on life, love, etcetera

What I learned from my mother is that love is action. What I learned from my father is that love is appreciation. What I learned from my sister is that love is thankful. What I learned from my brother, David, is that love is joyful. What I learned from my brother, Todd, is that love is acceptance.

My husband has taught me that love is passionate and romantic. My children have taught me that love is endless and all consuming.

All of these lessons are valuable but the one that registers so deeply as I get older is that love is action. My mother may be my biggest critic – and I need to stop listening to her words, which constantly hurt my feelings, and look instead to her actions which do, in fact, speak louder than her words. When I was younger and she saw how insecure I was about how I looked, she paid for modeling lessons at Barbizon and plastic surgery that was subtle and skillful and helped me feel less like an ugly duckling. These actions paved the way for me to become more confident and, as a result, more successful and engaged in life. In essence, she gave me a great start in the world.

My dad has always made me feel appreciated. He sees the lengths I go to in pursuit of my passions and always gives me unconditional support. More than that, he somehow conveys (through a few choice observations) that he notices every bit of effort I extend. I can’t explain adequately how much this means to a type-A, people-pleaser like me but he is one of the few people to hone in on the subtlest of details.

My sister is my role model. My mantra is, of course, WWLD? (“What Would Lori Do?”) Lori took my mother’s lessons to heart and is all action. She never stops looking for an opportunity to give, participate or pass along something she no longer needs. Lori taught me the value of a thank you note – she writes them for even the smallest of things and is the reason others get them from me! I think my sister is amazing and unique and I hope to become more like her.

David, my brother, is all about play. From him, I’ve learned to take life less seriously and devote more time to fun, especially the kind where you pull random strangers into your game! I think he is part of the reason we strive to be so inclusive in our entertaining. What “the more, the merrier” really means, I learned from my brother, David.

From Todd, I learned that love is acceptance. We’ve always been a bit on the fringes of our family, two artistic souls who looked at the world and imagined other things there. But we understand each other perfectly and have always accepted that we were ok. I’m thankful to Todd for always appreciating my culinary efforts. Beyond taste, he appreciates how cooking can be artistic expression.

My husband has been the romantic, passionate man of my dreams. He is easily ten times more romantic than I’ve ever been and I am touched by his deep sensitivity as to how I am faring at any given moment. I’ve found in him all the things my family taught me: action, appreciation, thankfulness, joy and acceptance. And I thought I’d just found a guy who was cute, kind and poised for success! What I really got, however, was a life partner who – just by never giving up on me nor letting me give up on him – is love in action.

Our children are a two-way street of boundless, transcendant love. It is breathtaking to love and feel love this way. I doubt there is a drug that can compare, at least not for me. All I know is that we manufacture A LOT of it here and I hope it spills over to everyone we know. Need some? We’ll share!

It’s funny as I’m writing this that I’m thinking back to when they were babies and toddlers. I’m actually glad they were little before the advent of Facebook or Twitter. I would have bored you all to death with every utterance or milestone and they’d probably cringe (someday) reading it. As it is, they have only the good stuff – a yearly journal entry by Paul, a few stories by me and this.

This, by the way, is the product of the past forty odd years. I’m still learning a lot every day but had such a moment of clarity (at 5am today), I had to get up and write down these observations. So, what am I saying, exactly?

Go forth. Stop saying. Start doing.