Welcome to the February series, 14 days of love, loss, & longing. During the two weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day, paid subscribers receive an email each day. In these letters, I explore the tender emotions and musings that emerge across the first few weeks of a new year as we get showered in hearts before the heavily-commercialized love day (which is also my birthday).
This is Day 1 of the 14-day series. This one’s free for all subscribers but if you’d like to receive these daily emails, upgrade to a paid subscription now.
I have a confession to make which will probably shock no one: I love Valentine’s Day. And not because it’s my birthday. I mean, the whole 4-week period from late January until mid-February when red, white, and pink starts to seep into our everything —I love it. Suddenly, I’m all for the heart-shaped, heart-covered, and heart-themed. I know it’s sappy. I know it’s capitalism. At any other time of year, I like the mashup of two extremes (lace with a blazer or Selina Kyle & Catwoman) as far as aesthetics go. At any other time of year, I need some spiky edges. But now, as I emerge from my January hibernation, I gravitate to the crimson-tinged, to the soft, to the romantic. The spikes fall off and I feel all doughy.
[My very tough, 7th grade AP-math teacher once said she was, “like an M&M, hard on the outside but sweet on the inside” with a cheeky grin. We left California before I found out if that was true.]
It may be why I launched this series now rather than waiting until the conventional Advent time-frame (Christmas). I’ve always wanted to do something that follows that structure of a small token to look forward to or a tiny pause that recipients can plan a ritual around. Anna Brones’ Christmas version through her newsletter,
, was the perfect inspiration to do just that via the electronic infrastructure I had already built.So here we are.
I was going to write a few of these letters ahead of time based on a rough outline I mapped out but alas, that didn’t happen. In truth, I spent too much energy working on this.
I don’t want to make too many promises of what this series will be because 1) it’s the first year I do it and 2) it’s now going to be a daily practice instead of a pre-scheduled one. What I can say about this series is it’s going to explore a range of topics as I share my inner thoughts that tend to come up around this time of year. As you might’ve guessed from its name, the goal is for it to be about the spectrum of love and the gray zones around and within that spectrum. Grief, friendship, land, art, growth, self, family, pets (Penny must make an appearance, obviously), romance, and enchantment.
There will be memes, photos, and music. It’s going to be a diary with visuals. Each letter will conclude with an about last night section where I share something from the night before. It might be a film, an article, a book. It might be a fun anecdote or a question to ponder.
Speaking of which, let’s start with a question to mull over for the next two weeks. How do you show up in love?
In the end, this series is here for you to do with it what you want. All I ask is that you’re open to receiving whatever it evokes for you.
The Basics of 14 Days of LLL
From February 1st until the 14th, paid subscribers receive a daily letter from me. You, the reader, aren’t required to do anything. Even though this is a series, the emails are separate so you don’t need to read them in sequence or even right away. Partake at your own pace.
You can click through the whole series here.
Today’s letter is free for everyone. Previews/teasers of the next letters will not be sent to free subscribers. The only way to receive these daily dispatches until the 14th is to upgrade your subscription!
If there’s someone you know who would love a daily dose of love, you can also gift a subscription.