February 11, 2022 … Friday afternoon
It’s sunny and 46 degrees out which means only one thing in mid-February in the NW … I have to get outside and take a walk with the dog!
This is a piece I wrote for the island magazine (omg – 7 years ago! How time flies!) … Enjoy!
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In a few days Cupid’s arrows will shoot through the air and countless hopeful/hopeless romantics will have their day. I love Valentine’s Day. I don’t know if it stems from my extreme fondness of all things pink and red, or my love of everything shiny, glittery, or lacy, or that I just love that people have “an excuse” to express their adoration.
Whatever the reason, I love it— and that I, too, am one of those romantics doesn’t hurt, either.
VIt is the time of year when gloom seems to reign and a bit of glittery pink and red is welcome amidst whatever winter might be bringing
Who doesn’t like Valentine’s Day?
I remember, as a child in school, the excitement of decorating our tissue boxes for the Big Day. I couldn’t wait for all those sweet and cheesy love notes! Apparently, the apple didn’t fall far from my family tree. My grandmother, born in 1903, saved her Valentines from year to year and then stuffed the whole lot into her decorated box leaving her classmates imagining that she was the most popular kid amongst them! Perhaps not the most popular, but surely the most cunning!
When I was little, an elderly neighbor dropped off a Valentine for me…it was one of those cards (in the early ‘60s) that was a cut-out of an animal with fuzzy “fur” on it. Inside was a little cellophane bag of red hot candies. It was probably my first Valentine from someone other than family and I felt so very special. I owe old Mrs. Wisniewski for the early pitter-pattering of my heart.
LA few years later, I entered a contest for the best homemade Valentine at our local grocery store. I used a shirt box, gold and red doilies, a ream of construction paper, and a vat of glue and glitter. I won first place! Woohoo … and my prize? An inflatable plastic bull! Whatever that had to do with Valentine’s Day I have yet to figure out, but hey—I won! With that win my creative and inner artist came ever more alive and Valentine’s Day, for me, was never the same ever again.
I love Valentine’s Day because you get to be a child again—you have reason to get out the glitter and glue, you can write an entire love letter using only candy conversation hearts—and then your intended can eat it, and because everyone has the opportunity to profess their adoration, via simple or grand gestures and indulgences that on any other day might seem nonsensical or overly extravagant.
Or maybe I’m just a sentimental soul for all things LOVE.
Tolstoy said, “Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love.”
NECCO said, “I C U R A Q T.”
Some people think that Valentine’s Day is one of those “Hallmark” holidays manufactured by the greedy business owners of flower and candy shops portraying love by dollars spent and fueling consumerism and commercialism, striking guilt into the heart of people who forget, causing arguments amongst those who don’t buy into the whole “holiday” and heartache for the forgotten or unattached.
I’ve seen my share of jewelry store ads this week; I know commercialism and consumerism revolve around this holiday. And yet, I don’t seem to mind. I say, “Bring it on!” I am tickled with the thought of a holiday that honors all that is love and romance and matters of the heart whether man-made, natural or store-bought.
HI have no problem whatsoever with heart-shaped boxes of candy, red ribbon-tied boxes of lingerie, or anything homemade. If it comes from the heart, how can you not love that?
But how, you may ask, did Valentine’s Day come about? Read on.
Saint Valentine’s Day (according to my online sources and a very fragile 1910 encyclopedia) is a holiday observed on February 14th honoring one or more of the Christian martyrs named (yep)…Saint Valentine.
There are three renditions of how this all started. In the first story, Saint Valentine was persecuted as a Christian, and after Roman Emperor Claudius II failed to convert him to paganism and Saint Valentine failed to convert the Emperor to Christianity, he was executed. However, before his demise, he performed a miracle and restored the sight of the jailor’s blind daughter. That story isn’t exactly romantic nor does it make me want to get out my construction paper and doilies and start making hearts.
The second rendition comes closer to providing a connection with romantic love. Here we have Roman Emperor (Claudius II again) ruling the lands. Seeking to expand his army, he allegedly ordered that all young men remain single, believing that married men did not make good soldiers. In steps good old Saint Valentine—herald of conversation-heart candies and singing telegrams (not really)—who in defiance of the edict and in the name of love, married the young men to their betrothed. When the Emperor found this out he was not pleased and threw Saint Valentine into jail…and soon thereafter had him beheaded. This also does not make me want to get out the glitter and glue and red, shiny heart stickers or eat chocolate-covered cherries.
Version three has Saint Valentine, for whatever reason, in jail. On the eve of his execution he (got out the glitter, glue, red and shiny heart stickers, construction paper, and doilies) and made the first-ever “Valentine” card. He sent it to the jailor’s lovely daughter, signing it “From Your Valentine,” leaving her with his heart for all eternity and (apparently) opening up the gates for the modern-day greeting card industry!
Oh, I just love a good story!
So, whatever version you like, we owe it to Saint Valentine’s devotion to love for this lovely little holiday and the excuse to eat one’s weight in chocolate … always that much better from a heart-shaped box.
Share the versions of the stories; if you really want to impress your love, recite the real poem stating that roses are red and violets are blue. It dates back to 1784 and was found in a collection of English nursery rhymes in Gammer Gurton’s Garland:
The rose is red, the violet’s blue. The honey’s sweet, and so are you.
Thou art my love and I am thine: I drew thee to my Valentine.
The lot was cast and then I drew, and Fortune said it shou’d be you.
Any holiday that promotes showing your love to someone else and eating candy all day long is a good day! Those that truly balk at this holiday, I figure, just need more chocolate!
So, make it special. Give a kid a Valentine, stuff your neighbor’s mailbox full of hearts and candies, smile at a stranger, give yourself flowers, write a poem, hold hands with someone you love, go eat some mussels or pop some champagne!
You still have a few days to come up with something extra special for your someone special (plan a walk or picnic, get or pick floral anything, buy or cook up some chocolate, purchase or share a special piece of jewelry, plan a day at a museum or gallery, dine at your favorite restaurant, opt for a tour, class offerings or concerts) … or stay closer to home and make it a special DIY date. Go ahead, on this one day, unleash your inner Cupid!
And if nothing else comes to mind…you can always get out the glitter and glue.
Happy Valentine’s Day!