I’ve been thinking about death a lot. How can I not? There is death all around me: I am witnessing multiple active genocides. I’m immersed in the constant violence that is racism, transphobia, capitalism, and ableism. I’m living the bleakness that is burgeoning climate catastrophe—to name a few. As morbid as it is, I’ve been thinking about death not as a way to spiral into hopelessness and deep fear (though I have my moments). I’ve been using death and its constant, inevitable, heartbreaking presence as a way to focus in on love. There’s something about knowing that all of this is ephemeral that makes me want to love it—my body, my loves, the ground underneath my feet—even more fiercely.
Something my partner and I’ve been talking about a lot together is the idea of leaning into love, surrendering to its force, giving ourselves up to its rhythms wholly. I’ve spent a lot of years feeling, receiving, and giving love up to the point where it met my resentment, stubbornness, fear, and resistance. And while I still experienced love then, I didn’t reach its depths; I didn’t let its depths reach me.
Meditating on death has reminded me of my own impermanence and how maybe it would behoove me to stop withholding my ardor for people, for things, for myself. That if I’m always telling myself to live without regrets, I need to love without regrets too. This isn’t a novel idea. There are whole books and entire songs about the importance of loving to the fullest. I guess I’m finally realizing, in my big age, how to embody that as a practice.
For me, that starts with not policing what and how I love by putting arbitrary limits on myself. It’s giving myself permission to express love when I want to, to say it to my friends more, to show outward appreciation for things that move me. It’s giving myself permission to be moved by things. I’m allowing myself to be openly romantic which means that I’m allowing myself to tap into the cheesiness that often accompanies love. I’m seeing that “cheese” as a result of what happens when I let myself be softened by love. As a recovering cynic, I always thought that cheesy meant cheap. These days, I’m finding that being cheesy makes love more playful, less serious.
I’m letting love move me, taking me where it wants to go, and sometimes that means love is taking me toward heartbreak. Since I’ve been opening up myself to love more, I’ve been getting my heart broken more. I used to be so afraid of heartbreak. Admittedly, I still am. But I am trying to not let it choose my steps. I want to love for the sake of love and in doing so, I understand that love will eventually end in some way, be it in intensity or a particular iteration, just like I, eventually, will end. I may as well love and love and love and love to the fullest.
I end each phone call with my mom and sister by telling them I love them. (There was a time I didn’t do that.) I picked a mandarin from my tree and while I ate it, I thought about how maybe the fruit is an offering of love and nourishment to me, and it tasted different, sweeter, more present in me. I’ve been telling my partner I love them when I feel the sensation of it coalescing in my body, even if it’s repetitive, even if I said it many times before. And sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly blue and drab and my mind drifts to horrific things, I feel a sense of peace knowing that when I die, at least I know without a shadow of a doubt that I have loved and been loved.
This month’s playlist is a continuation on the meditations I’ve been doing on death and love. On it, there’s songs from Dolly Parton, Helado Negro, Animal Collective, and Tracy Chapman. If you’re a paid subscriber (thank you so much for being here!) you’ll find the playlist below. If you’ve joined Big Time Sensuality at the free tier and want to enjoy this month’s playlist and other sharings soon to come, become a paid subscriber to support the labor of love I do here.