Leslie Koren - Love Rituals

Ideas and Inspiration For Intimacy

Leslie Koren

Artisan | New York

For Juan Pablo, for your vague aspirations, enthusiasms, thoughts after lunch, emotional impulses....

About a year after we began dating, my now-husband, Juan Pablo, and I decided to visit Spainat least as much to learn how we did as travel companions as to see the country. While eating and drinking our way through Madrid, we became enamored with the short, minimal wineglasses used at every tapas bar and reveled in the idea of bringing them back to our first apartment. We were thrilled when we found them for only a few euros per four-pack at a supermarket, until they were stolenalong with all of Juan Pablos clothes!out of the trunk of our rental car on a quick visit to the northern coast. So tragic! That is, until we realized that we could make a mad dash back to the store during a layover on the way home to New York City, nearly missing our connecting flight but gaining a precious memento, a ridiculous story, and a new ritual of finding fun items for our home while on vacation.

Almost twenty years later, we still use these glasses daily, along with black Chamba plates bought while visiting family in Colombia, a Shakespearean tea towel purchased at a London theater, and blue enamel spoons from a market in Oaxaca. These special-to-us objects bring big adventures to mind when were muddling through jobs and housework and school forms. Theyre all an integral part of our love storyspark plugs for happy memories and talismans during rough patches.

Our vacation collection is just one of many rituals that help my husband and me feel more intimately joined in the day-to-day of our (hopefully) lifelong romance and encourage us to reconnect during the inevitable slumps. In her seminal book, All About Love, bell hooks wrote that while love is most often defined as a noun, the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb. Years later, the couples therapist Esther Perel said love is, a skill that is cultivated, not merely a state of enthusiasm. It is dynamic and active. And from my experience, Id add: Start incorporating ritual into your relationship, and the action necessary to fuel your love becomes both more effortless and more meaningful. Im not referring to big cultural rites like red roses on Valentines Day and bent-knee proposals. Rather, Im championing the quirky rituals you create together, like morning coffee deliveries (see ).

For the purpose of building love and intimacy, I define a ritual as any interaction or experience that you two do regularlywhether thats daily or weekly, annually or only when youre on vacationand with intention. Clearly, you could go on a picnic together and it wouldnt be a ritual; it only becomes one if you both decide its going to be your thing and put in the effort to make it so. On that note, for it to be a ritual, the act must be meaningful to both parties. Im not saying you need to appreciate it equally, but rather you need to both value doing it in service of the relationship. I once read about a man who resisted making the bed until he realized how happy it made his wife, and he decided to do it daily as an act of love. The once-hated chore now brings him tremendous joy: a simple reminder that what we find meaningful shifts and grows with time.

I wrote this book because Im a total romantic and cheerleader for love, but also because I know (from personal experience as well as statistics) that committed relationships arent quite the fairy tale many of us grew up expecting. Our psyches, expectations, and obligations get in the way, acting as disruptive forces. Love thrives when we pay attentionwhen we are truly present for another personand these days, theres so much competing for our time and energy that its harder than ever to prioritize our partners. But Ive found that rituals work a bit like fairy dust: a touch of magic that connects and heals.

The structure and routine that are inherent to rituals provide a regular opportunity for you to focus on your relationship and to be present and open with each other. This creates space for intimacy and connection and fills your tank with positive energy and appreciation for each other. Then, when you do hit a snag, your relationship will be that much more resilientyoull find it easier to call upon your reserves of empathy, compassion, and love.

Okay, ready to make some fairy dust of your own?

In the pages that follow, Ive included many ideas to inspire your journey. Theyre designed to spark thought and teach you how to develop a more ritualistic approach to your relationship, or further develop it if you two already have some existing rituals. You neednt do every ritual in this book, or do them all the time, for this philosophy to work. You might start slowly, testing the waters with one or two small acts, and layer in more as you go along. This approach is especially valuable if you are more inclined toward rituals than your partner. (This is often the caseIm definitely the main proponent of them in my own relationship.)

The book is divided into three sections: Daily Gestures, Date Nights, and Intimate Encounters. The chapters are intended to, respectively, bring moments of unexpected romance to your everyday interactions, make your free time together more fun and rewarding, and help you feel connected on many levels. There is also a host of ideas for rituals that can enhance special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries, vacations, and times when youre apart.

Ive purposely kept the rituals as doable as possible, since doing them is the goal. Youll find some of the instructions quite concrete, while others are more fluid, aimed simply at highlighting moments or experiences that are primed for ritual. This leaves space for you to customize the specific act to your and your partners wants and needs, and empowers you to improvise. Before long, youll be able to cook up a meaningful ritual of your own in the same way a chef can whip up a delicious meal without relying on a recipe.

I recommend that you keep up a ritual even when youre not in the mood or your relationship is not in the best placeconsistency is a big part of the magic. And I suspect youll find that doing so is a lovely balm, a path back to each other. That said, this all works best if you allow yourselves some grace and fluidity. Sometimes factors like your relationship dynamics, home or work situation, or family makeup shift, and a cherished ritual will no longer fit. Give yourselves permission, if you need it, to let go; holding on to these rituals at any cost is unnecessary. Maybe a faded ritual will circle round again, or maybe youll create a new one that feels even better.

Im really excited for you two to employ your own ritual fairy dust, and hope these suggestions will infuse your lives with affection, romance, admiration, curiosity, energy, care, sexiness, and much, much delight in each other.