In the spirit of Yellow Chapel work, This week I invited Consuelo Wise, Shannon Rickman, Gabe Flores, Arielle Renee, Dakota Lacroix, Marina Tait, Mary Edwards, Stephen Kurowski, Kellie Maledy, and Chelsea Clark-James to send over love lists that go beyond the romantic realm. The aftermath was woven into several unconventional love songs (by Richie Havens, Kate Bush. Laurie Anderson, The B-52s, Congress-Woman Malinda Jackson Parker and more) then piped out onto Freeform Portland radio waves.
Big love!
The Yellow Chapel
At the end of this fine week, as part of my upcoming work as Minister of Unconventional Love, I'll be officiating the marriage of two dear friends, Anneka and Ruby. In my research for this special occasion, I've discovered discussions of love are largely for music and trees. There are only a few who can wrap words around free pumping heart valves without spilling blood all over the place.
Alan Watts:
Consider love as a spectrum. There is not, as it were just nice love and nasty love, spiritual love and material love, mature affection on the one hand and infatuation on the other. These are all forms of the same energy. And you have to take it and let it grow where you find it. When you find only one of these forms existing, if at least you will water it, the rest will blossom as well.
Emily Dickinson:
There is
no first, or last
in Forever –
It is Centre, there,
all the time
Clarice Lispector:
I get scared. But my heart's beating. The inexplicable love makes the heart beat faster. The sole guarantee is that I was born. You are a form of being I, and I a form of being you: those are the limits of my possibility.
Whitman:
There we two, content, / happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.
Letters to Grandma
My Grandpa Ben is going to a nursing home today. He's been sliding into the depths of dementia for a few years now, and my nearly 90 year-old Grandma Dot can no longer take care of him on her own. It will be the first time in over 65 years that they will be living apart. There is sadness and an inevitable loneliness that may ensue, so I'm thinking of ways I can brighten their spirits 3000 miles away. In addition to doing what I can (writing letters, sending pictures, calling often and having food delivered), I'm asking friends and strangers to send letters about their own grandparents to my Grandma Dot. How have your grandparents influenced you? What was/is their story? How did they meet? How much time did/do you spend with them? What were/are their talents and quirks? What did/do they smell like? Etc. If you are interested in sending a letter, please send me an email.
XOXOX
Grandma Dot and Grandpa Ben. Their wedding day in Central Park, NYC.