For as long as I can remember, I have loved love. Every culture and peoples, for as far back as we know, have a way to express these ideas and ideals of love. A quick google search reveals the Greek names such as: agape, philautia, etc. The Ghanaian adinkra gave us symbols Akoma and Odo Nnyew Fie Kwan. The eighteenth century gave us romance stories.
In the 80s, a band called Foreigner sang: “I want to know what love is.” During the next decade, bell hooks published All About Love: a new vision. And way before that, around 54 ce, Paul wrote to the Corinthians a definition of love. Following in their footsteps, this newsletter is all about love. This newsletter is a quest to know what love is.
Starting on January 25, 2023 and every three weeks thereafter, LOA will tell short stories that showcase various types of relationships at a point of conflict. If a story starts with: “What had happened was…” that episode is a true story. That is, it’s narrative nonfiction. It happened to me or someone I know (told with their permission). If an episode starts with “Once upon a time…” or “Picture this…” well that story possibly, probably, could have happened to someone, somewhere in part or in whole, maybe.
The stories will end in the style of choose-your-own-adventure. The reader will decide if they want heads, tails, or the edge. The heads options will be neutral or logical responses to the situation. It might be what had happened.
The tails answers are for those days when you just can’t go high and you just need to, in the safety of story and imagination, show your … tail.
The edge, that third side of the coin, is the option that presents a possible loving response.
I hope that in the comments, members of this community will share another possible loving response. People committed to growing their practice of love with one another might share how that loving response might be applied to a different type of relationship. We might share which adventure we took that day. We might even share if we were in a similar situation as the story and how it went and how we might have wanted it to go instead. No matter what we share, the goal in all being to love one another or to love one another better.
This newsletter is about love as a verb. Love in action. How we do love.
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Welcome. So delighted you’ve engaged.
devotedly,
Nicole Scoggins