February 2026

I love you. Happy month of love! We can choose to pause, take a deep, contemplative breath this February and concentrate our energies on all the ways we can express our love of life.

Saint Augustine knew he was in love with living. Emily Dickinson understood that “Love is all there is, is all we know of Love.” Let us count ways.

We uplift ourselves and all those we love when we’re able to express our warm feelings as we give and receive love. When we shine a bright light on and show gratitude for all the people, places and things we dearly love, this focus enhances our emotional connections and makes us more lovable. Loving is a way of being; it is the essence of our humanity.

Who are your loved ones that immediately come to mind? Whenever we mindfully experience life in a loving conscience, we live in a lighter, deeper, richer realm. Who are your mentors, teachers, coaches and friends who love you, encourage you and support your journey? Who are those loving souls that helped shape your life who you continue to honor after they have died? Their understanding, compassion, caring and teaching remain helpful because of their loving-kindness and devotion toward you.

So many of my teachers I’ve never met because they lived in earlier times, or because they are highly accomplished, famous people I only know through their art, literature, acting, music, science, politics and activism. I know and connect with these wise people through history’s storytelling and the written word. You are familiar with these brilliant minds I admire because I quote their timeless and inspiring insights and practical advice when I write you.

Mother Teresa understood, “It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is now how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving. … Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.” Wouldn’t it be lovely if we were able to encourage all those we meet to feel better? Love makes this possible. When we nurture a positive attitude and our disposition is warmhearted, we’re able to encourage others by giving support, good cheer and confidence.

Ever since I started writing “I love you” in these monthly newsletters, I’ve received echoes: “I love you too Alexandra.” One of life’s great gifts and mysteries is how positive loving energy communicates volumes. Love loves love. We thrive in the comfortable, relaxed atmosphere feeling that we are loved. Good, warm energy is felt intuitively. There’s a sense of ease, a calm feeling, knowing we are loved just as we are. When we’re able to relax and exhale, we let our guard down as we open up our hearts and become vulnerable, more lovable, more enthusiastic.

Living in Love was published in 1997. Just as we long to be loved as we are, the more we love life just as it is, the greater our joy. Because we are only alive in this moment, we live in love now; we improve all the things and ways we can. The key to our living in love is to do everything in our power to purify our heart and soul, becoming self-aware about our wise choices in order to strive to do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. Our loved ones inspire us to greater courage and confidence.

Living in love is a process of discovering what gives our life value. What are the principles we hold dear? When we not only accept but embrace the reality of the complexity of life right here, right now, we free ourselves to be useful to our neighbors and friends. We are motivated to love all that is true, good and beautiful in humanity. There are no small or insignificant gestures when they are done with love.

When we’re living in love, we are not only grateful for the miraculously magnificent opportunities we’re blessed to experience, but we’re humble. We know how fortunate we are, and we want to play our part and give back.

By establishing a daily discipline of self-reflection, we’re able to realistically assess our loving state, beginning with self-love. We have a pliable brain that is influenced by what we focus on, what our recurring thoughts are and how we respond by our actions. Living in love is a way of being true to yourself as you evolve in all the endless ways you express your love. The impressionist painter Auguste Renoir exclaimed, “It's with my brush that I make love.”

Euripides knew the power of love. “Let my heart be wise. … Love is all we have, the only way that each can help the other.” Erich Fromm taught us, “Love is an activity, a power of the soul.”

The same time Living in Love was published, Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, became an instant hit across the country.

The Four Agreements are ones we can weave into our daily practice:

1. Be Impeccable with Your Word
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
3. Don’t Make Assumptions
4. Always Do Your Best

Holy people practice love in their thoughts, prayers and actions, helping the people they encounter gain strength, dignity, confidence and spiritual awakening. When we feel emotionally generous and caring, love is a many splendid thing. We love the gift of life, the atmosphere we breathe, the light that illuminates our windows as well as the beauty and grace that surrounds us.

Ruiz thanks the Creator of the Universe for the gift of life. He ends his book, “I love you just the way you are, and because I am your creation, I love myself just the way I am. Help me to keep the love and peace in my heart and to make that love a new way of love, that I may live in love the rest of my life. Amen.”

