Love languages...

Who knew?

Love languages are a thing?

Whilst I was writing my book, Breaking Waves, one of the women I interviewed told me of a beautiful ritual she shares with her mother every time she returns to her home of Korea:

“A friend I spoke to tells me of the Korean baths of her upbringing, and how they are sanctuaries of community and care. As she has grown into her own adulthood, she describes the realisation that bathing together in this way demonstrates her mother’s love languages; the emphasis on the spending of quality time, with love shown through physical touch as they gently cleanse one another.”

Photo by Hanna Postova on Unsplash

When she used the phrase ‘love language’ I became very excited at the notion, as something that made innate sense to me. How we express ourselves and connect by the particular ways in which we demonstrate and receive love. I began excitedly scribbling side notes and was already half way through writing a book on the subject in my mind when my friend stopped me: ‘Em, it’s already a thing. In fact quite a big thing.’

*Needle scratches on record*

‘Eh? Really?’

Of course it is. It appears that for now I’ll just have to revert to writing the other five books I have on the go instead.

It turns out that some fellow named Dr Gary Chapman wrote an entire book on this subject some time ago, and defined our five ‘love languages’ as follows:

• acts of service

• words of affirmation

• physical touch

• quality time

• receiving gifts

Whilst Dr Gary (as I shall call him) with his credentials as a marriage counsellor developed the categories around how people in romantic relationships relate to each other, it clearly transcends the ‘romantic’ and applies to the broader sphere of how we ‘love’.

I initially find myself bristling at these five categorisations - it seems so trite to assign labels, and the associated online quizzes to find out ‘“what is your love language?” - TA DA!!’ are just plain irritating, but upon quelling my cynicism, I begin to find my own sense of meaning.

When you can’t say ‘I love you’.

I grew up in a family that was never short of love, yet whilst I knew I was loved, ‘love’ was not a word that was spoken in our house. We didn’t really hug, always protecting our own physical ‘space’ for reasons that only became clear to me much later in life. I still struggle to say ‘I love you’ to my mum or sister, and I don’t know that I ever said it to my dad or brother as adults when they were alive (although I tell them every day now they are no longer here). ‘I love you’ was simply not part of our vocabulary, and hugs still carry an awkward stiffness although we do make the effort. There’s no great psychological unravelling to be done, it’s just the way it is. Whilst I have smashed through that with my relationships with my own daughters, overcompensating by smothering them daily with verbal love, wrapping ourselves around each other and absorbing their every essence, this made me consider the nature of what love languages I have conversed in, and how these have evolved.

What made me feel loved when I was growing up? Words of affirmation? No. Physical touch? Er…no. But acts of service…? Hold on a minute, now you’re onto something.

One of my mother’s love languages is definitely acts of service, which she so often demonstrates through the provision of nourishment. The care she takes in the preparation of food when making family dinners, and how we will return home from a trip away to find the fridge filled, or freshly made soup on the counter. The time she prepared a variety of gloriously colourful salads all laid out on our dining room table protected with what I can only describe as ‘food shower caps’, (she does love a bit of ‘Lakeland’) carefully labelled as gluten free and/or vegetarian with all ingredients listed on Post-it notes, as our youngest (Taz) is coeliac and our eldest (Fiver) didn’t then eat meat.

Photo by Adam Bartoszewicz on Unsplash

When I was in hospital shortly after Fiver was born, and she was in a high dependency unit fighting for her life, I found myself bereft and alone in a room with no baby, the fragments of my heart scattered around the floor, unsure whether to dare try and repair.

A glorious highlight during that desolate period would be someone bringing me food from ‘the outside’. That was my contraband. I remember my sister bringing piping hot takeaway pizza in through the disinfected corridors, the nurses’ noses enlarging cartoon-style as the smell wafted past. The warm cardboard box bringing me more comfort that the best hot water bottle. My mum would come in with home cooking. I will never forget the roast chicken dinner she carried in, in a brilliantly compartmentalised and multi-layered storage contraption that only she would own – from shopping at Lakeland again, no doubt. I lifted the first lid of the pot to find hot buttered carrots, which on the basis of my NHS provided diet of cardboard jam sandwiches, was pure heaven. Then followed a layer of succulent, thyme-scented chicken. Below that, steaming broccoli, food that just resonated health, ironically unlike anything you receive in hospital, and finally, layer four…the piece de resistance…her roast potatoes. I have to say that I now make a damn good roast potato, but God I learnt from the best. Crispy and crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and just the right size to either eat in a mouthful or slice through and savour. I laid the food out on the plate she unpacked from the portable picnic hamper, tears of joy in my heart and then…then…she reached in and produced a Tupperware tub of gravy.

Sometimes in a family that struggles to express love, food says everything.

The spending of quality time is also strong in my family. Living as we all do with the relentless demands of adulthood, spending time together can be a challenge, yet it is something I try my utmost to preserve. Be it a family dinner or through the sharing of knowledge – my sister and I doing crochet together, my mum telling me her stories, her history, passing on her experience, us doing a crossword together or her teaching us all a game of cards… There is never enough time, but as I write this, I am reminded once more of the importance of spending it together when we never know what lies down the road. This resource that always seems so precious and so scarce is perhaps the basis of my most fundamental expression of love.

