Wishing You a ‘Conspiracy of Love’ This Season

On December 24, 2025 By Lorraine Devon WilkeIn Latest ThoughtsLeave a comment

With a new year of hopeful, positive change.

I’ll be honest; I’d not heard of Hamilton Wright Mabie (1846-1916) before I stumbled upon that quote, but his words struck me as such a poignant description of what the holidays should be, and hopefully are, for all of us, I had to share it.

Briefly, Mr. Mabie was an American essayist, editor, critic, and lecturer dedicated to literature and education, “renowned for his warm and accessible literary style and for popularizing the study of myths and folklore among a wide audience.” [Short Stories]. His framing of the holidays (which in current times include Christmas, Hanukkah, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve, any and all events and celebrations of the holiday season) as a “conspiracy of love” holds a hopeful, optimistic light to this time of year, a time that comes with wide swath of conflicting emotions for many, many people.

Beyond the unavoidable contradiction of celebrating in the midst of pervasive global angst, there’s also the granular madness specific to the holidays themselves. For many, that’s a burden: the demands of gift-giving, decorating, entertaining, office parties, time with people we either do or don’t want to spend time with, just, in general, participating in the swirling eddies of (sometimes enforced) holiday cheer can be too much for some people.

Which is why I always suggest, and we’ve implemented in our own family, downsizing the holidays to a size that fits your particular temperament and circumstances. It’s actually easy to do once you get past the stalwarts who resist any change to family traditions or cultural expectations. In our case, we limit gift-giving to the local kids, keep gatherings casual and easy, do digital holiday cards, and focus on easy entertaining like cookie parties and time spent in the “conspiracy of love”: cuddling the littles, thoughtful conversations with those visiting, lots of warm, authentic time with family and friends, and, in my husband’s case, a commitment to “ugly Christmas shirts” (I’ve at least got him focused on mid-level ugly). It all adds up to an easier, less expectant time, and is celebratory enough to amply mark the moments.

So, on this day of Christmas Eve, what I wish for you—my family, my friends; my colleagues, collaborators, subscribers, curious readers, fellow Substackers, everyone—is to find your own “conspiracy of love” in whatever holidays you celebrate and however you celebrate them. Time and energy spent in ways that feed heart and soul (and, yes, stomach, too … it is, after all, the holidays!), ways that bring you closer to those you love, bring you joy; leave you emotionally sated and hopeful for the year ahead.

Know that I am always and incredibly grateful for your continuing support and interest in my thoughts and words, for joining me here on this platform (and elsewhere) as subscribers, commenters, sharers, fellow writers, and dear friends and family who take the time to engage. For your passion and commitment to moving our world, our country, our fellow humans, in directions that benefit us all, and for staying in the global conversation. We are all in this together.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Joyful Hanukkah, Festive Kwanzaa, and, of course, good whatever it is people do on Boxing Day!

May 2026 be a year of …. well, let’s fill in the blanks with positive events and changes we can all celebrate. That’s what I’m going for.

Gratitude Comes In Flickering Spots of Light …

On November 27, 2025 By Lorraine Devon WilkeIn Latest ThoughtsLeave a comment

It’s not always a wave for me, a surge; a tide of sensation. Sometimes I don’t feel it at all … or feel left out, karmically rejected, less than. But that’s rare. Short-lived and situational. Most of the time I look around, take in my life with its many, myriad spots of light and color and electricity and possibility, and feel… gratitude. Deep, profound, right to the bone marrow gratitude.

Which is why this day, Thanksgiving, resonates for me, a day built on the promise to take a breath, take a pause, and reflect on the things for which we feel that essential emotion. A day to gather with family and friends for a feast. To set a picturesque table. My husband has a thing about quirky Thanksgiving shirts. See’s Chocolate Turkeys always make an appearance in our household, and wishes of “Happy Thanksgiving!” are sent around the circle, far and wide. It’s a grand night for eating.

Unlike Christmas, with its wondrous weeks of anticipation and merry making, Thanksgiving is but one day, one 24-hour period; it’s unhysterical and undemanding; even its frivolity is muted (its colors are orange and brown, for heaven’s sake!). It’s a holiday during which no one expects gifts, there’s no pondering a menu—most of us look forward to the classic meal—and any tendency toward singing is thwarted by the cacophony of football games. Simple, sweet, and meaningful.

