All About Love Part 2

How bell hooks empowered me to advocate for the love I want

I was spiraling. As I type this, I can remember the heaviness I felt because involuntarily, I had to audit my life. I have a personal saying that once I know better, I must do better because I cannot unknow what I learned. Every conversation, every comment, every interaction could not go without scrutiny from me. My mind raced with the questions, “does this feel loving? am I being loved here?” This came with good reason; I spent years of my life pouring into community but felt like I came up short with support at times. I felt like people must have felt when Madoff made off with their money! Where were my dividends after all I invested?! I felt myself teetering between frustration and pure rage.

I said this then, and I still believe it now, rage is a change agent. Right or wrong, good or bad. When people feel rage, my personal belief is that something in their life has to be destroyed and soon. But what was my rage directed at? I couldn’t see it clearly….YET (more on rage in a different post, chile).

I stopped reading the book for a while. It tore me open in a way that I wasn’t equipped to go face regular society yet. I felt so sensitive to everyone’s lovelessness, especially my own.

When I say lovelessness, I really mean how people can autopilot through their days and not think of how they are loving or being loved in the day to day. I think of burnt-out employees, parents, caregivers, lovers, just numbing and disconnecting and just going through the motions. Naturally, I love a good time. I love to experience and turn my full attention to enjoying things. My friend used to say I had to get “maximum enjoyment out of everything” and hell yeah he was right! Why shouldn’t everything we touch have a little love on it?! I was typically a sunshine, fire sign (Leo), morning time, everything is fine girl. But I felt the darkness looming over me. I checked in with my friend reading it and he told me he had quit it chapters ago! I was alone for sure.

Months later, on Instagram, I saw an ad for a book club in Brooklyn that was purposed to discussing All About Love at that time and more literature from bell hooks. At first, I cringed at the idea of reopening the book at all. My relationships were on the rocks, I was isolating, I ghosted my therapist at the time. I became hypersensitive and I was trying to drag myself out of constant feels, why would I double down and go do it again?!

There was something inside of me that knew I would go, though. There was a small whisper that told me I needed to be there. I think it was my instinct to be in community. Maybe other people had figured out what I didn’t concerning this text. Maybe these people would know what I needed. The first day I ventured to Brooklyn to the book club, I experienced something that I never knew I needed.

I came to my first meeting super honest, I raised my hand during discussion and said, “To be honest, I read most of the book then I stopped because it was ripping me to shreds. I’m here to finish and to see if anyone else has been ripped to shreds.” There was a gentle laughter that let me know, they know exactly what I’m talking about and some people were in their chairs doing everything they could to hold themselves together as well.

The thing about being a creative, and letting it touch everything about your person is, you never know when something new will be planted in you. It could be a song, a conversation, a flower that gives way to an entire new world in your mind.

This is very much why I feel like writing and conversation are my mediums in this season of my life as a creative. The conversations reminded me of 8th grade in the best ways possible. This was the year that Mr. Webb (my reading teacher) taught our class about talking to the text, questioning it, writing in the margins of our books. That’s truly where I learned to grapple with perspective.

We grappled, we questioned, we challenged our elder, we challenged ourselves and the society we lived in. Are we loving from scarcity? How do we embody a healthier love ethic?

bell hooks garners an audience of alchemists because we’re seeking to transmute our experiences into improved and intentional dynamics for our children and the families and communities we create. If we let the words just lay on the pages, they were arranged in vain. We need to be building on the ethics that were formed with a mind that wants to witness Black people, all Black people, flourishing and evolving. Our discussions remind us that we’re always in practice.

Love is a practice. It is not a practice to perfection, but a practice to liberation. I want people to think about themselves when I say this; If we do not practice asking to be loved better, if we do not have the temperament, or the language or the courage, are we agreeing to a life only half expressed? Do we get to show how we feel, have our needs met, or experience the pleasure we desire?

And here is the “put me back together” of it all. bell hooks made one thing super clear to me over and over, you will not have what you do not advocate for. To hope love comes to us in the form we need it in, when we need it is a gamble. We need to practice. Every single thing we do concerning one another needs practice.

Sometimes we bury ourselves under “tradition” as a standard so we can feel like we are doing the “right” thing. But, how often do we challenge these dynamics and constructs? especially as society evolves? Shouldn’t we be asking ourselves if these traditions are still relevant and healthy to the society we wish to create?

That is what I’m here to do. I’m different when it comes to love these days. In many ways I feel radicalized. I want to dive deep in the genetic code of love and its relation to Blackness and extract what got us to where we are and discuss what I think can move us forward. I welcome all respectful and progressive discourse.

A few things I committed to doing to improve love in my life to start (I’ll expound in a future post!):

1. Accepting the fullness of my own humanity

2. Not autopiloting with the beliefs of my parents or elders

3. Asking for what I need

Let’s do this thang!