What’s Lovely on Valentine’s Day
“The authentic self is soul made visible” — Sarah Ban Breathnach
If you’ve checked out my post, Valentine’s Day: Away from B.S. and Back to Basics, you know I’m all about authentic displays of affection – displays that come from a place of genuine appreciation. I’ve been thinking about the season less in terms of manufacturing romance and more in terms of savoring and appreciating the life in front of us, which I’ve found, often results in being romantically inclined anyway. What’s Lovely on Valentine’s Day? Freeing ourselves from anything that falls short of authenticity. Here’s a list of things that will help us keep the love real.
“The authentic self is soul made visible”
If you’ve checked out my post, Valentine’s Day: Away from B.S. and Back to Basics, you know I’m all about authentic displays of affection – displays that come from a place of genuine appreciation. I’ve been thinking about the season less in terms of manufacturing romance and more in terms of savoring and appreciating the life in front of us, which I’ve found, often results in being romantically inclined anyway. What’s Lovely on Valentine’s Day? Freeing ourselves from anything that falls short of authenticity. Here’s a list of things that will help us keep the love real.
Hearts by freestocks.org
Self-love. It all starts with self. You cannot give what you don’t have. Period. Let’s kick-off this season’s love fest by reflecting on what we appreciate about ourselves and our lives. Let’s also do something special just for the one looking back in the mirror. I am totally watching Pride and Prejudice…alone…with wine. That way, I can sit silly-smiling at the TV and mouthing the lines along with Lizzy and Mr. Darcy with no one judging. It’s my absolute favorite movie.
Beauty. What other holiday allows for unfettered loveliness? I am absolutely indulging and making a beautiful breakfast. I am planning heart-shaped pancakes and sparkling apple cider for the littles served in flutes on a bed of pink and white rose petals. I did the flutes for an event I put together – Dinner and Dessert in the Dark – and the display turned out beautifully. Update: Here is the spread I put together. Breakfast for dinner and kombucha instead of cider but lovely all the same. :-)
Heart-felt communication. If there ever was a day to communicate genuinely, this would be the day to do it. A few days ago, I kicked off the season of appreciation by sending my family something I wrote to them a while back about how they saved me when my daughter was born prematurely. It was raw and beautiful and it felt so good to really acknowledge them, thank them, and share how much I love them all. As an added bonus, it turns out that praising others not only makes the receiver happy, it also adds some serious joy to your life as well, according to Shawn Achor, happiness researcher. What a wonderful Valentine’s Day gift to others and to yourself. Also, the love season might provide a perfect opportunity to dust off the stationary and paper goodies. if you’ve seen my post, The Art of Communication, you’ll understand why I think analogue tools sometimes more readily allow for authentic communication. I’m sharing something hand written with my husband and also crafting some proper valentines with the kiddies.
Updated Tradition. Let’s be honest. The heart-shaped boxes of toxic chocolate could use a bit of updating. Am I right? Chocolate, seen as an aphrodisiac, was all about setting the scene for romance. I think it could be used equally as effectively to accommodate my new approach to Valentine’s Day of savoring and appreciating. Chocolate could easily set the scene for reflecting on and appreciating all of the sweetness in life and it’s easy to enjoy. Nothing like a hot beverage to assist in reflection so this year, I’m doing hot chocolate made with organic almond milk, TJ’s dark chocolate, and decent marshmallows (Update 2.5.25: Hudson Valley marshmallows are so good!) (I’ll deal with the sugar-crazed kids later). On my list for V-Days to come? Chocolate art – either buying or taking a class. Think Vosges Haute-Chocolat or Guilt Chocolate (Update 2.5.25: Guilt is no longer open). I would also love to do a proper chocolate and wine tasting again. My husband and I did a spectacular tasting in Napa Valley at Rutherford Ranch and it’s been too long since I’ve done something similar.