So, I’ll follow suit. I’ll keep today’s “special Thanksgiving Substack” to a short list of things for which I am grateful, large and small, silly and serious, meaningful and minor, in no particular order:

Waking up in that perfect stillness of dawn.
Being old enough to appreciate my age.
A perfect cup of chai tea.
The ease and comfort of my home.
Heartfelt connection with my son.
Living in blue, blue California.
Winning an election.
An unexpected gift.
My savvy, sensible, sensational siblings.
The wonderful diversity of my city of angels.
The charm of my husband feeding the birds and squirrels.
Solid legal adjudication against MAGA madness.
My dearest circle of longtime friends.
Chef José Andrés and his kitchen of compassionates.
The pleasure of being fully understood.
Fearless people standing up against authoritarianism.
The life-changing wisdom from knowledgable teachers.
That sensation of sinking into a perfectly prepared bubble bath.
My husband snoring quietly beside me every night.
The Westside Threshold Choir and everyone in it.
Every hopeful article about the tide turning toward ethics and honor in the current political scene.
The colleagues and cohorts of my creative worlds.
A good book review.
When I take what turns out to be a quite brilliant photograph.
That Jane Goodall existed.
Enthusiastic attendance at protest rallies and marches.
The smiles, love, and sparkling life of my newest family member.
When my singing voice does everything I want it to.
Rich people like MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates.
An excellent bowl of popcorn.
When my husband walks a the room and smiles.
Animal videos that make me laugh or go “aw.”
When poll numbers tilt in favor of sanity and progress.
Strength, fitness, and excellent health … mine and my family’s.
When everything clicks with my band and I’m transported to that out-of-body exhilaration I’ve been lucky to experience since I was fifteen.
A fierce speed walk on a cool, sunny day with Lady Gaga pounding in my ears.
Knowing that the majority of human beings value goodness and empathy.
Watching a sunset shimmer over the ocean outside my window.
The beautiful world around me.
A new, true friend.
Trees.
Kindness.
Good food.
Rain.
My asshole cat, Georgy Girl.
My life… all of it. Every bit. Before, now, and whatever’s next.

And you. I’m grateful for you. For your reading this, reading whatever I muse on about; for being part of this circle, this conversation. I don’t take it lightly or for granted. Your interest and support, however you choose to share it, is incredibly meaningful to me. Thank you.

May you have peace, safety, and love. Good health and the lightness of joy. Time with the people who matter—family, friends; grateful strangers. The opportunity to let go, even for a bit, for as long as you can, of worry, concern; anxiety, and fear. May you have moments of clarity when the realization that all that’s good in your life, large and small, adds up to bona fide abundance, your version of abundance, and you know that’s something worth celebrating. I wish you that gratitude…on this day, and every day going forward.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

That Universal Yearning: How Finding Love Became the Theme of HYSTERICAL LOVE

On November 28, 2015March 21, 2022 By Lorraine Devon WilkeIn Uncategorized

An interviewer asked me recently about the themes I most often employ in my writing, mentioning that love and family were central pivots around which both my novels spun. She wondered why those two themes so resonated with me, and I told her it was simply because they’re the most universal themes in all of life. Regardless of circumstance, ethnicity, social status, or any of the other qualifying ways in which we define and divide life, we all have family and we all want love. Even Edward longed for his Bella and he was a vampire!

When I started writing Hysterical Love, my second novel, the story evolved in a way that made it a companion piece to my first, After The Sucker Punch. While very different stories in terms of tone, plot, storyline, and protagonist, both involve thirty-something people reacting to the words of their fathers. But where Tessa, of my first novel, was most involved in rediscovering who she was—and who she was to her deceased father—Dan’s journey in Hysterical Love is all about love; sweet, elusive, maddening love.

And it’s an exploration of love on many levels: not just the heady lust and passion of new love that’s so often the driving force of drama, but the longer-term love of Dan’s three-year relationship with Jane (his very-soon-to-be-ex-fiancée); the lifetime love of his parents married for forty years; even the fleeting love of youth described in a fifty-year-old story written by his father. His roommate, Bob, revels in love’s abundance, his workmate, Zoey, can’t seem to find it, his sister, Lucy, is convinced it’s all about soul mates. But it’s when his father has a stroke and hovers near death, mumbling the name of the woman from the fifty-year-old story, that Dan is struck by the realization of another kind of love: love unrequited.

Given the strains and struggles of his parents’ cranky, utterly unromantic marriage, the story of his father’s aching first love of fifty years earlier overwhelms Dan’s imagination. And when he hears his comatose father mumble the name of the woman from the story, he’s struck by an unrestrainable urge to go find her, convinced she holds answers to his many questions about love.

So Dan sets off on an untimely and ill-conceived road trip to Oakland, CA, where the woman was last located, determined to change the course of his and his father’s lives. While on that tumultuous journey, he not only questions every aspect of his life, he’s faced with defining a whole new level of love when he meets the gorgeous, intriguing Fiona, a woman surely formed from someone’s fantasy. She appears as if sent from the gods to help in his quest and, in doing so, takes his breath away, forcing him to face his own definition of the elusive emotion.

But it’s the one-two punch of the plot’s unfolding—the reality of the woman he’s searching for, and Jane’s unexpected arrival to win his heart back, that forces love, an urgent pull both life-giving and soul shattering, to be most deeply examined.

For any adult who’s experienced the roller-coaster ride inherent in our human urge to connect and find affection, Dan’s story, and that of his parents, his fiancée, his workmates, his roommate, even Fiona, will surely resonate. He’s led to new thoughts, new realizations, and some painful, if undeniable, conclusions about the many faces love wears, and, in ways he couldn’t have imagined at the start of his story, he finds life altered accordingly.

The true testament to the power of love…

Photoart by Brenda Perlin