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I have a coworker who is an older man, close to retirement. He used to be homeless but got a job in our greenhouse where he helps us wash our plastics and sanitize houses. He’s covered in faded traditional tattoos and mysterious scars. We’ve nicknamed him “Pops.” His real name is the same as my brother’s. He constantly shares things with me and looks out for me on days when I’m running around in a panic. Occasionally he shows up in a MAGA hat and my boss has to remind him that we can’t wear anything political at work.
This morning I was mixing soil and sneezed and he said “bless you” and offered me an orange. Tbh I wanted to be angry at him today, but it all melted away. It’s really easy to soothe our discomfort by vilifying others. It’s harder to recognize that people are a unique result of millions of factors and genes and events colliding over generations.
Was thinking about the task of love today (it can be a task!! 😵💫) and thought of this bell hooks quote from All About Love, “When we choose to love we choose to move against fear—against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect—to find ourselves in the other.” 🧡 Sending love to y'all today 🫂
Nov 6, 2024
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Sometimes I get caught up chasing ideals of love. Growing up with immigrant parents in the US, I wished my parents showed me love the way my friends' parents did. My parents seemed cold in comparison to the affection I saw my friends receiving. I fell for best friends who did love me but never enough and never in the ways I wanted them to.
Nowadays I have grown to appreciate the ways in which my parents do show me love -- when they ask if I've eaten or when I dye my mom's hair as she peels me oranges. Friendship to me no longer needs to be tied up in such rigid binaries. It's not the label of a relationship I'm after but rather just the intimacy of knowing other people. I try not to focus so much on how I wish to be loved by other people and instead pay attention to all the different ways I am loved. Acting with a mindset of abundance rather than scarcity. And in that way, everything feels enough.
Disclaimer: Establishing boundaries is paramount. Love that is corrosive or manipulative is not love.
Feb 1, 2024
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makes me realize how abundant love is and how powerful and connected we all are! also “all of this would be easier if i was nicer to myself”
May 17, 2025
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It is soooooooo hard to believe in these days when everyone is set on villainising one another because that’s just easier than empathising or understanding, and then also to not use this to slip into an “I can fix him” mindset. But I am a bell hooks babe and I believe that the true power of love is to transform us. To be loved is to be CHANGED!!!!
May 3, 2024
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May 21, 2025
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Jul 31, 2024
