The Heart of Any Language Love

Yesterday, after writing my long list of to-dos, I took a shower. As so often happens when I shower, my thoughts got to flowing free (this also tends to happen right before I fall asleep - basically the two most inconvenient times to do any sort of writing). Since I had just finished blogging, that became the focus of my thoughts, and I came to a conclusion:

My blog is dry.

Yep, dry. Don't get me wrong, it's not financier-punching-numbers-into-a-calculator dry. It's more dusty-old-furniture-covered-with-sheets-in-the-attic dry. Yes, the subject of weddings and wedding planning is exhilarating and something that almost everybody can relate to at some point.

But let's face it, like tackling that old furniture set upstairs, planning a wedding is something a person can only do in a certain mood. You've got to have the time, patience, energy, and devotion to sort rip off those sheets (sneezing at least five times from all the dust) and take inventory: What have I got here? A bright orange and green velvet floral ottoman? Grandma's plastic-covered "davenport" (no, I'm not referring to a city in Iowa)? An antique Queen Anne? That retro half-moon seat that's coming back into style?

In other words, you have to sift through all the information and get to the heart of the planning process and what it's really all about: Putting together a celebration of love!

So, since I love Love, and since even brides need an occasional reminder that "I Do" does not equal "To-do", I've decided to expand my blog's subject matter to better encompass it's title. "Any Language Love" originally came from the idea that Carlos and my love is enhanced by our different languages and cultures and that our love is stronger than language and found in so many places other than those three little words, "I Love You." What a great concept, no? Well, I'm tweaking it just a tad, by omitting the word "our". Meet the resulting sentence and the new focus of this blog:

Love is stronger than language and found in so many places other than those three little words, "I Love You."

This can be any love, not just Carlos' and mine for each other, but any little observance of love, whether spoken or demonstrated in some non-verbal fashion, such as a smile, or an act of kindness, or my favorite - the seemingly insignificant little intimacies like Carlos making me coffee every morning before I get up, even though he doesn't drink the stuff or understand why I consider it an essential part of my daily routine.

Hopefully, by documenting these "love notes" every day, this will become a blog dedicated to the heart of wedding-planning and so many other everyday life functions. Because when we get down to the nitty gritty substance of the greatest stories and moments in history, love is always at the core, is it not?

So, please feel free to leave your own comments or send me your own notes about love in your life and observances. Although I'll continue to write about wedding planning, since that's a major love reflection on my plate right now, I'm fortunate to be surrounded by so many more examples of love than my own wedding. I hope to post at least an anecdote a day demonstrating a love observance.

So, to kick off the new direction of my blog, let me crank up my favorite Bobby Darin love song and share news of a new love in this world, that form of motherly love that I can only imagine:

Congratulations to Amanda, on of my best friends, who gave birth to her first child last night at 7:28. I love you, girl, and I hope both you and the baby are doing amazing!

And to Ben, the happy father who's getting ready to fight for our country, thank you for dedicating your life and work to a love for all of us. I know both Amanda and the baby are so proud of you, and I hope that you'll be able to hurry home to meet your new son. Thanks to your whole family for being perfect models of the daily small-and-big-moment lifelong love that I hope to portray in this blog.

I love you all.