We grow to become more accomplished at whatever we do when we love what we’re doing. Ovid knew that “skill makes love unending.” Even a troubled soul, Vincent Van Gogh, knew, “It is good to love many things, for therein lies true strength; whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.” This great artist “accomplished much” because his art was done in love, with a passion for life.

The sensuous food writer M.F.K. Fisher believed food is love. In the forward to her book The Gastronomical Me, she recalled:

When I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it … and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied … and it is all one.

Fisher was highly appreciative of her five senses, her physical appetites. She had an extraordinary ability to take a great deal of pleasure in the sensations of taste, of flavor, aroma, texture, savoring and remembering quintessential moments where she appreciated love being “all one.” Several decades later, Fisher was able to remember a beautiful, intimate memory in vivid detail. “I can taste-smell-hear-see and feel between my teeth the potato chips I ate slowly one November afternoon in 1936, in the bar of the Lausanne Palace,” she wrote.

Fisher’s writing has influenced my life because she believed “there is communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk…. Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.”

We all eat. Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher thought that Americans are taste blind, ignorant of flavor. Her work awakens us to the aesthetic as well as sensual delights that food and drinks provide. When we pay attention to the subtle flavors we taste, as well as the beauty of the presentation of the food, and the atmosphere — because of the good company with whom we choose to share food — our hunger for love is satisfied. “It’s all one.” We love and are loved.

Fisher set an example for us to follow. Let’s communicate with her spirit and answer her deeply serious question: “When shall we live if not now?” As we think of all the unending ways we can love life, we can identify and recall the sensual delights we’ve enjoyed and can continue to celebrate by awakening our senses.

Cheers!

My dear friend Rebecca Senior died on January 20, just shy of her 64^th birthday. I met Rebecca when she was an 18-year-old art student who became utterly captivated by the French artist Roger Mühl. I was too. David Findlay, the founder of the David Findlay Gallery, had discovered Mühl and hosted his first one-artist show in America in 1961. I was sent by my interior designer boss to go to the opening and select a painting for her client in New Orleans. I instantly became mesmerized, and I became a fan that day, and my mother bought me my first Mühl painting from that exhibition as a wedding present.

When he met Rebecca, Mr. Findlay was impressed by her deep knowledge of Mühl’s work as well as her enthusiasm. She begged him to let her work in the gallery in order to be surrounded by his work. The rest of her professional life, Rebecca’s main focus was promoting Roger’s work and seeing that his ardent collectors would be able to view and live with his paintings.

In 2008, Rebecca called me to tell me the sad news that Roger had had a massive stroke and died in his sleep the night before. I’ve had some time and distance since Roger died. His paintings are sun-drenched scenes that envelop the walls and surfaces of the cottage. While I am still stunned that Rebecca will never call, write, come visit or meet me in New York City to go to the Museum of Modern Art to gaze at their Impressionist paintings, she too is alive in Roger’s art, and she will live in my heart as an irreplaceable friend I dearly love. Rebecca, continue to surround yourself with Mühl’s love of beauty as your shining aura illuminates our art-spirit. Rebecca, Mühl and I are intertwined forever.

Dan Brown’s latest fiction tale of intrigue, murder and mystery engaged my attention for nearly 700 pages. I am endlessly curious about the debate at the center of the novel: Is there consciousness after the death of the body? Is consciousness non-local? When we dream, is this non-local subconsciousness similar to death? Are dreams mini deaths?

When someone has a near-death experience, they are out of body and feel light, peaceful and calm. Why? Is this the same when someone stops breathing and their body is dead, but they are conscious after death?

Is science able to prove out-of-body non-local consciousness? Are the fleeting moments humans have of these ecstatic experiences able to be proven repeatably in science labs?

We’re all going to die. Everything that lives dies. Love, however, never dies. Our energy lives on in a new form. Whatever is true about whether there is life after death, our hopes, wishes and beliefs in heaven or only making a heaven on earth, we all have our beliefs, our opinions. We waffle when we even contemplate a dark void. Beliefs and opinions aren’t facts.

