ELLIS Reads: All About Love by bell hooks
Love is in the air.
I swear, every month a different friend of mine is finally getting boo'd up with someone that's feeling right for them. And every month another friend is choosing to love themselves enough to let the wrong one go. Plus I'm blessed to be marrying my best friend, with our wedding coming up in eleven days. I'm definitely starting to feel gushy as I get ready to write my vows and hug a couple hundred people. I'll fill you in on that next month!
I don't know about you though, but for me this summer feels like one to savor and remember. Now well into my third season of "Summertime Chi", the show's cast of characters is showing some clear signs of growth into our more settled, secure, and sexy selves. I praise god for that because she really had us in a hot mess for a minute there. But things are looking up because we have the courage to choose love, no matter how big or small that choice is.
Pride was one huge love fest all around the world, and I hope you got to celebrate somehow. Preferably outside, in either meaning of the term that you prefer, because Pride is the biggest affirmation of all that real love is inclusive, colorful, fun, and as abundant as the air, water, and sunshine that all come together to create rainbows.
Speaking of sunshine, it's been so hot that I've started taking two showers a day in order to stay fresh instead of funky - if you smell what I mean. Even this twice daily ritual has become a practice where I am learning to love my body a little more with every wash and all the (usually frustrating) time spent picking out and putting on clothes to wear.
"How can I choose love - today - right now?" is a question I'm asking myself, and now you, because it's one that positively shapes what I pay attention to on a day-to-day basis. It's the kind of question that can be answered in an infinite number of ways, asked by everybody at the same time. Choosing love is inherently creative even when it doesn't work out exactly how we hoped it would. And it's impossible to run out of things to learn about love.
All of which is why All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks is the book of the 21st century, and that's not even a hot take. Not only is it the book that I've seen the most in people’s hands, purses, backpacks, and Instagram profiles, but All About Love is also the book that has the highest percentage of people who buy it and actually read the whole thing. When bell hooks's writing catches ahold of you, she doesn't let go. The book itself is dedicated "to holding on" and was published right at the turn of the century nearly twenty five years ago.
I first read All About Love six years ago and it shook me to my core. Never before had a book felt so urgent and important at the same time, feeling like I was watching bell hooks do spiritual open heart surgery on me. For more of the story there, I reflect more on its lasting impact in this essay I wrote right after bell hooks passed away a few years ago. It's definitely a book that I want to reread as well, because I'm in a much different place than I was back then, and who knows how it will resonate with me now.
Swap out some names and specific references, and All About Love could have been written today. bell hooks's truth-telling is timeless, and definitely stings at times, but that's because she knows how to place a hand on our collective wounds and show them some tender loving care by critiquing the systems that harm us.
All About Love empowered me to speak up and have more difficult and vulnerable conversations because it's full of words for things that I could feel but never explain. Because I really took to heart bell hooks's teachings and practiced what she preached, All About Love has become the book with the biggest influence on my ability to be real in my relationships. Don't get me wrong - I'm still a hot mess, but I'm less of one thanks to bell hooks.
In case you wanted more of a sense of what's inside the book, here's some of my favorite quotes:
“To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients – care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”
“The choice to love is a choice to connect – to find ourselves in the other.”
“The heart of justice is truth telling, seeing ourselves and the world the way it is rather than the way we want it to be.”
"You can’t appreciate what others do for you when you assert that’s what they are supposed to do. Honor everyone’s choice to serve, rather than their apparent duty.”
“Contemplating death has always been a subject that leads me back to love.”
“Male fantasy is seen as something that can create reality, whereas female fantasy is regarded as pure escape.”
“Loneliness is painful; solitude is peaceful.”
"As long as we feel shame, we can never believe ourselves worthy of love.”
“Everything terrible is really something helpless that wants help from us.”
“People who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.” – James Baldwin
So after all that, read All About Love if you want to. If you've already read it or haven't before. No matter what, I'm excited to listen to what you're learning about love next time I see you.
In the meantime, I'll keep the conversation going here and introduce you to some of my fun friends who are hosting a dinner series inspired by All About Love in the coming months.
Love,
Ellis
