February 20th, 2021
There is something about a direct kind of love that is irreplaceable.
Last winter, I bought this long-sleeve shirt.
One of the first times I wore it was at a convention in Hastings, the very last one my mom came to.
She looked at my shirt and told me how beautiful she thought the rose was on it.
As far as I know, my mom was not a fan of anime. (That’s an assumption, but she had never expressed any love of Japanese cinema to me.) She had no idea what a Cowboy Bebop was and didn’t really have an interest in finding out.
But she really loved that rose.
And she always made a point to point out the things that she loved.
It made her a remarkable kind of joy to be around.
Among so many other things, I got my love for America’s Funniest Home Videos from her. (I named the first chapter of my first book after that very show.) It is one of the first things I remember watching with her and it was one of the last.
Like her, it lacked pretense. It clearly communicated what it was all about. It was fun and it was direct.
I miss that directness a whole lot right now.
We so frequently bend the frequency of our words in order to get to what we mean in roundabout ways. So many of us revel and wallow in irony, sarcasm, and outdated social contracts.
We need to tell each other how much we love those roses.
Boldly, fearlessly, directly with love.
The Den 