by cristina velocci | photographs by GEORGE CHINSEE
credits
Creative Direction
+ Design
Marielle Verni
Sheila Patel
Photographs
George Chinsee
Styling
Samantha Sutton
Marielle Verni
t’s a mild spring afternoon at Emma Lovewell’s wooded
New York home and the birdsong is deafening. Sun streams
through the towering trees, casting a golden glow of light onto the hills of wildflowers that the Peloton instructor planted with her long-time partner, Dave Clark, who that morning set loose 40 baby praying mantises he bought on Amazon to serve as a natural form of pest prevention. “They eat everything,” he notes. Their two cats, Kimchi and Rhody, freely roam the property, featuring a fallen tree trunk serving as a bridge over a natural pond, a fenced-in vegetable garden, and a stone walkway leading to a deck that’s bursting with peonies, sedum, catmint, echinacea and fresh herbs at every step.
The whole scene is so idyllic, it could have been lifted from a plein air painting. But in reality most everything before us, down to the trio of birdhouses, has been crafted and cultivated by Lovewell and Clark. Gardening has been a throughline in their relationship — this is the fifth one they’ve created together — and they can often be found doing yard work while listening to music (another shared passion) on an outdoor speaker. “There’s something very Americana to be digging holes and listening to Bruce Springsteen,” says Lovewell. “It just makes sense.”
The whole scene is so idyllic, it could have been lifted from a plein air painting. But in reality most everything before us, down to the trio of birdhouses, has been crafted and cultivated by Lovewell and Clark. Gardening has been a throughline in their relationship — this is the fifth one they’ve created together — and they can often be found doing yard work while listening to music (another shared passion) on an outdoor speaker. “There’s something very Americana to be digging holes and listening to Bruce Springsteen,” says Lovewell. “It just makes sense.”
For Peloton instructor and newly-minted author Emma Lovewell, gardening is at the root of her whole-life health.
Since her job in fitness requires her to exercise, people might be surprised to learn that Lovewell does two strength-training sessions per week on top of her work shifts, and often adds dance or yoga classes to the mix. “When I'm teaching at Peloton, the focus is very much on giving a good class: I'm being entertaining, I'm being motivational,” she explains. “I can't push myself as hard when I'm teaching because I still need to be able to speak. I need to make sure that I give myself that time where I get to be the client and enjoy my workout.”
She prioritizes strength training for both its short and long-term health benefits. “Especially as we age, our bodies are changing. We want to feel strong and capable in our daily activities, and muscle helps support your joints,” she says. “Strength training provides endorphins, so it's a little mood booster, it's good for you physically and it helps you with every single activity.”
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Just as plants have needs like sunshine, water, and nutrients to keep them thriving, we as people also have needs to keep us thriving both mentally and physically. You have to put yourself first, otherwise you can’t be the best possible version of yourself for others in your life.
EMMA LOVEWELL
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Article
Cristina Velocci
Indeed, gardening strengthened the bond between Lovewell and her mother, but never more so than when her mom was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer in 2016. Lovewell moved back home to take over her mom’s professional gardening business and help keep it afloat while she received treatment (she’s now cancer-free). “Gardening was something that created a living for my mom, but it was also healing for me as I was going through that traumatic time,” recalls Lovewell. “I got to learn more about it so that I could make sure my mom's business was thriving. I had a different appreciation for it.”
Lovewell isn’t wrong when she says gardening is therapeutic. Its myriad health benefits — from the physical activity that promotes better cardiovascular health to the vitamin D exposure that improves mood — have helped identify it as a key activity for longevity. And while Lovewell enjoys gardening for its social, physical and even meditative qualities (she’ll often listen to an audiobook such as Joanna Gaines’ The Stories We Tell or Breath by James Nester to “mindlessly weed”), she also views it as a blueprint for a well-lived life. “Just as plants have needs like sunshine, water, and nutrients to keep them thriving, we as people also have needs to keep us thriving both mentally and physically,” she notes. “You have to put yourself first, otherwise you can’t be the best possible version of yourself for others in your life.”
So how does Lovewell’s metaphorical garden flourish? It starts with a concept she calls “self-love” that takes a more holistic approach to the oft batted-around premise of self-care. “Self-care is part of self-love, but I think that self-love encompasses the feeling that you have inside,” explains Lovewell. “You can do self-care and not love yourself. Self-love is both the action and the attitude.”