Simplicity. I’m excited about my V-Day plans and even more excited that they’re coming from a place that resonates with me. That said, I know the magic will quickly dissipate if I let myself get frenzied. In order to stay stress-free during this holiday (and all the others, for that matter), I’m keeping things simple. My activities are going to be spread out over a few days, rather than trying to cram everything into one day and make it all perfect. I’m also about having people help out wherever possible. There may be fewer carrot sticks and more PB&J’s if my husband handles lunches, for example, but that will give me a chance to focus on other holiday activities. The mister and I have also decided to keep our alone time simple too. We’re doing french fries and drinks at a restaurant bar in the bustling metropolis of Dayton, Ohio! That’s where the babysitter, errr grandma, lives. We’re going to forget the fluff and just enjoy each other’s company! Win!
So there’s the list. What would you add?
Love in all things,
April Eileen
P.S. Don’t forget to check out my other V-day posts - Valentine’s Day: Away from B.S. and Back to Basics and February’s Quotes from the Classics - for more love!
Quotes from the Classics: February
Love is in the air! Let’s kick off Love Month with some classic quotes about affection, intimacy, and endearment. Included are beautiful words by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, in celebration and recognition of both love and black history and culture.
Love is in the air! Let’s kick off Love Month with some classic quotes about affection, intimacy, and endearment. Included are beautiful words by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, in celebration and recognition of both love and black history and culture.
Red rose by Jamie Street
“To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.”
“He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”
“And what is a kiss, specifically? A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned to taste, a vow stamped with the immediacy of a lip, a rosy circle drawn around the verb ‘to love.’ A kiss is a message too intimate for the ear, infinity captured in the bee’s brief visit to a flower, secular communication with an aftertaste of heaven, the pulse rising from the heart to utter its name on a lover’s lip: ‘Forever.”
“Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.”
“Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.”
“Come when the nights are bright with stars
Or come when the moon is mellow;
Come when the sun his golden bars
Drops on the hay-field yellow.
Come in the twilight soft and gray,
Come in the night or come in the day,
Come, O love, whene’er you may,
And you are welcome, welcome.”
Love in all things,
April Eileen
P.S. Don’t forget to check out my other V-day posts - Valentine’s Day: Away from B.S. and Back to Basics and What’s Lovely on Valentine’s Day - for more love!
The Art of Communication
“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.” — Carl Sagan
Books and journals, folders and notebooks, pens and pencils, paints and pastels. These are the tools of communication. Essential to the inspired. Of utmost importance in the business of conveying thoughts. They are a means to an end, allowing the Divine to share its story through words, imagery and imagination. With these powerful tools, anything can be achieved, any insight or idea captured, any vision articulated. Inevitably, the thoughts of the greatest minds and the emotions of the most creative have been poured out and scribbled upon the pages of an inconspicuous notebook. Cubism, the little black dress, and the first drafts of the I Have a Dream speech became real when ideas found their way to paper. And, in some cases, the very souls of men and women have been lucky enough to be expressed in the pages of a book, forever archived, forever available for the world to enjoy.
“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”
Books and journals, folders and notebooks, pens and pencils, paints and pastels. These are the tools of communication. Essential to the inspired. Of utmost importance in the business of conveying thoughts. They are a means to an end, allowing the Divine to share its story through words, imagery and imagination. With these powerful tools, anything can be achieved, any insight or idea captured, any vision articulated. Inevitably, the thoughts of the greatest minds and the emotions of the most creative have been poured out and scribbled upon the pages of an inconspicuous notebook. Cubism, the little black dress, and the first drafts of the I Have a Dream speech became real when ideas found their way to paper. And, in some cases, the very souls of men and women have been lucky enough to be expressed in the pages of a book, forever archived, forever available for the world to enjoy.
Fountain pen and paper by Debby Hudson
These tools matter only to the extent they reflect the soul. Communicating from the soul often takes time, and perhaps, that is why some of our analogue tools lend themselves so well to expression and provide the most accurate reflections of our humanness. And while Powerpoint slides accompany our notebooks, paints, and pencil boxes, and we often opt for digital versions of our once paper bag covered books, there remains something thoughtful and real about slow communication. I remember, for example, when a person in the throes of dating thought long and hard about what they were going to say, how they might say it, and what the other person’s response might be long before ever placing a phone call. The nervousness, the stammering, the messy humanness of the subsequent exchange somehow added to the would-be couple’s romantic dance in much the same way the rose of Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s Little Prince became a beloved rose because of all of the little prince’s dedication to it. We can swap some of that messiness for the polish typical of a text message or of a friend request devoid of messaging altogether; or we can quickly add an emoticon rather than articulate the breath of our feelings as we once did in a postcard or letter. It is not to say that our new school toys can’t get the job done. I’m simply suggesting the onus is on us to remember what makes communication so very special. We have an opportunity to preserve the wonder of it all regardless of the medium we choose.
