Good, and bad. Pleasure and pain. Life begins when we can understand that two sides of the same reality, create a unifying whole. Polarity does in fact…make the world go round. 

‘Tis the season for caring and sharing and newly professed love! My favorite day of all days.

I find it makes sense that some people of the “web generation” are not particularly fond of Valentine’s Day, such a warm and personal holiday. Never mind the TV, malls and billboard advertisements. It’s about the distraught couple trying to find a resolution, the father waking his daughter up with Valentines Day smiles and hugs, and celebrating the idea that Saint Valentine passionately -yet secretly- defied Claudius by continuing to perform marriages for young lovers. It’s about writing that letter or telling that special someone how you feel; before it’s too late, or because you want to begin.

Someone once said, life is too short to keep secrets. Take it from me; we’re all here for a pre-determined time and when that time is up, that love is lost. This day is here to help those of us pass the message along a little bit easier. And the need for love, is not always a romantic one. Once upon a time, when we were young, we were taught to share kind Valentines messages with the rest of our classmates, at what age did we learn to stop doing this, to stop caring?
 
As a little girl my grandmother would send me a card, like clockwork I’d wait for it in the mail. We’d later visit them with a box of chocolates and she’d always gift me some sort of candy jar filled with gummy bears with cute lids inscribed with “I love you” messages written in puffy paints. What I loved most was that every year my sweet-toothed stepfather would buy several of those tin cans of popcorn we all love, a couple dozen variety of flowers, bags of the finest licorice and gummy bears - the high quality stuff, not your average Red Vine or HarBro - and the funniest Valentines card a father could pick out for his daughter at the nearest Osco Drug (always with at least an 8 1/2 page long letter attached). He would sneak into my room before I woke for school, and place all of it on my bed. The thing is, I never wondered why he wouldn’t do that for mom. I didn’t have to. And mom would love watching me smile, with the occasional grunt about him always buying too much candy. Everyday was Valentines for her, for a while anyways. He often wined and dined her, took her shopping and went on romantic road trips. They had plenty of romance. He purposely, with thoughtful intention, spoke to my heart…to a child’s heart. to show me that I was loved, that Valentines Day wasn’t only for romance and proposals. It’s about sharing love, making someone smile.. and just because you can.

No one else I knew at such an impressionable young age, had such wonderful Valentines Days. I hold those days, and the way he was, and encouraged me to be …very close to my heart. Close enough to be able to grab it and share that feeling with others. And sure, this is the first year I haven’t had a Valentine to share a kiss with. But I’m loved, and I love and I have friends to share my heart and smiles with…

Happy St. Valentine’s Day to all! 

We fear being lifted up by the murder of heartbreak, only to be destroyed by the crashing of love.

We're born with ideas. 
Symbols aid in recollecting them, 
reuniting that which is apparently separated. 

For as long as the drought lasted she sat atop the lonesome hill surrounded by mishandled dusted fields, in the company of silence. she turned her aching spirit just enough to see a light along the horizon, embracing her with possibilities. pain erodes our shelter from unpleasant winds, and just as quickly - storms carry love that replace the damage done. and so then, in the company of song, she danced towards the storm, leaving ache alone atop the lonesome hill.

(mood study for character of forthcoming novel)

It’s been ten months since I last saw her alive. It’s been exactly a year since her last birthday. She was sick then, could hardly breathe. Listening to her music reminds me of her breath. It was always a struggle for her to breathe freely, openly. It’s no walk in the park feeling obligated to a life caring for a mentally ill mother. I would watch her live vicariously through her mothers wildly naked choices. Naked wasn’t a wardrobe choice for her mother, it was a thoughtless pursuit of finding herself. I suppose it’s always easier to look for a needle when there is no hay. Her mother looked, and looked…and looked. She never did find anything. Maybe that was the point, to find her self in the deepest part of the forest. My friend however, was handed this obligation, this struggle, her mother, and she observed. She cared for her. She analyzed it all over and over again, until her years of tears made her sick. She found too much. Her death was slow, long, debilitating. Her mother’s death, not too long after, was quick but I can’t imagine less debilitating. And I, we, look back at all of it, searching for clarity. I think the only thing we can do is love those around us, a little bit more. Continue to sympathize with those that struggle. Such a fragile, precious life,  for all of us.

(i’m writing something about this subject, in depth, and not so enigmatic. this note is more of a way of processing, externalizing something so….well, internal.)