Photo by Ali Kazal on Unsplash

Language passed down the generations

I consider what my love languages have been for my daughters, and how these evolve as they get older. What are the ways in which we express our love? When they were younger there was a great physicality to our love, as well as acts of service, words, time spent together and thoughtful gifts. Our way of being centring on making tea, hugs, conversations, baking together, playing cards, me plaiting their hair, sending them snaps of my toes, having carpet picnics, really listening to them, snuggling on the sofa, sniffing them, sharing a good film, helping them feel confident and safe. My love for them making me want to wrap myself around them and protect them. They speak a similar language back to me, with their particular emphasis on the joy of gifts, as they delight in giving me daffodils or presenting me with a chocolate bar. Then there is how they care for me when I am unwell, making me tea, stroking my head and wrapping me up like a sushi roll.

As teenagers, I ask Taz and Fiver what they think our love languages are. ‘Oh…hold on…’; they effortlessly slip into their double act...’erm…acts of service…physical touch…something about gifts…’. Wow – this really is a known thing!! ‘Scrub all that’, I say, ‘just tell me what you think they are’. 

‘Making tea, giving hugs, sharing chocolate biscuits, sending snaps of our toes, oh…and how much we make each other laugh’.

At its essence a love language, like all languages, is a conversation. There is no right way or wrong way for it to be. I have different languages with different people, and I have a whole piece on the significance of ‘gifts’ for another time… What I hold for now is the understanding in how others communicate their love, and appreciating the power of their language, especially when it’s in a different tongue.

You don’t even have to be able to say ‘I love you’.

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How do the love languages resonate with you? Do you recognise one as your preferred? I’d love to hear.

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🍋 Lemon Soul Slices 🍋

A brief round up of Lemon Soul life this week:

🍋 What I’ve been up to

Last weekend, Himself and I escaped to a festival - BY OURSELVES. It was the ALSO Festival in Warwickshire in the UK, and although we had booked a family camping ticket, Taz and Fiver had other commitments so we ended up going alone (yaay!). After inadvertently pitching our tent backstage and not getting to sleep until 3am on the first night, we relocated, and had a gorgeous couple of days in a world of books, wild swimming, food, talks and music. This small and intimate festival was just perfect, and I sincerely hope that I can get to speak here next year when my own book is out in the world. We listened to comedy and folk music, swam in the lake, met inspiring authors, attended a tea ceremony, star walks and cheese tasting. What’s not to love…

The price I paid was 3 days recovering from a health flare afterwards, but sometimes you just gotta ‘eat the chocolate’ and it’s worth it. This week I’ve finished the copy edits of Breaking Waves, and sent in my ‘acknowledgements’ page - which was very emotional despite feeling like an Oscar acceptance speech, and terrifying in case I haven’t thanked anyone I really meant to. The next time I see my words will be in a proof copy of the book - an actual printed copy. There will be more detail on this in The Book Deal Diaries shortly.

🍋 What I’m reading

I bought a few books at the festival, and I read ‘These Heavy Black Bones’ by Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell in 2 days straight.

“A compulsive and unforgettable study of intensity, These Heavy Black Bones meditates on Blackness, identity and the ecstasy of peak physical performance, and lays bare the pressures within the swimming world.”

Having seen Rebecca speak, she was an extraordinarily engaging, articulate and intelligent young woman who told of her life in elite sport, having represented both Kenya and Great Britain at swimming in her childhood. As a mother of an elite gymnast, I was mesmerised by Rebecca’s story, and during her talk I kept finding myself looking over to her own mother in the crowd with a mixture of kinship, empathy and sadness. Themes of separation, race, friendship, rivalry, expectation and obligation are intertwined throughout her powerful narrative. My own daughter competes in TeamGym which is not as intense as individual sports such as solo gymnastics and swimming, and also has the joy of being part of a team so in many ways is not comparable, however it is a world I experience the fringes of. Rebecca’s book is a beautiful, heartbreaking and reflective tale of a young woman who as a ‘dead cert’ for the London Olympics GB Swimming Team in 2012, gave it all up and walked away. I highly recommend reading it to understand why.

🍋 What I’m watching

Having been a huge Game of Thrones fan, spending several months within the Seven Kingdoms and even visiting the Iron Throne on a holiday to Croatia, I initally found myself resisting the blockbuster prequel ‘House of the Dragon’. I’m not entirely sure why, but sometimes after 75 seasons of a show you love, you just need a break, right?

This week I dived back in, and oh what a joy. I’m sure it isn’t for everyone, but again the characterisation, the political intrigue, the love and betrayal and brilliant plot have captured me. In a world currently eating itself up with political machinations and conflict, it feels strangely comforting. And in art as in life, there be dragons…🐉

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I’m heading off on holiday next week and so will be connecting from warmer climes, or perhaps even just taking a wee break. More book excerpts to come in the mean time.

As always,

Love & lemons, 💕🍋

Em xx