Heart
Welcome to In a Word, a newsletter that cultivates thoughtfulness, one word at a time. If a friend forwarded you this email, click here to subscribe:
Hi, hello! Valentine’s week felt like the perfect time to devote a newsletter to the heartfelt. In a world of hot takes and cool cynics, where skepticism and derision are too often mislabeled as intelligence, and erudition, I crave earnest, unironic feeling.
So here we are, with a brief essay on what love does to a heart, followed by a collection of things that have warmed my heart lately. And also chocolate and bath bombs. Off we go!
Listen to the audio version (also known as a podcast) HERE.
In perfect moments, when my daughter is still and cuddly, or laughing hysterically, my heart swells to meet the moment. It can’t go on like that forever, and in the way of human hunger, as the moment crests, then plateaus, I’m already nostalgic for it.
Last week I read about “infantile amnesia,” the normal process by which we forget our memories from before age three or so by around age nine. These moments I treasure, the memories of which I’ll dole out to myself on harder days—she won’t remember them. Won’t she, though? In the architecture of her tiny heart, already capable of such deep feeling, doesn’t her blood pump cellular knowledge of her mother’s love? It is a knowing beyond remembering, I hope.
Also last week, I met a dad at the Children’s Museum with the speaking cadence, enthusiasm, and ponytail of Lin Manuel Miranda. (I’d like to introduce a motion to call these places Imaginariums, or something that doesn’t conjure an image of mannequin children, forever frozen in place.)
I commented that the dress-up princess robe his daughter asked him to help her with matched the layers of neon tulle on her cape. He quickly explained that it was a gift, that he and his wife tried to embrace gender-neutral clothing and toys, but this three year old was drawn to all things glitter, pink, and frills on her own.
They didn’t even know her gender before she was born, he said. He thought he’d wanted a boy but his daughter tenderized him as he marinated in her tiny world. He didn’t use the words tenderize or marinate, but I understood. He cries now when a random kid in the park is learning to walk, he said.
We follow our daughters in their divergent directions, mine toward the art room. As she scribbles yellow crayon on construction paper with the intensity of Alexander Hamilton writing the Federalist Papers—(I was really in the Hamilton headspace by then)—a memory emerges.
I only make things with my mind now. But in childhood, I spent many hours with my mom and sister, head bent toward the intricate work of my hands: bead necklaces, lanyards, handmade cards.
Sometimes we “made” paper by wetting and blending some sort of unprocessed paper (newspaper, maybe?) into a woody pulp. We dyed the pulp pink with food coloring, squeezed it dry, and pressed it onto heart-shaped wire. We went to bed with hands smelling like wet firewood.
After the paper hearts dried overnight, we glued delicate white doilies on top. We signed our names in gold Sharpie, giddy at the thought of giving them away.
In parenting, in all love, we hold our messy, pulpy hearts in our hands, delighted to give them away. This is why Lin’s doppelgänger (and Lin too, probably), cry at playgrounds now. Because the fragility of everything wedges itself into a lump in our throats, and mortality sometimes feels as close as our breath. The edge is closer than we realized.
In the moments I somehow long for as they’re happening, I notice the ache I feel (for hearts do not ache only from emptiness, but from fullness, too). I listen to the ringing in my ears that tells me this is holy ground. I let my eyes shine for a moment, a blurring that somehow makes it easier to see.
I shared these and all my favorite Trader Joe’s Valentine treats in my TJ’s find of the week highlight on Instagram.
I Call to My Mind a Love Story is for you if you want to follow God in so loving the world:
“What would it look like to remember how to love the world again even knowing it will break your heart? After all loving anything, loving anyone, is to consent to having your heart broken eventually. Loving is a risk, a shot in the dark, a radical act of faith and hope.”
Our Fear Facer Makes a New Friend: Listening to 9-yr-old Ella bravely deal with obsessive compulsive disorder moved me so much. Then the very end of the episode really got me.
My Touchstone and a Heart of Gold
A Twitter thread with wild plot twists
My two favorite comedians in earnest conversation. I loved it.
I wrote this for Mother’s Day last year, and wanted to share it with you here in this hearty issue:
Some last links worth a click:
Airbnb Reviews of Mothers’ Wombs (“Have given host severe heartburn so she is aware of my dissatisfaction.”)
May we open our hearts though it’s vulnerable, and risk loss in the name of love. May we tend to our own tenderness when we feel the hard shell of bitterness and apathy calcifying around it.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on anything this issue calls to mind for you. Simply respond to this email to let me know.
Gratefully, Jacey
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