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The Day of Hearts and Flowers💘🌿 · Relatively Stable

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  The Day of Hearts and Flowers Bear with me through the
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  historical destruction as we
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  SPEAKER_00: make our way to love,
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  SPEAKER_00: otherwise known as Valentine's Day.
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  SPEAKER_00: On February 14th in 1779,
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  Captain Cook made a bunch of foolish choices and ended up being
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  dismembered by
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  SPEAKER_00: native Hawaiians.
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  SPEAKER_00: He was not, as the story goes, eaten.
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  SPEAKER_00: See,
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  SPEAKER_00: what happened was,
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  SPEAKER_00: it was Cook's third and last voyage,
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  SPEAKER_00: and he was trying to find the Northwest Passage,
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  SPEAKER_00: a space believed to link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
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  SPEAKER_00: Amid this voyage,
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  SPEAKER_00: he happened upon Hawaii,
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  a place that had been so untouched for so long that even the
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  nearby Polynesians had
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  SPEAKER_00: forgotten about the islands.
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  A festival was happening when Cook's ship made its way into a
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  bay on what is now
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  SPEAKER_00: the Big Island,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it appeared that many people were there to greet his arrival.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Hawaiians believed Cook was the return of the god Lono,
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  SPEAKER_00: a god associated with abundance,
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  SPEAKER_00: putting aside differences,
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  SPEAKER_00: and creating time to rest,
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  SPEAKER_00: connect with others,
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  SPEAKER_00: and recover in the winter rainy season.
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  SPEAKER_00: Cook believed the crowds were there to celebrate his arrival,
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  SPEAKER_00: so there was a lot of misunderstanding going on.
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  Cook hung out with everyone for a month and generally outstayed
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  his welcome,
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  SPEAKER_00: using up limited resources and bringing the gifts of venereal disease and
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  SPEAKER_00: tuberculosis to the previously untouched islands.
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  SPEAKER_00: After some time,
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  SPEAKER_00: one of Cook's men passed away,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the islanders realized that the captain and his crew were mortal.
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  Cook sailed away one month after arrival,
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  and the Hawaiians were glad for it.
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  A day into his departure,
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  one of Cook's ships was damaged in bad weather.
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  He made a U-turn and returned to Hawaii to make repairs and
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  grab provisions.
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  But the Hawaiians were pretty sick of him and implored him to
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  go away by hurling
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  SPEAKER_00: rocks at his ships as they entered the bay.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the mayhem that ensued,
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  Cook attempted to kidnap the islander's king and his men killed
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  a beloved Hawaiian chief.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tensions erupted and finally,
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  SPEAKER_00: Cook stood in knee-deep water,
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  SPEAKER_00: unable to make his way back to the ship because he could not swim.
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  SPEAKER_00: Cook was then killed by the islanders and,
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  SPEAKER_00: believing him to at least be a chief of some status,
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  SPEAKER_00: if not a god,
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  he was given a warrior's burial with his bits distributed and
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  his bones put in a
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  SPEAKER_00: senate casket.
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  His hands and other parts were delivered in a ceremonial cloth
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  to his men on board his ship.
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  SPEAKER_00: Cook's men looked at the cloth and asked, did you eat him?
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  And the islanders were confused and they answered,
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  what,
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  do you eat your dead?
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's how the rumors got started.
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  On Valentine's Day,
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  let's do our best to really understand what the other person is saying.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let's not outstay our welcome.
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  And when we're giving gifts,
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  let's try to make sure those gifts are wanted.
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  SPEAKER_00: Miscommunication is a plague that can be easily avoided.
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  SPEAKER_00: Arrivals.
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  SPEAKER_00: Understanding and being understood is an art,
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  SPEAKER_00: one that extends beyond history and human relationships.
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  This is so apparent as I introduce new horses to our farm and
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  watch them navigate
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  SPEAKER_00: an unfamiliar world,
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  SPEAKER_00: learning who they can trust.
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  Many animal communicators say that the number one message they
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  get from horses is a
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  constant fear of when they'll be taken away from their homes
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  and herds and placed
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  SPEAKER_00: somewhere new.
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  SPEAKER_00: We welcome two new horses to the farm this week.