One of the primary ways Lovewell expresses self-love is through movement. “It's dance, it's going for a walk, it's taking a hard exercise class or it's just gardening. I like to include all types of movement, because all of it is good,” she notes. “I say this in my Peloton classes: It's not torture, it's fitness. Work out because you love your body, not because you hate it. We're not punishing ourselves — we're celebrating our ability to move.”
All of this physical exertion can take a toll on her body, so another key component of Lovewell’s self-love regimen involves recovery. That often takes the form of acupuncture, which she’s used for addressing everything from acute muscle spasms to bad period cramps, and Rolfing, a type of deep-manipulation bodywork that focuses on myofascial release. “The idea is to loosen the space around the muscles so that the muscle can move more freely,” explains Lovewell, who visits Jessa Zinn of The Fascia Lab at least once a month. “It can feel like a lot of pinching, kind of like separating your skin off of the meat.”
Due to her openness and work in the fitness industry, Lovewell has tried nearly every wellness treatment and trend out there — from cold therapy to experimental yoga classes. “I'm a lifelong student. I'm always curious and wanting to learn more, and I think that kind of mindset is exciting,” she says. “If you’re a student of life, you're always working towards evolving.”
One mainstay in Lovewell’s life, however, is her female friendships. Despite her busy schedule, she makes sure to carve out time for lunch or dinner with a girlfriend once a week. “I do really prioritize it because it fills my cup,” she says. “I think that's really healing. We are not supposed to be doing this whole thing alone. We're supposed to interact with and have people in our life. And I do consider myself a pretty loyal friend — let's just say that I'm a lot of my friends’ emergency contact.”
While making friends as an adult can be challenging, Lovewell recommends engaging in the activities that you enjoy to find like-minded people. “Do the things that you love, even if it's by yourself,” she encourages. “You're not going to meet that person sitting at home. Don't be afraid to spend some time alone, but be open to meeting new people.”
Putting herself out there in front of unfamiliar faces is something Lovewell has been doing a lot of these days as she winds down her book tour, which started at the beginning of May. While she anticipated the heavy promotion and travel, she didn’t realize just how taxing the whole experience would be. “I feel like I'm now just on the come down of all of that,” she admits. “When you're building towards something for a really long time and then it happens, the aftermath is like a come down from being on drugs or something. It can feel sad, I can feel lost or confused, just like brain fog. But I know that too, so I'm trying to be really patient with myself right now.”
That means being okay not having an answer to the question ‘What’s next?’ that she finds constantly being lobbed at her — by others and even to an extent herself. “I'm trying not to jump too far ahead, and to also work on relaxing and resetting so that I can manifest whatever happens to be next and not rush into being exhausted, fatigued and overworked.”
In other words, it’s time to dip into her recovery toolkit and exercise some self-love. Right now, that means a first-time trip to Italy, where she’s touring the Amalfi Coast and Rome with Clark. And of course, that involves stopping to smell the jasmine flowers that pervade the Eternal City along the way.
garden
of Emma
For Peloton instructor and newly-minted author Emma Lovewell, gardening is at the root of her whole-life health.
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While gardening is now a cherished hobby for Lovewell — one she proudly documents for her 646K Instagram followers — its roots run deep into her childhood. Growing up on Martha’s Vineyard, her mom maintained a vegetable garden as a cost-saving measure and to ensure the family had fresh produce to eat. As she writes in her debut book, Live Learn Love Well, being asked to help her mother in the garden was “not only an unpleasant chore but one I was sometimes embarrassed by.” It was a visceral reminder that her mixed-race family (her dad is white and her mom is Taiwanese) was different and not as well-off as others on the island.
This attitude shifted gradually over time, and Lovewell points to two inflection points: the first being her move to New York City after college. “I was in this urban environment full of buildings and cement and pavement, and I started missing home,” she recalls. “I missed the greenery; I missed that connection to the earth.” What began as a geranium on her windowsill grew to some additional indoor plants and eventually snowballed into her and Clark’s first garden together in an empty courtyard outside her East Village apartment. “We all try so hard not to be like our parents when we grow up, but we all become like our parents,” laughs Lovewell.
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