Newsletter from Jay Wilcox - May 2024: On Love

Good morning/afternoon/evening,

Since we bought our house, gardening has become one of my favorite pastimes. I love its promise--the slow unraveling of a seed into a bud into a fruit. I even love composting. Our coffee grounds and apple cores feed the worms in a specialized bin, which has a nozzle on the bottom through which rich liquid fertilizer flows into a collection bucket. We've accumulated several gallons of black gold.

Ursula visited her first greenhouse last week, and as we introduced her to flowers, fanned her with palm fronds, I thought about wealth--specifically, nature's way of drawing abundance from itself. My heart feels full. I've never seen the world like this before, never played this role in the cycle of life. I've heard it said that until you have kids, you don't know what love is. Before I was a parent, such sentiment made me roll my eyes pretty hard. Don't tell me I don't know what love is, I wanted to say. Don't invalidate my experience!

I get it now. Owning a dog is nothing like raising a child. Neither is romantic love. I've never loved anyone or anything the way I love Ursula.

However, I refuse to believe that if someone never has kids, then their capacity for or experience of love is somehow lesser. Our hearts fill at the same rate. Perhaps two things can be true at once. Perhaps every great love feels like our first, a statement that comes with two meanings--primarily, that such love feels novel and wondrous, neverbeforeseen; and alternatively, that each great love reminds us of our first, that beautifully familiar warmth.

I've been here before. At least, that's how it feels when I hold my baby. Where was I, before she came along? I must have always been in this rocker by the window, trying to make her laugh just one more time. The seed of this love was always within me.

I'm going to pause the newsletter for a few months, as I have another creative project that needs some attention. That said, I appreciate you all reading--and writing back, if you felt so inclined. I fully intend to pick this back up.

In the meantime, I truly wish you all the best. Onward and upward!

Infinite Regards,

Jay