Brewing Love

Parts one and two

Part 1

I’m in the car on the way to get groceries when my father, who has Alzheimer’s, calls.

First, he wants to know, have I been sick?

Yes, I say. I had Covid.

“Oh my GOD!” he says. “You’ll probably DIE!”

I’m fine, I say. In fact I’m on my way to the store. He says I shouldn’t be on the phone if I’m driving.

I say it’s okay, I have a hands-free thingy.

“I don’t know what that is,” he says. I say I don’t either, or I wouldn’t have called it a thingy.

Anyway, Dad wants to know why I called.

I say, “You called me.”

“Did I?” he says. “I probably had a good reason.” Then he tells me he found a box of love letters my mother wrote to him when they were first married. They are the most wonderful things! “I’d forgotten all about them,” he says. “But now instead of reading the newspaper every day at lunch, I’m reading these.”

I say that sounds like a reasonable trade. For some reason this reminds me of a story I’d heard the other day, and I tell Dad about it. It was of a Holocaust survivor who was invited to speak at a conference full of Holocaust deniers. He prepared a talk with pictures and maps, but when he stood in front of a crowd of people glaring at him he thought, They’ll never listen to that. So he said, hate was brewing in Germany before the war. That’s what caused the war. That’s what causes wars, when hate is brewing in a country. And what causes peace is love. So the best thing a country can do is brew love.

He got a standing ovation.

I say that’s what I’m trying to do these days: Brew love. I don’t know how good I am at it. I have a temper. I get righteous like anyone else. But each morning I try to love as much as I can—my house, my cat, my work, family, my neighbors. The person in a huge truck tailgating me while I’m talking on the phone with my father who has Alzheimer’s.

“Anyway, maybe that’s what you’re doing, too, by swapping out the news for Mom’s old love letters,” I say.

Dad is quiet. I don’t know if he remembers half of what we’ve been talking about.

But he does.

“At the end of each one,” he says, “she always tells me how much she loves me.”

His voice holds quiet tears.

I miss her, too.

Mom, my sister Emily and me, talking about something very important, ca 1976 Mom made the dress she’s wearing.

Part 2

I am out to dinner with some friends.

The mood is lively. We are happy to be in each other’s company. We start talking about a book someone wrote that came to them when they were working on an old house. Each night, a female spirit started talking and the author listened, then wrote down her story.

“That happened to me!” I say. I was at an old house and a witch from the 1800s started talking to me. Every time I sat down to write, she would come through my fingers. Her tone was wilder and darker than mine, which annoyed me at first. I wanted to make something light and funny.

She said, “Nope.”

Then she said, “I’m starting with the end,” and told me about her death, which was glorious.

I live for things like this, mysteries I can’t explain that somehow make life easier. A story finding me. A story revealing itself easily while I thought I was doing something else.

Once I asked the Universe, my muses, the writer gods, my soul, whoever it is I talk to when I have Big Questions: “How should I write my next story?”

“A storyteller is first a story listener,” I heard. “Now is the listening time.”

I feel that way about everything.

Now is the listening time.

When I think about brewing love I think about the way in stillness I hear the silence of the house, my children sleeping. Somewhere a snow goose calls to its friends, or its mate, I don’t know, I don’t understand their language but I love it still. The trees are always talking and I think, why would anyone cut down any more down, anywhere, ever, when they have so much to share?

I hear the cries, too, of people and animals who are suffering. I don’t know exactly how to help in this moment, so I send peace from my heart. I hope it helps! There’s plenty more where that came from!

I will find other more concrete ways later, but I start here, in a quiet space, asking for grace.

When I listen deeper, I’m aware of a hum, current, an exuberant thing moving beneath everything else. This current is wild. Ecstatic! It runs through every beating heart, every atom, constantly spinning towards its own delight. Come on! it says. No time to waste! Why spend time on earth arguing and interrupting when there are gardens to tend, dancing to do, and cooking and laughing to be had?

But I’m good at arguing and interrupting, I say, which might be true, and it says, Fine! Do it with humor! Do it with happy enthusiasm!

Then listen—again!

When I think about brewing love, I think about making a flower tea out of calendula, lemon balm, honey, and violet flower essence made from blossoms gathered in my mother’s garden. I think of singing to this tea while it steeps and pouring it into in a bone china cup my grandmother gave me. I think of handing it to you at my yellow kitchen table and saying, “What’s in your heart? What is your spirit longing for?”

Tell me everything.

I’m listening.

* * *

In other news:

I’m putting together a Brewing Love writing sprint session for the end of April.

We’ll be writing our own versions of brewing love in these divided times.

If you’re interested in joining us, DM me or let me know in the comments below. I’ll make sure you’re on the list when I have all the details ready to share.

Writing sprints are designed to help you write a draft of something wonderful without thinking or worrying about how you sound. They are fast (about 35-40 minutes) fun, easy, and because we are writing quickly there is a special kind of freedom that often comes through the prose.

You can read an example of an essay I wrote in a writing sprint session here.

Some general info:

“Writing sprints” is a technique I developed to dive quickly into creative flow. Using a series consecutive prompts, and spending three to five minutes on each one, we write a piece quickly, without thinking. My prompts are specifically designed to form a loose narrative arc, move a story along and help you create something cohesive, spontaneous, and fun, all at the same time.

What I’d love for you to walk away with is any or all of these:

* a draft of something that excites you

* an expression of something that’s been living inside of you but hasn’t yet been able to be seen

*a few sentences or a paragraph missing from a piece that you’ve been trying to write.

*a finished piece (I’ve seen it happen!)

Mostly, I want you to have a safe, fun place to write quickly and easily. Every time I do one of these writes I end up with something that has more life to it than the pieces I plan and plot through carefully. The alchemy is even stronger when I write with other people so I can’t wait to write with you!

This session will be free to paid subscribers.