Because Love Is Worth It …

“Love and intimacy — our ability to connect with ourselves and others, is at the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads to healing.

I hope you and your loved ones enjoy a special Valentine's Day together. I look forward to spending mine surrounded by my amazing family.” (Dr. Dean Ornish, MD)

Some people make a matter of personal propaganda the fact that they do not celebrate Valentine’s Day. They wear the fact that they “think it’s stupid, commercial, dumb, useless” like a badge of personal pride and loftiness. They use that attitude as sort of a superiority mark against the rest of humanity, too low to be dumb, stupid and useless enough to celebrate it. 

All that makes me want to do is chuckle and sigh and pray  that they are going to snap the heck out of it, before their lives are spent. At least snap the heck out of thinking they are so right and the rest of the world is so wrong. 

I personally don’t believe we need a holiday to celebrate Jesus, either! I believe He should be celebrated every single second of the day and every day of the year, with every breath we take. And I definitely do not believe that we need to buy our loved ones millions of dollars of crap they won’t need in His name, around His holiday, either. And yet, on December 25^th we do just that! How is that less commercial than marking a day in the calendar to say to your loved ones “ I love you” on a special note, I see not!

I don’t believe, as Americans, we need any special holiday to say “thank you” for everything we’ve got on this beautiful land. To be appreciative for what our history and traditions have given us. I also don’t believe we should celebrate it with stuffing ourselves with turkey – why not chicken? Or mushrooms for that matter?! And yet, we do that. Every year. And that, somehow, makes us less commercial? And less “cheap” than buying a card on Valentine’s Day? Why?! 

I am grateful for my husband, and my family and Jesus, and His Resurrection and what America has given me every day of the year - sure. But I love the opportunity to stop, ponder and make a “big personal deal” about it at least once a year. I tell my husband “I love you” every day. But he only gets his favorite chocolates once a year. He’s a diabetic – and an occasion to allow that treat is welcome. I don’t wear it as a badge. I just see it as my personal choice. 

I hope you all enjoyed today – doing whatever it was you were doing. Not out of spite and self assurance, but just because it made sense to you. And along with Dr. Ornish said – I welcome one glorious day that reminds me why I love my husband and that this love leads me to healing, happiness, peace and wellness! Let this be my only sin, that I am loving celebrating love.

The Heritage of Love

My veteran readers are probably wondering what am I going to trash this year for Valentine’s Day? What crazy, sassy, sarcastic blog am I up to for 2008? The thing is, though: I am not in such mood. So sorry to disappoint: I think I’ll be goopy, for a change!
I thought about my parents a lot today. Their love story is a bit unreal and seems out of cheesy paperback novels, and I haven't shared it with many, but here it goes.
They met on a train ride to the beach one summer. They were 17-18 or so. Mom looked very old (as in “mature”) and serious and very beautiful, by dad’s accounts. Dad was a hippy, bell-bottoms and flip-flops. He was passing her compartment, he stopped in awe and he asked her: “Why are you sad?”; in her typical, dry, fatalistic tone, she answered: “I don’t think I will ever, as long as I live, know what happiness is. It’s just the way it goes”. And she looked outside the window, and didn’t smile, like he was bothering her. Then, he sat down and he said, just like that: “Well, that will be my mission in life, then: to make you happy. One day”. That was their first dialogue. And the rest is history. Or the rest is my life ...
We don’t have Valentine’s Day back home, or at least we didn’t when I grew up. But their “love day” was the anniversary of the day they met. That day, on the train ride. And until both my sister and I left home, I don’t remember one such anniversary they celebrated without us.
We never went out. But on their “first date” anniversary, we would go out, the four of us. They didn’t want to be alone, and they didn’t want a party, like they had for any other celebration. They always told us: “On this day, when we celebrate our falling in love, we want to be with the fruits of our love, the two of you (me and my sister)”.
Dad, forever the romantic, Beatnik hippie, used to tell me and my sister: “Your mom and I are part of the ‘Love Story’ generation: little money and lots of love will keep us going forever”.
And thus years passed and we always knew to be prepared to go out with them for “love day”. And I really felt that for ONE day, at least, that I could tell … mom was happy. They both were. Happy and in love.
And so, today, when the world (or at least the American one) celebrates love, I give thanks to all the loves in my life, in memory of theirs. Even if single (again, I know: broken record), I can feel love and taste love, and smell it around me. And I am grateful for it.
And I am starting with the parents.
Hopefully, we’re all here because of love, or at least pleasure, and that’s one thing we can think about and appreciate on our own, without having to “share” it with “someone else”. We can just enjoy it, on our own. I am grateful for that every day of my life: that I am a “result” of love.
I try to give that feeling back to everything else in my life: my house, my family, my food, my friends, people I work with, books I read, every day that I open my eyes to, my cats, the way I cook, the way I plant my flowers, the way I write, and everything else I do or come across with. Love is mindfulness and respect towards all that, for me, and I share it freely. With all of you.
Mom and dad are still married, after 34 years of love, cat-and-dog style. She nags and is “serious” and “bitter”; he tries, relentlessly, to make her happy. Children are gone now, far, far away, but he buys her gifts on their love day, or just flowers, while she sighs with sad eyes, looking out the window. And I am sure they both feel the happiness, and bask in it. It’s there. Even if they don’t “call” it that!
Give love and feel it. It’s always there. You just need to be still and find it, listen to it, taste it.
And as my dad would want me to, I will end with the most absolute (if “absolute” can have a comparison degree!) definition of love: the one that John Lennon left us:

“Love is real, real is love
Love is feeling, feeling love
Love is wanting to be loved
Love is touch, touch is love

Love is reaching, reaching love
Love is asking to be loved
Love is you
You and me

Love is knowing
We can be
Love is free, free is love
Love is living, living love
Love is needing to be loved”

Happy Love Day, everyone!
And remember: we’re all loved, somewhere, and also “lots of love and little money can keep you going forever”. And we all come from it! So, just enjoy it, and be happy for it, and tread gently …