Be generous and love more
When I started writing LIFE IS A VERB, the first book to emerge from these pages of 37days, I started noticing patterns, like all of life is a pattern.
What were the organizing patterns around which these essays fell? What lessons were they teaching me?
As I sat and read them and pondered what it takes to live with more intention, and as I followed the threads from these words, I discovered that there were six core practices that ground my (and perhaps our?) leading more mindful, intentional, and authentic lives, one of which is celebrated today in the U.S.–and that is to Love More. It is related to another of those core actions: Be Generous. And so, on this Valentine’s Day, below all the red boxes of candy, beyond those roses, and even behind the two little stuffed bears with magnetic hearts who hug like they are wacky out of control when they get too close to each other–underneath all that, just be generous and love more.
I’m tempted, always, to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a poem by You Know Who, as I have done in the past. Perhaps one of my favorites, a true love poem, or even valentines from (gasp) another poet, or these hearts made of beets, one of the finest vegetables in our galaxy or, at the very least, in our zip code.
But I think I’ll simplify this year. Let’s just all walk on our tiptoes, this heart day.
Walking on Tiptoe
like the others—horse, dog, and tiger—
though we thrill to their speed
as they flee. Even the mouse
bearing the great weight of a nugget
of dog food is enviably graceful.
There is little spring to our walk,
we are so burdened with responsibility,
all of the disciplinary actions
that have fallen to us, the punishments,
the killings, and all with our feet
bound stiff in the skins of the conquered.
But sometimes, in the early hours,
we can feel what it must have been like
to be one of them, up on our toes,
stealing past doors where others are sleeping,
and suddenly able to see in the dark.
-Ted Kooser
[The six practices? Say yes, Be Generous, Speak up, Love more, Trust Yourself, and Slow down…]
