Since You Asked: How to Love
by Patrice Lockhart. Patrice’s column, “Since You Asked,” responds to questions from Boshemia readers.
I am the go-to gal for support, understanding, and just showing up. When I can show love to another human, I really don’t need much in return. I feel privileged to be allowed into their inner circle. And from that place of privilege, I get what I need. Shared experience. Honesty about the hard stuff in life. Being allowed to listen.
The “how” of loving is being interested in the perspective of another.
When you ask me “how can I love someone else?” I will tell you: first, know their name.
In the past two weeks, I have been on a fast moving train of loving. First, I was invited (the icing on the cake of love) to attend my youngest grandchild’s first birthday. I noticed myself scraping off old, tired judgments, too many to fit in my carry-on. In the past, my head, and my luggage, would have listened to the blather of finding other people to compare myself to, and I would have found myself lacking. One person dresses with more style, another shops with greater success, that one is a better conversationalist with the near-toddler crowd. It has taken a bit of practice to calm those judgments down. My favorite antidote is “So what?” and its sassy, freeing, friendly thoughts: “Why not?”and “Let’s just see.”
I traveled with minimal options for what to wear, all of them comfy. My birthday gift was a pair of wooden spoons that made all sorts of fun noises depending on where they were banged. And, my conversations with the little one were all about finding out about her, not turning inside out to perform or get some result. We had hours of fun, literally, playing “What’s in your purse?”
Right on the heels of the birthday trip, I was invited (yes, I stayed in my lane until asked) to serve double duty: helping a buddy clean out her precious sewing room, and therefore her heart, in preparation for a move, and being a supportive groupie to two of my top-notch harp students who performed a concerto for two harps with a very fine orchestra. How could I miss all that?
I welcomed the new experience of being the “old crone” and enjoyed it thoroughly, as a sidekick: no pressure, as I didn’t have to agonize over treasures OR learn a difficult piece of music and play it well in heels. I got to listen and cheer. It was more than enough to fill my bucket of love.
The last part of my trio of loving experiences was being nearby as a beloved mentor of my own neared life’s end. I had relished his leadership in choral and instrumental music since I first chose a college. I never missed a chance to make music with him, and kept in touch with dozens of fellow choristers over the years. I learned more than repertoire from this man: how to love music, how to love the discipline of knowing my colleagues so that we could sing with one voice, supporting each other in every breath, and sharing the power of a composer’s words set to melody. I never worried about learning the music, although we were expected to sing from memory. The harder job was learning the names and hometowns of every single member of the chorus. So personal! So exposed! We were called out at random moments: “Miss Lockhart, who is the tenor to your left and where is he from?”
We learn to love as a community, to live through the terror of not knowing others well enough, and to fix that deficit. It’s amazing how loving it is to learn about another human, to pronounce one’s name. That discipline alone has forged my “how to” on the art of love.
