For many years now, I’ve shared the same Rumi quote ad nauseam. I’ve shared it in countless yoga classes, prior essays, conversations with friends, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, IG stories, online forums, you name it. If you know me, then you’ve likely heard it. It goes like this: “This is a subtle truth: whatever you love, you are.” Read that twice. Here, I’ll force you. “This is a subtle truth: whatever you love, you are. I find these words work like a mini-metta (loving-kindness) meditation. The quote never fails to soothe my soul like a balm- this poetic reminder that everything I have ever and will ever love has only ever existed inside myself. That’s true for you too. What a gift that knowledge is, particularly in very human moments of heartache, rejection, or self-judgement.
I think of the quote every time someone sends me an outrageous meme, Meg Ryan Fall, Practical Magic, Before Sunrise content, or a Mary Oliver poem. I think of it when my best friend Ben sends me twenty obscure songs in a row on Spotify, when Em sends me New York apartment listings, when Mel texts me a zero-context black-and-white photo of Liz Taylor lifting a cigarette to David Bowie’s lips. How beautiful that we are constantly mirroring what we love to each other, and that what we love IS who we get to be. It’s a reminder never to be scared to love. We are never at a loss to be the one to do so. Besides, from firsthand experience, scared people tend to be fucking scary. Best not to be one.
Years ago, I shared the same Rumi quote at the end of one specific yoga class, accompanied by my playing “Hey Ya” by Outkast on guitar, something I’ve long loved to do. The next day, I was at the studio coffee shop when a student greeted me. “Oh hey,” she said to me, her eyes shining brightly, “You did that cover of Hey ya yesterday; it was so great.” “Thank you,” I responded, feeling liquid gold fill my heart. “I also can’t stop thinking about what you said at the end of class. It’s my new mantra,” she continued. Naturally, I assumed she meant the Rumi quote. Until she trilled in a sing-songy way, “I lOOOOVE ME.” I did not recall saying “I love me, but knowing myself, I also assumed it was safe to say I most likely had. Mandy (pictured above) was that student and, years later, is now a dear friend who’s far more like family. She assures me to this day that the quote she received was “I love me.”
Some years after that class, on what was a very dark, shame-filled day when self-love felt incredibly far away from me, my phone lit up with a notification. It happened to be “Mandy-Future-Bestie,” as she had made me plug her name into my phone that day in the coffee shop years before. Tears flooded my eyes when I saw the unexpected image come through my screen. It was a new tattoo under her right breast, and a reminder I so desperately needed the universe to provide me in that singular moment. There sat the words. The message I, myself, most needed to remember: “I love me.” As I type this now, it’s not lost on me the irony that the fallout of having deeply loved someone dearly as a friend is what caused this specific dark day of my life. As that situation sits far behind me now, many moons and a variety of healing therapy sessions later, I can finally laugh at the sheer silliness of such a thing, as if I could have helped my heart.
In light of that situation, I should really be scared to love, but I’m absolutely not. What I’ve come to realize over time is that my die-hard romantic nature is my favorite thing about me. I romanticize everything: a long-held gaze, my friendships, a thoughtful response, a white feather I find on the ground, a line from a book, a knowing nod from a stranger, the way the light dapples a room, a pretty tarot card, my children’s stuffed animals, a good recipe, utter nonsense. I find life to be brimming with meaning and miracles, and I am just Lloyd Dobbler with a boombox on my shoulders, Peter Gabriel’s voice singing a love song about eyes to anyone who will listen.
One such miracle occurred this past spring. I took my kids to a SPACE-themed choir concert, put on by the Austin Women’s Choir, which Mandy is a part of. We slipped into the Downtown church, took a seat in a pew near an image of Earth projected onto a covered pipe organ. My oldest child read a Garfield comic, and my youngest frantically drew on the back of a receipt with a tiny pew pencil. Honestly, I didn’t have high hopes for my time there, but my kids ended up being sufficiently distracted. I was able to settle in and attune myself to the music, to my friend’s shining face as she did what she loved, to all of these women’s brilliant faces and voices, to the music about space, wonder, and the awe that any of this exists at all. It was so profoundly moving; hot tears rolled down my cheeks. There I sat in that church, my heart wide open.
Jai Guru Deva Om
Nothing’s gonna change my world. Nothing’s gonna change my world.
It really hit me all at once in a moment. I was so incredibly moved. It occurs to me now that maybe that’s the way we should strive to live. Moving towards whatever moves us, which, with our fickle hearts, I know all too well, is often subject to change. Us humans, we sing, read, laugh, meditate, practice yoga, make art, dance, cry, fuck, fight, all the while the order and chaos that is the natural world constantly unfolding around us. That’s Bhakti, baby. That’s love. So I will continue to love openly and with abandon, knowing just what a miracle it is to do so. That’s the only way, because love- that’s what we are, and I love life even when I have no stomach for it. I love you even when I don’t. And the mantra now and forever emblazoned upon my very own beating heart, I love me.
this touched me deeply. ❤️