If you accept the conventional wisdom, a successful Valentine’s Day requires roses, chocolate, and perhaps, if you’re truly under the influence, some sort of trinket.
Supposedly, Valentine’s Day celebrates love, or at least the concept of romance – the crazy stuff that fuels poets and musicians and Katherine Heigl movies. But in truth, the modern American version of Valentine’s Day has become so over-marketed that the shy bud of romance is perhaps least likely to bloom in the hothouse of overblown expectations of that one day in February. There’s too much pressure to get it right, and only one chance each year.
For many of us, even those who have weathered enough Valentine’s Days to know that it’s never enough to get it right for one day, it’s become an occasion to celebrate the smaller, but no less treasured parts of our lives – the little things that take the edge off life’s brutal corners.
On Valentine’s Day, I am grateful for Jane Austen. Of course, I’m grateful for her every day, but especially on a day when so many people fly the romance flag without any apparent understanding of the values for which it stands. Unless you carry the flag day in and day out, rain or shine, in sickness and in health, etc. etc., a box of chocolates or a dozen imported roses doesn’t mean much. But if, by chance, you are lucky enough to carry the burden of love, to suffer the pain and boredom and anxiety that inevitably comes along with the joy when you open your heart completely and let someone else in, then perhaps a box of chocolates or a bouquet from time to time isn’t a bad idea.
However, Love is a big country, with room for attachments of all sorts. We love our friends, our families, our pets, our gardens, our sports teams, our fictional worlds, our countries. Some of us even love our whole planet.
Admittedly, that would be a lot of chocolate.
Perhaps it’s best to start small. Love the person closest to you. Pass it on.
