This morning I gave the two people I love most in this world cards with gnomes on telling them I loved them. Last night, before bed, I laid out pink cloth; placed beeswax candles in a celebration ring; wrapped small items in tissue. During the night, when the winds were howling and the night sky lit only by distant stars, I got up from sleep more times than I’d like but less than is normal in our home to nurse my son; to soothe him; to stroke him; to sing him back to sleep. Which of these speaks more of my love: the objects laid atop the table ready to capture on Instagram, or the quiet, unseen labour of mothering a small child?
When I was small my pappa — my favourite man before the two I now share my home with came along— gave me a tattered book called Love is a Special Way of Feeling. He’d bought it in one of the many charity shops he frequented on a daily basis in the hours between work shifts. He mostly just went in them to socialise; not to buy anything really but to catch up with the volunteers he was friends with, and — as we learned after he died—to play an active, necessary role within his community. His family didn’t know the half of what my granda got up to when he was a outside his home until story after story flooded in from people from all walks of life and parts of his town when he passed away. Things he has given : time; money; care; advice. Things he had done: listened; supported; empathised; campaigned; LOVED.
That book, like countless others, was lost to one or other house move; it exists now only in my memory. I googled it this morning and was shocked to see how little of it I actually remembered. Each page is so touching but two in particular stood out for me, the first is about mothers, the second about shelter; two themes I have been drawn to explore in my writing for some time.
Love is how we feel on our mother’s lap, it tells me, and perhaps because my son has started asking to nurse by saying he wants on my “lap” and by naming his chosen side “left mama”; this one fills me right up with too many emotions to name. What is love if not knowing you are the whole world to someone, perhaps particularly your mother. So many of us never experience that, and I am so grateful to be trying my best to let my wee one know he is welcome in my arms, always.
And love is when we find a place that shelters us. Oh my heart, this is almost too much for words this week, is it not? 22,000 people dead in Turkey and Syria; a baby girl found alive ,still attached to her already dead mama; a father holding the only part of his daughter’s body he could reach for hours ; children left orphans on a bitter winter’s night in a place already long shown it’s fair share of grief and sorrow. A young trans girl, her whole bright life ahead of her; murdered for simply being who she is. A community already expected to constantly accept heartache, fear, violence — shaken to its core once more.
Love, oh love, how do we learn your ways again? How do we act in times like this; in these broken, heart aching moments?
I don’t know if I know, to be honest, but I know I am desperate to do my best. It feels like we need to learn to sit with it all, properly. To acknowledge that what happens to any of us happens to all of us. That we are more connected than we have been led to believe. Any of us who have not been kept safe by those that should have; any of us left without safe shelter; these things ripple out and leave us all reeling. My son will need more support to sleep on windy nights; I will need more support to find my way back from depression as a survivor of trauma; all of us witnessing the consistent abuses and heartache that so many people have to go through will be affected in ways we may not fully understand. What hurts one of us hurts us all.
Might this work the other way, too? In keeping others safe; in loving just for the sake of loving; might we have an impact on people (and creatures generally)we may never even see? Is it too much of a push to imagine love as a spark catching; a wave rolling; a whisper growing into a deafening call we can no longer ignore?
I don’t feel in a position to view love as anything other than this—this group effort; this brightening light; this echoing cry— I see no other way to move through this life other than guided by such a view.
Alice Vincent is offering a fantastic opportunity to work with her in support of the earthquake victims.
Refugease are a brilliant organisation if you wish to make a donation, they so much need our support.
Many vigils have been and are being held for Brianna Ghey. You can support our friends within the Trans community through attending one , or by donating to Mermaids.
Love begins at home, in the original home of our own bodies. What does your body need to process what you have witnessed your kin suffer this week? How can you support yourself first and foremost so you can show up for your loved ones and your community when you are able?
I am sending you so much love, and the reminder to my own self , and anyone else that welcomes it, that love, only love — is the answer to it all.
Love, only love, ever and forever love.
The love that knows that we are human and we have the ability to undo so much of what holds us back; to loosen ourselves from the ties that try to keep us apart.
The love that reminds us that our bones are good bones; our hearts are good hearts; thanks that we are gorgeous, actually .
We are capable of such good, fucking gorgeous love. X
Just lovely, you have such a unique ability to witness the pain but still believe in the beauty of life.
This anonymous life I live has given me so much hope when before all I had was experience and strength. Too much strength, actually.