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  SPEAKER_00: Acclimating to new environments is difficult for horses.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if we're being honest, it's tough for humans too.
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  SPEAKER_00: So welcome home, Mocha, and welcome to your new family, Pete.
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  SPEAKER_00: And thank you, Laken, for making this magic happen.
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  SPEAKER_00: Adjusting to a new place takes time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some horses settle in quickly,
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  SPEAKER_00: while others take longer to relax,
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  SPEAKER_00: figuring out who they can trust and what feels familiar.
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  SPEAKER_00: People aren't much different.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to feel at home when you're always bracing for the next move,
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  SPEAKER_00: waiting to see if you're really staying this time.
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  SPEAKER_00: I used to think that love worked the same way,
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  SPEAKER_00: that it was temporary,
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  SPEAKER_00: something you had to hold onto tightly or risk losing.
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  SPEAKER_00: But Christopher has shown me otherwise.
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  SPEAKER_00: Heart love.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wrote the piece about Captain Cook,
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  SPEAKER_00: the one you find above,
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  last year when Valentine's formed a triune and I was on the Big
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  Island of Hawaii.
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  Valentine's fell on Ash Wednesday and I was with Christopher
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  who made love feel
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  SPEAKER_00: different from other relationships,
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  SPEAKER_00: marriages,
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  SPEAKER_00: and friendships I'd experienced before.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christopher doesn't ask anything of me.
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  SPEAKER_00: He just gives.
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  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't withhold love if I change plans because of a sick horse.
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  SPEAKER_00: This happens a lot.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the months following our wedding and Hurricane Helene,
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  SPEAKER_00: being in a vehicle was a chore of vertigo and nausea for me.
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  SPEAKER_00: But Christopher patiently watched me as we traveled,
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  SPEAKER_00: noticing signals that said I didn't feel well.
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  When it got to be too much,
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  he turned around and brought me home to the farm.
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  And as we returned,
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  he praised every new mile I'd been able to stand being in the
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  car each week,
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  SPEAKER_00: glorying in wins so small, I read them as failures.
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  SPEAKER_00: Until him,
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  I knew love as transactions that needed my constant tending so
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  I wouldn't suffer in
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  SPEAKER_00: the red.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know the kind of relationships I'm talking about,
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  the kind where your account is overdrawn and there's no way to
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  go back to a
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  SPEAKER_00: positive balance because the fees and interest keep adding up.
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  Love that doesn't ask for anything in return can be so quiet
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  you miss it at first.
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  SPEAKER_00: If I hadn't spent my life running to catch up,
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  if I hadn't worked myself to the bone and was forced to
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  stillness by pure exhaustion,
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  I'm not sure I could have noticed when Christopher showed up
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  with lanterns for me
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  SPEAKER_00: to see in the dark and bags of food to feed me.
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  I say all this on this day set aside for love because the whole
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  world feels tired
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  SPEAKER_00: right now and is in need of a little compassion.
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  SPEAKER_00: And not the kind that asks for more with thoughts and prayers,
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  SPEAKER_00: but the sort that gives without stopping to ask,
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  SPEAKER_00: what's in this for me?
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  SPEAKER_00: Christopher shows me through action how to care for others,
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  SPEAKER_00: how to make amends,
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  SPEAKER_00: how to be simultaneously loyal and curious to see all sides.
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  SPEAKER_00: Loving Christopher has been an education,
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  SPEAKER_00: and if patience is a virtue,
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  SPEAKER_00: then Christopher may be the most virtuous man I know,
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  SPEAKER_00: because he waited for me for three decades.
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  SPEAKER_00: I need lessons in how to be this way, to be more like him.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lessons in loving for no reason other than to love.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because like most of us,
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  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have many role models showing me the way through the years,
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  SPEAKER_00: giving me something to emulate and to practice.
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  Whenever I ask Christopher where he learned this stuff,
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  he says,
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  since birth?
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  The practice of love is so much easier than practicing piano or
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  studying for a French exam.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's so easy, it's hard.
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  I had the honor of listening to Reverend Ockham Daffin at a
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  memorial service recently.
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  In the service,
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  he said,
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  there are things that we deliberately do and things that come
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  to us.
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  SPEAKER_00: Love never ends.