People who have read Dan Brown’s bestselling novels all agree that he keeps us captivated, curious and focused on his mysteries. The Secret of Secrets is a subject everyone has to contemplate. As Shakespeare wrote in his play Hamlet, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”

Who among us has the answer? Not I!

People who still enjoy writing and receiving handwritten letters, sent in the mail, are increasingly rare. This age-old ritual of handwritten letters takes time, effort and focus, and all of us who continue the practice find rich rewards as we enjoy the intimate connection. I would feel impoverished if I didn’t send and receive letters on a regular basis.

Denmark ended postal carrier letter delivery in January. The world no longer relies on physical mail because of the easy convenience of the internet. What is quicker, easier and cheaper has changed how we communicate. The traditional process of sitting down at a desk and writing a letter on personally selected stationery, to one specific person, with a fountain pen in a chosen color of ink, then sealing it in an envelope with a personally selected stamp, is a ritual that is well worth preserving. Some of us enjoyed using sealing wax. Because the mail is sorted in a machine and no longer hand stamped, that grace note is obsolete.

The Danes are the first to end mail carriers who deliver mail door to door. Sadly, letter writing in Denmark has dropped a whopping 90% since 2000. I have several friends who live in Denmark and correspond with me. I hope their post office isn’t too far from their home.

At the same time that the Danes’ ubiquitous red letter boxes have become still lives before disappearing entirely, the former governor of New Jersey, Philip D. Murphy, on his last day of office signed into law an important bill: all third, fourth and fifth graders in New Jersey are now required to learn cursive. This is a positive sign that I applaud, and the support is bipartisan.

If cursive were still instructed in schools around the world, I don’t think there would be such a precipitous drop in letter writing. The federal government removed cursive from the requirements in kindergarten through 12^th grade in the Common Core Standards in 2010. Murphy wants students to learn to read and write script to help them read (and understand!) the original U.S. Constitution, other old documents and all the handwritten letters that have been written in cursive. Universally, we all tend to admire the beauty of this art form.

Cursive handwriting is scientifically known to improve cognition and refine motor skills. New Jersey is just one of several dozen other states that have reinstalled script into law. Apparently, a renewed interest in cursive comes at the same time as societal turmoil. I wouldn’t have predicted this phenomenon, but I enthusiastically embrace obsolescent script having a comeback. Teachers, educators, social psychologists and scientists are urging students to spend less time on their computers and take handwritten notes in and out of the classroom. There is no pleasure like having a pen glide smoothly on the page. When script becomes a habit, in time penmanship will improve.

I handwrote all my books, published and unpublished, draft after draft of edits until a literary assistant put the final draft on the computer. I do the same with these newsletters. Remember, the process is the reality. I’m happiest with a pen in my hand.

We had a doozy of a storm that affected two-thirds of the country. I escaped to the Marriott Hotel & Spa for two nights as a precaution in case we lost power. The good news is that I enjoyed a peaceful two days, safely watching the storm from the room that overlooks the reservoir. While the 16 inches of snow fell, I was warm and cozy at my retreat with hot food and a welcome change of scenery.

Rested, restored and refreshed, I had a massage before heading home. I’d had pneumonia in late December and was hospitalized to get me stable, and I had been quietly taking it easy for a few weeks to rest and recover. Once home, I was relieved the pipes didn’t burst in the frigid weather. Unfortunately, however, the cottage had experienced a massive “ice dam.” The study ceiling was leaking over my desk. (This is not the first time this has happened.)

In an ice dam, the ice is so heavy on the roof, and the gutters are frozen over, so there is no place for water to go. I had no idea how to melt an ice dam in frigid temperatures. The roofer and a friend rigged hot water from the laundry room sink area with hoses to melt the snow and ice. When the weather warms up, we will determine and fix where the leak came from. My contractor got the best roofer to come immediately. He and his son worked as a team for two days.

I’m deeply grateful to feel so supported and feeling so well. In closing, I send you a heart full of love. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Love & Live Happy,