Norristown's Maria Bello considers her life, and labels that empower

Earlier this week, at a party in New York to celebrate her book Whatever . . . Love Is Love, Norristown-born actress Maria Bello watched as her father had celebrity chef Mario Batali put salami directly into his mouth.

"My dad was definitely the king," Bello said with pride.

Bello's memories of her father, though, did not always elicit such pride.

The third chapter of her book begins as Bello recalls asking her father, "Dad, do you remember when you chased us through the backyard with a gun?" As both Bello and her father, who she says is alcoholic and bipolar, began to heal over time, there are fewer threats, less verbal abuse, more love and forgiveness.

Each chapter in Whatever . . . Love Is Love begins with a question Bello attempts to answer through experiences in her own life, from growing up in a working-class Polish-Irish home in Norristown, to attending Villanova University, to moving to Hollywood to star in the likes of ER, A History of Violence, and Prime Suspect. The chapter about her father is titled "Am I Forgiving?"

Bello will be in the region throughout the weekend, reading from and signing copies of Whatever . . . .

She has big plans for when she is not on the promotional beat. "My mother has been cooking for two weeks to get ready for this weekend," she said. "She has 60 meatballs frozen, 300 cookies, eggplant lasagna. The entire weekend will be at my parents' house in Norristown, and eating is a lot of what we do."

Bello's mother, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma 28 years ago and is still alive and well, is a major presence in Whatever . . . . But just as the book is the story of Bello's life, it's also a chance to question the labels we use to describe our lives - especially the label modern family.

Those words come from her 2013 New York Times op-ed "Coming Out as a Modern Family." In it, Bello recounted telling her then-12-year-old son Jackson that she had fallen in love with her best friend, Clare.

He replied: "Mom, love is love, whatever you are."

That essay opened up a larger conversation for Bello. What is family even supposed to mean? "I wrote that essay in one hour after my son's birthday party with Clare and Jack. My family had flown out from Philadelphia, [Jack's father's] family was there. There was so much love in that room," Bello said. "All these people are my partners and my family."

Bello began examining other labels in her life. In the summer of 2013, she was on bed rest, shedding parasites acquired during a humanitarian trip to Haiti. Bored, she decided to read over her cache of notebooks from the past. "I had hundreds of notebooks under my bed I had been keeping since I was 13," she said. "There were so many questions raised, but no answers."

So Bello started answering those questions for herself in the hopes of inspiring others to question themselves. "Labels should never make you feel judged or ashamed," she said, "but embrace the ones that make you shine light on who you really are."

Bello's advice: Accept and own labels that make you feel part of a community. She gives the example of Bruce Jenner, who, in an interview last week with ABC's Diane Sawyer, announced that he was transitioning to become a woman. Bello praised Jenner's decision to claim a new gender as his label.

"It was such a beautiful, inspiring interview," Bello said. "That's what my book is about. Facebook just added 51 new terms for gender, including cisgender [meaning identifying as the gender you are born with], which most people are. Soon the label just won't be LGBT, it will be LGBTABCDEFG . . . the entire alphabet. I love that people are embracing those labels."

Other labels were more difficult. In the chapter "Am I a Catholic?," Bello recounts her relationship with Ray Jackson, a priest and professor at Villanova who opened her world to writers and ways of thinking that she never experienced. She thinks of him as her best friend.

He was the only nonfamily member invited to her 21st birthday party and is her son's namesake. The Rev. Jackson may be a priest, and their relationship platonic, but in Bello's book, he, too, is a partner.

Bello found it difficult to embrace Catholicism again as an advocate for a woman's right to choose and marriage equality. But her son identifies as Catholic and asked to attend a Catholic high school for his freshman year (although he also was attracted by the chance to play on its killer soccer team).

When Bello reexamined this part of her life, she thought about how "Father Ray" would have looked at her today, and how he viewed his religion. "It was [a religion] of effusiveness, it was one of kindness, of nonjudgment," Bello said. "So I decided to reclaim that label."

Maria Bello: "Whatever . . . Love Is Love"

7 p.m. Friday, Driscoll Hall, Villanova University, 800 E. Lancaster Ave. Free. Information: 610-519-4500 or www.villanova.edu

1 p.m. Saturday, Devon Barnes & Noble Valley Forge, 150 W. Swedesford Rd. Free. Information: 610-695-6600 or www.barnesandnoble.com

1 p.m. Sunday, Philly AIDS Thrift at Giovanni's Room, 345 S. 12th St. Free. Information: 215-923-2960 or www.phillyaidsthriftatgiovannisroom.comEndText

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@mollyeichel