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  SPEAKER_00: Hate is easy.
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  SPEAKER_00: Love is hard.
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  SPEAKER_00: Grief is the experience of love from the other side.
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  SPEAKER_00: And love is our best example of what transcends this life.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like intuition,
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  SPEAKER_00: play,
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  SPEAKER_00: and wonder,
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  love is something we're born into knowing but lose as our
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  brains develop and we
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  SPEAKER_00: mature into the world.
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  Working a lifetime to get our sense of forgotten love back is
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  as worthy as
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  SPEAKER_00: launching a career path and,
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  SPEAKER_00: like it,
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  SPEAKER_00: filled with countless opportunities for advancement.
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  SPEAKER_00: I could talk about love all day.
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  I used to shy away from it because I'd been led to believe that
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  cynicism and dry
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  SPEAKER_00: humor were signs of a learned mind.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're taught to believe love's not worthy of study.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm making up for lost years.
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  Christopher recently secured housing for a mutual friend going
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  through a medical crisis.
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  My first reaction to the news was,
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  hold on,
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  this person has a sordid past.
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  SPEAKER_00: This person has previously taken advantage of my goodwill.
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  SPEAKER_00: What's the benefit for us in helping?
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  I didn't say this out loud to Christopher though,
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  but I would have not too long ago.
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  SPEAKER_00: Before I spent some time studying Christopher's altruism in action,
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  SPEAKER_00: I would have dug in for an all-out war over why my perspective was right.
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  SPEAKER_00: I opted instead to stand back and take notes this time.
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  Christopher had previously encouraged me to forgive this friend
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  and that ended up
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  SPEAKER_00: being the right move.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christopher spent a day off clearing out a room in his house,
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  SPEAKER_00: sorting through stored things left behind by other people he'd helped.
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  SPEAKER_00: The friend came over for dinner.
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  SPEAKER_00: We laughed and spoke from our hearts.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are a thousand ways that helping can go wrong.
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  Stories of goodwill soured by expectation,
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  of generosity met with ingratitude.
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  SPEAKER_00: But there are just as many ways that helping can go right.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ways I've watched Christopher embody and I'm still learning to embrace.
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  When I sat down last week with Olympic equestrian Kim Walness
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  for a conversation
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  SPEAKER_00: that will be launching soon on my podcast,
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  SPEAKER_00: she talked about how her horse Gideon asked us to lean into heart love.
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  When you've learned to trust what resonates with you and you've
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  learned to open the
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  SPEAKER_00: doors to your heart and your gut and your mind,
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  then you may begin to feel in the presence of another being an
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  all enveloping love.
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  I'm not going to use the word unconditional because Gideon says
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  he doesn't like the
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  SPEAKER_00: word conditional at all.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a love like being wrapped in warm tenderness and compassion.
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  SPEAKER_00: He calls this heart love.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've spent so much of my life analyzing love,
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  SPEAKER_00: hoping to recognize the sneaky ways it shows up,
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  SPEAKER_00: the ways that don't declare themselves as grand gestures,
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  SPEAKER_00: but hold entire worlds and meaning.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's been my experience that love reveals itself in the smallest,
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  SPEAKER_00: most ordinary ways,
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  SPEAKER_00: like a broken shower.
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  SPEAKER_00: How to Love a Writer
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  SPEAKER_00: Not too long before Christopher told me I was intimidating,
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  SPEAKER_00: we gathered for a dinner with friends at my house.
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  I wrote about this in our full love story and you can find a
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  link to it and read
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  SPEAKER_00: all 10 parts at Stable Roots.
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  SPEAKER_00: Several things happened that day that were notable.
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  SPEAKER_00: I had jumped off the back of the hay trailer and displaced my kneecap.
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  SPEAKER_00: A friend had driven quickly into town to escape an unlivable situation.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the shower in the guest room broke.
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  I was hobbling around on a cane and I was pretty out of my
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  skull with the kneecap shock.
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  When the guest brought the shower to my attention,
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  I just looked at Christopher and said,
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  help.
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  SPEAKER_00: He went to take a look at it and I hobbled after him.
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  SPEAKER_00: I parked beside the tub as he fiddled with the knobs.
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  SPEAKER_00: What do you think is wrong with it?
