Skip to main content

Old Entry from Previous Blog

Friday, February 16, 2007

Valentine's Day/ Snow Day

This morning, we awoke to six inches of powdery snow, and a snow day, and so began a glorious Valentine's Day. Chocolate Chip pancakes for breakfast, and chilly romp outside, a crackling fire, and homemade Valentines have all continued to make this the sweet day tradition says it should be.
Many believe that valentine's Day is merely a holiday perpetuated by mass corporations like Hallmark, capitalizing on peoples' needs for passion and romance. It trounces on the lonely and heartbroken, and empties the pockets of the desperate in love. But does it have to be that way? I spent four and a half hours making homemade valentines cards for the kids classes, complete with ribbon, and gold embossing, only to meet with a disdainful Jake, wondering why I wasn't buying the 99 cent cartoon character cards at Wal Mart. But don't those cards go against everything that Valentine's Day should stand for? If we so easily forget to pay attention to these little things, aren't we merely exacerbating the already dismal situation of current romance patterns in our society? Call me melodramatic, but I truly believe that the downfall of our culture relies mainly in the laziness we have all come to embrace. We take short roads, when the long ones may be much more scenic, we microwave when the oven adds more flavor, we drive when the walk would do us good, and we buy cheap ugly cards when we could show the recipients we care enough to spend a minute on them. And, of course, this is all metaphorical. Cards are just a small reminder of how quickly we disregard that which comes from the heart. I will always be the romantic who believes that flowers plucked valiantly from a field say more than a bouquet designed by professionals. I will always believe that a goopy peanut butter and jelly sandwich created by a husband for a wife with cravings is a thousand times more delicious than a veal dish in a five star restaurant. It is all about relishing moments, creating lasting delicious minutes. I will spend laborious hours hand-piping frosting on the heart cookies for Morgan's school. They will be eaten quickly by greedy four year olds' hands, but Morgan will remember the time I took forever. The way I will always remember my own parents sketching me homemade cupid cards when I was small, or my mom stitching my costumes at halloween. Small thoughtful things are lasting. After valentine's Day my senior year, an ex-sweetheart sent me a lavish bouquet of roses to patch my grieving heart (my grandparents had just died). Valentine's Day of my freshman year at ASU, a friend ran after me in a parking lot to deliver one rose and a card because they truly just felt I deserved it. One year when we were down and out, Jake brought me home a crossword puzzle book, which meant more than jewelry ever could. I suppose we could sum this up with the old cliche- It's the thought that counts. And it does. So to all of you who are looking forward to your evenings with your special someones, remember that offering them a drink when they haven't asked for it, or covering them with blankets when they have fallen asleep on the couch, or bringing home chicken soup when they were up all night coughing....they will remember these things long after the petals have dried and fallen from the flowers, and the chocolates have been eaten and the shiny heart boxes discarded. I wish you all a day of old fashioned romance, vibrant passion, and heartaching saccharin. But most especially, I wish them to still be there tomorrow.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We are damned if we stay silent, and damned if we speak.

When I was nineteen years old, only a year into adulthood, and only hesitantly an adult, a man sexually assaulted me. We had met in our apartment complex one night, at the community pool. He was good looking, a military man, cocky and confident, and I was going through the end of my first relationship away from my small hometown. I invited him into my home. I kissed him. I let him into my bedroom. That was where my permission ended. When I told him no, he proceeded to try to shove his genitalia up the leg of my shorts, and when I began to cry and told him to stop or I would scream, he told me I was a tease. And I felt guilt. I am going to say that again- I felt GUILT. As a girl, I had been preconditioned to believe that I could feel bad for getting a guy "worked up", and I didn't kick him out. I slept on the floor next to my bed, while he slept in my bed, and I woke to him trying to do the same thing, only to my face. That time, I was done. Typing these words out makes
3 comments
Read more

Pura Vida

I have always been a bit nervous about traveling, I suppose it's the fear of the unknown. Although, at age 18, I moved across the country to a place I had seen only twice in my life, alone, so I'm not always a scaredy cat. Having gone to Italy in February, and now Costa Rica this week, I believe the wanderlust within me has awoken. The two trips were as vastly different as they could be. In Italy, we spent a week viewing man-made treasures, art in opulent and majestic galleries. We feasted on cheese and wine and pasta, and then feasted again on the rich sights of the Vatican. We took trains to the beautiful cities of Pisa, Florence, Milan, Rome and Montecatini. The days were filled from morning till night, sometimes blending into each other like watercolors, where we had forgotten what we had seen until we could process it days later. It was a week of history, and art, and beauty and family. This week, in Guanacaste, has also been about beauty and family, but entirely differ
2 comments
Read more

The march was a journey for all women, not just those who walked.

I am really tired of seeing the blogs written by complacent women in their suburban homes, self-righteously shitting on the women who took to the streets for the march on Washington last week. We can pussyfoot around the subject and take care with our words, because as women, we have been taught to be non-confrontational, to be demure. But I am taking back those silly notions and raising a big fat middle finger to the people who deride others for defending the very rights that have brought them to their complacency in their suburban homes. If you chose not to march, that is absolutely your decision, and I will not criticize you for it, for we each have to be comfortable in the ways we raise our voices. But if you are a female who has ever voted, who has ever held a job in the workforce, who has ever used birth control, had an abortion, been assaulted, been harassed, bought a home, owned a credit card, or given birth, then for you to tell the women and men who marched on our behalf th
2 comments
Read more