last weekend, i had the pleasure of sharing with my friends (some new and some old) a fun fact about myself which is that my favorite genre of writing is Love Letters. it’s a genre that i think people simultaneously put too little and too much effort into. too little in the sense that i believe that people don’t share their love as much as they should, and too much in the sense that i think Love Letters do not have to have flowering prose and metaphors inside metaphors for them to be sufficiently valuable.
for example, here’s one of my favorite love letters:
The Orange At lunchtime I bought a huge orange— The size of it made us all laugh. I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave— They got quarters and I had a half. And that orange, it made me so happy, As ordinary things often do Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park. This is peace and contentment. It’s new. The rest of the day was quite easy. I did all the jobs on my list And enjoyed them and had some time over. I love you. I’m glad I exist. — Wendy Cope
Love to me is noticing, and appreciating, and elevating little things to be bigger and more important than they reasonably should be by people who do not love those things.
i love the stream trail at reinhardt redwood regional park. sure, the trail itself, but also the fact that from it, you can access what seems like a dozen more trails in the park.
i love that while we were still in the trailhead parking lot, a large fluffy white dog ran up to me and presented itself for pats, which Isha promptly gave. earlier in the day, Isha said that something she wanted to do today is pet a dog. i love how she’s comfortable asking for what she wants because how else is the world supposed to know what it’s supposed to make happen? while she was petting the dog, its owner grinned at us and said “you made someone very happy today”; hearing that made me happy. i love that phrase and will be spreading it as soon as i can.
i love that at the very start of the trail, we saw a brown snake move really fast into the brush and at the end of the trail, we saw a brown lizard hiding in the sand. i think it’s important i mention their camouflage because it leaves the door open for the world of reptiles we did not notice; i’m sure if we did, i’d love them too.
i love how many insects we saw on the trail. some dragonflies, a shy white butterfly, a set of more gregarious yellow butterflies, a spider, a large silky web, and an aggregation of ladybugs (by the way, that’s what a group of them are called). i love how Isha spent a lot of time looking at water striders, insects we saw in a pond that are so small and thin such that they can walk on water; it was hard to see their bodies, but it was easy to see their shadows in the water; i thought about how sometimes it’s easier to appreciate what things leave behind as opposed to the things themselves.
i love that we heard the stream burbling and the wind whistling and the sunlight streaming through the leaves of the trees. i love that we saw baby lavender stalks and baby wild raspberries and also baby humans strapped to the fronts and backs of their walking fathers.
i love that we took a detour inspired only by the fact that the path was called the Fern Trail. Isha loves ferns, and i painted one on a mug i made for her once. i love her and i love the way she stops every 20 minutes to squat down and admire some plants or moss or fungi or to touch a log or to pick a wildflower (shh, don’t tell). her phone background for some time was a field of three-leaf clovers, and i love how i got to have a bit more green in my world (even indoors) whenever she would click the power button in order to check the time.
as we were coming out of the trail, we saw no less than sixty people, a running club probably, heading in. one of the people leading the group said “hi” with a smile on their face and then said “oh, it’s good to see you again”; they’re the owner of a plant shop i’ve stopped by in Oakland. earlier in the trail, i said “go Suns!” to someone representing Phoenix with a purple and gold cap; i wonder if they’re from Arizona too. i love how big of a world it is and how we get to make it smaller by noticing each other. and if you’re reading this, i likely love you too. which is why the next time you’re on a trail and noticing, and appreciating, and elevating little things to be bigger, i hope you stash some memories to share with me, just like Wendy Cope did with her huge orange.
to see some more (shorter) love letters, feel free to follow me on IG at @hapsriness