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  SPEAKER_00: I asked.
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  It was at this point that he turned to look at me and something
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  happened that I'd
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  SPEAKER_00: only read about until then.
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  SPEAKER_00: I literally got lost in his eyes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Where I was perched with my knee outstretched,
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  SPEAKER_00: our faces were close,
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  and the unexpected sudden pull of finally seeing him was so
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  great that my brain
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  SPEAKER_00: blipped off.
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  SPEAKER_00: I just sat there, stunned, pulled, mesmerized, gaping for a minute.
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  By the time my brain came back online,
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  I was pulling away because,
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  nope,
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  this is your friend.
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  SPEAKER_00: We don't ruin lifelong friendships with longing.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is stupid, Kim.
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  That moment stayed in my mind until my trip to Denver when
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  Christopher came clean
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  SPEAKER_00: with me about my intimidation and his love.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've since learned that his eyes are green,
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  SPEAKER_00: but with so many flecks of brown,
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  SPEAKER_00: they look like mocha.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've learned that he is truly the funniest person on the planet,
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  SPEAKER_00: and his comeback timing is second to none,
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  SPEAKER_00: and someone should give him a prize for witty retorts.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've learned that he is uncannily intuitive and immeasurably kind.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've learned that he always tells the truth.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've learned that we can share silence as much as we can share talking.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when he does his thing and I do mine,
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  we come back together and gleefully explain what we
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  independently discovered like kids.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've learned that from the time we were 12 until the present moment,
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  SPEAKER_00: we have been within miles of each other,
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  SPEAKER_00: even when we didn't know it.
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  The universe has just placed us in the same proximity until we
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  figured it out.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've learned that when I cry, he doesn't force me to justify my sadness.
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  SPEAKER_00: He just holds me and tells me he's got me.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've learned that he pays attention.
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  SPEAKER_00: He pays attention to everything.
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  SPEAKER_00: He sees things that I just don't,
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  SPEAKER_00: and he guides my gaze to what he sees so I can process the full picture.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Christopher.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's my best friend, my constant, my beloved.
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  SPEAKER_00: We've been through some serious shit to get here,
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  SPEAKER_00: but knowing now what the destination was,
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  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't have it any other way.
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  SPEAKER_00: Being with him feels like home.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is home.
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  He's the only person I want to get kicked out of a tsunami
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  museum with or be told
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  SPEAKER_00: we can't use the dryer after 9 p.m.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's the only person I trust to pass three cars on a curvy road.
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  He's the only person that when I ask you want to fight,
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  he says,
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  only for air.
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  SPEAKER_00: And try as we might to dig into a good argument,
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  we suck at it because we respect each other's opinion too much
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  to get defensive.
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  He's the only person I know who will always inevitably find a
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  parking space right
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  SPEAKER_00: by the front door of everywhere.
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  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people might classify us individually as disagreeable,
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  SPEAKER_00: but we wholly agree with each other.
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  SPEAKER_00: What do you do when you love a writer?
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  You take her to an open-air bookshop by the water and you
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  understand that she will
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  get lost and you're patient with her and even kind of like
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  wandering around with her.
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  And when she tells you to stop and take a deep whiff of the air
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  in the store,
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  you do it without question and you even squeeze her hand a
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  little harder when she
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  SPEAKER_00: closes her eyes in pure bliss and says,
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  SPEAKER_00: books.
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  SPEAKER_00: When we spent the day looking for salamanders in the woods,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I knew that he loved me,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I was afraid to want anything anymore,
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  SPEAKER_00: I thought something was wrong with me.
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  SPEAKER_00: I said, I can't eat and I can't sleep.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he laughed.
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  SPEAKER_00: But the next day when I said, when do I get to see you again?
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  SPEAKER_00: He showed up minutes later,
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  barefoot and feral and ready to wait for me to find him no
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  matter how long I took.
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  SPEAKER_00: Come here, I said.
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  I didn't know before him that the breaths between kisses felt
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  like the ocean.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm so lucky to have found my person and to have known him all along.
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  SPEAKER_00: I love you, Christopher.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
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  SPEAKER_00: I trust you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now let's all go out and relearn love.
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  SPEAKER_00: Love, Kim.