This last Monday was an American national holiday - Labor Day. For my writing classes this week, I had students write about the overlap between love and work - if it exists for them. It was powerful to experience such a wide-range of histories, hurt, joy, and intersectionality. I wanted to do a wrap-up of shorts to share all the wisdom and direct humanness I encountered where these topics overlap in a prompt.
A few people spoke to the work that is inherent in loving itself - a wonderful twist on the given prompt. Marriage is work, having children is work - not just the laundry and bills, but the work of loving itself - relationship building and repair and sustaining. Not to mention the work of loving or even simply caring for the self, which, for most of us in a capitalist society, is an epic full-time job. When we already work for money, these kinds of unlabeled labors can cripple our ability to function.
