in person. 5pm every Sunday.
It’s the first in person class I’ve taught since the before times, and let me tell you: I’m so immensely glad to be back. Building pillow forts, offering people more blankets (always more blankets), and holding space for folks to slow down is one of my favourite things to do.
If you want to join, either in person or online, you can book your place here. Can’t wait to see you soon x
What I’m listening to (self-love edition)
Little Bird by Jenny Owen Youngs
〰️ Classes