Typewriter and other communication tools by Rawpixel
Yes, I am a bit nostalgic. Perhaps it’s because I’m a romantic or perhaps it’s because I add a tell-tale senior quality every year (I’m now in bed before 10pm on most nights). Or maybe it goes deeper than that. I’m told that as a baby, I fell in love with the feel of a pencil the moment I held it in my chubby hand. Before I could match coherent sounds with meaning, I studied conversationalists most closely. I looked to and fro, at my mother and father, as they engaged in riveting discussions I couldn’t yet understand. I anticipated when one person was supposed to speak and looked, bright-eyed and eager, at the next person when it was her turn. I learned the rhythm of the words long before I could comprehend their meaning. All the while, I made secret soliloquies in my own tiny mind, waiting for the time I would be able to share them.
There was no greater euphoria than that which came from school supply shopping. I was completely bewitched and looked forward to the annual trip like some kids look forward to summer vacation. I strolled the paper aisle at Ames (if you’re much younger than me, look that up) with purpose, assessing the various colors and styles of notebooks and folders. I took care to choose those that best represented my uniqueness and some of my favorite smelled of leather or captured dreamy Parisian scenes on their covers. I studied the array of pencils and pens, making sure to choose those that would write with ease and grace across a sheet of paper. I was enthusiastic about crayons, markers and paint, and the ever useful post-it note.
Somewhere along the way, I got a diary as a Christmas or birthday present, I can’t quite remember which. It was sky blue with a pair of pink ballerina slippers on the cover and a little gold lock on the side. I didn’t dance but it was pretty which made me happy, and, on some level, I understood the importance of each lined page inside. I wrote my elementary thoughts down with fervor and commitment until the last page was complete. That little prized possession followed me, stored in the packing boxes bound for the college dorm, the apartment blitz of graduate school, and even to the high-rise near my first job, until I lost it sometime in my mid-twenties. Let us pause for a brief moment of silence.
Equally as enthusiastic about sending messages as I was about receiving them, I found the library and the bookstore like havens. Books helped me understand myself and the world. I knew, even then, these tiny rectangular objects with their many pages collectively held the wealth of human knowledge and something about that spoke to me.
Books sign by César Viteri
To some degree, I always understood communication cements our human interactions. How wonderfully human it is to prepare and present thoughts and ideas as a chef would a beautiful dish of food or to receive ideas prepared in the same vein. It is no wonder that we have cared so deeply about the presentation of our beautiful communication. Our prehistoric ancestors drew images of the animals they saw in the Lascaux caves of France. Slaves, forbidden to write, felt compelled not only to learn but to write using the formal conventions of the day to the best of their ability; and their successors commonly tailor how they speak according to particular audiences. Women wrote letters on delicate stationary and scented them with perfume hoping to infuse them with some semblance of their sentiments. Italian humanists, in their quest to showcase life as being about more than just utility, developed cursive writing, with its open and elegant letters. Today, we micro-manage our language and the delivery of our messages. It is even in this spirit, that we’ve added all manner of fun and fancy to our text messaging.
Our communication is, and has always been, about much more than talking (or writing or drawing) and listening. It’s about having an opportunity to physically express our most elevated selves and to receive the same kind of expression from others. We are here. We are alive. And through our expression, we herald the importance of developing ideas, based on particular and idiosyncratic experiences of life that will never again occur, and taking the time to communicate them with care. Let us revel in and reflect on our beautiful interactions. Let us preserve our humanness. Let us remember our souls. And always, let us communicate.
Love in all things,
April Eileen