On Receiving Love In All Forms
An alternative to the Valentine's Day Industrial Complex.
HI
At 8:39am on Valentine’s Day, my friend Emma texted me a photograph of a flagrantly fuchsia bougainvillea bush, backgrounded by a trashcan spray-painted with the number 69. Love you! she said, to which I replied: This image contains every feeling I have. Our conversation wandered, and she asked how I felt about the holiday. I took a moment, a breath, a body / nervous system / psyche scan. It tortured me for decades, I typed. Now that I’m not fruitlessly searching for a man, I don’t feel tortured.
I sighed with relief. I’d prefer not to be tortured by, well, anything—but certainly not by a Hallmark holiday and the phantom of a would-be partner I’d been questing after for decades. Was this growth? In the absence of the torture I felt in years past, was there room for something like enjoyment?
I love love, in all its forms. Especially in all its forms. As the TikTok youth would say, I’m a lover girl. As Emma replied: Here’s to less torture.
These holidays are what we make of them, shaped by wherever we place our attention. And spending Valentine’s Day on the internet means bearing witness to a parade of paeans to people’s beloveds, exaggerated devotions I imagine most would prefer to be titrated out on a daily basis.
These days, thanks to the DEI-ification of online discourse, it’s common to see posts about many shades of love: Galentine’s, Palentine’s, and even Singles Awareness Day exalt the alternatives. Being solo on V Day doesn’t feel quite so lonely with all that company.
Considering how to further minimize psychospiritual torture and maximize displays of bougainvillea, sexual freedom, and joy, I revisited a list I made a few years ago. I wanted to explore the many ways I experience a love that transcends romance, to remind myself of how ever-present love is if I open myself to it.
I updated that list (and an opening invitation), and share it below. I’d be tickled if you added your own “The love of _____” in comments.
🩷
Today, I receive love in all of its forms. I resist the prioritizing of romantic love over the infinite forms of love that exist all around me. I let my heart relax, knowing that my body and mind are designed to receive love of all kinds:
The love of the stars from light years away.
The love of my ancestors.
The love of staying on the phone in silence.
The love of slicing open a ripe piece of fruit.
The love of telling it like it is.
The love of knowing I’m safe.
The love of dancing like a maniac.
The love of a good sweat.
The love of a handwritten note.
The love of the sun warming the back of my head.
The love of someone asking how I am, and meaning it.
The love of not holding it all alone.
The love of rain after fire.
The love of reading poetry out loud.
The love of listening.
The love of a packed movie theater.
The love of breathing with someone.
The love of not turning away from death.
The love of clean sheets.
The love of recognizing a friend’s voice.
The love of bare feet on dirt, grass, rock, river.
The love of telling the truth when it’s terrifying.
The love of holding a friend’s hand.
The love of planting a seed and knowing it will grow.
The love of the sky holding me, even when I’m lonely.
The love of a dog’s tail speaking. A cat purring.
The love of letting myself imagine a new world.
The love of imagining a new world together—and doing something about it.
The love of the wild lynx:
And for the love of verse, I’ll leave you with a set of lines from poet Victoria Chang.
The Lovers
There is a wildfire
starving on top of a lake.
See how the water holds fire
but cannot end it?
We insist on love
when all we want is mercy.
Scroll on for what I’ve been watching, reading, and listening to in these rigorous times.
SOME HOT LINKS
To watch.
If a chilling tale of scamfluencers and the Wellness Industrial Complex sounds like fodder for a hot night in, check out Netflix’s new series “Apple Cider Vinegar.”
Palate cleanse with the new season of “Queer Eye”—I hadn’t watched in years and felt shockingly soothed, renewed, revivified by each episode.
To read.
I’m nearly done with Samantha Harvey’s 2024 Booker Prize-winning novel Orbital, and hurtling through the cosmos with six astronauts on the International Space Station feels like a very healthy distance to maintain from Earth right now. Every sentence has me swooning.
For a punchier read, my friend
penned a collection of hilarious, poignant thank-you notes to her exes.To listen.
“The Telepathy Tapes” will take you for a (journalistically sound) ride across physical, mental, and astral planes. Get ready to question what you think you know about neurodivergence, communication, connection, and the bounds of reality.
STAY SANE
Thank you, sweet reader, for being your own kind of love in my life. Don’t forget to drop a comment with your addition to “The love of _____” litany.
xo,
Lily
The love of love.
The love of perinnial blooms of Wisteria and Amaryllis singing their joyous presence year after year. This feeds my faith in LIFE.