I was born with
the name Valentine and have always been glad of that. When I was in
college and first read James Joyce I, like Stephen Daedelus, began to
wonder at the meaning of my name. Was there an epiphany in it for me
as there was for him? I've been wondering for quite a few years now
and every year as Valentine's Day approaches my quest seems renewed.
Valentine's Day, like most things deemed anyway significant in this
country, has become a commercial bonanza. Every store is filled with
flaming red hearts, cherubs, and glaring reminders of how spending even
more will truly declare ones love. All of this designed to make those
in love feel guilty for not doing enough and to make those not in love
feel like crawling under a rock. I keep reminding myself - this is not
about love, this is about commerce.
But what about love,
most especially romantic love, for that is what Valentine's Day reminds
us of. Life, I believe, holds infinite potential for romance - in every
minute, in every action. We have this notion that to be romantic we
have to find that special someone and then make all the right moves,
say the right words. But I believe that true romance is how we live
our lives. It is not about finding the right person, it is about being
the right person. It is about opening your soul and your mind and your
senses to all the pleasures possible in every moment.
I stop by Bill's
house on a rainy afternoon. Mario Lanza's glorious voice fills the house.
Bill is in the kitchen chopping tomatoes and garlic, tearing up basil
leaves, making meatballs. The smells are succulent. "Taste this,"
he says lifting a spoon to my lips, his sky blue eyes aglow. "Luscious",
I say. "I love to spend rainy afternoons cooking," he tells
me.
Mary brings me a
velvety rose the color of ripe Tuscan figs split open by the sun. "I
was cleaning out a corner of the old garden last summer and I found
the remains of this withered rose bush", she tells me, "I
dug it up and nursed it all winter. I know it sounds crazy but I wanted
so much to bring it back to life and now look…." Its perfume
rises like a lark on a summer morning.
My brother Jack
sends me a bottle of homemade wine. Every summer he tramps the woods
of the Allegheny Mountains where he lives filling his pack with wild
grapes. He distills them in to wine the color of liquid rubies with
a taste like mountain laurel glowing in the sunlight and the songs of
robins just before a summer rain.
Betty Lou forgets
to come to lunch. "I was outside painting," she explains later
, "and the clouds were so incredible I couldn't leave. I had to
paint them while they were there."
Charlie works late
in to the night in his woodshop in back of the house. He has a perfect
piece of golden walnut he is shaping in to a jewelry box for his daughter's
birthday. He sings along to old Frank Sinatra records as he works. I
can hear his husky baritone while I stir a pot of rice pudding fragrant
with saffron and cardamom in my kitchen. Trudi lights lilac scented
candles and stitches tiny pink seashells to golden ribbons decorating
the baskets she fills with magical gifts. Sharon fills her bird feeders
and grooms her cats. Robin plants night-blooming jasmine under her bedroom
window. Michael climbs the stone wall at Lane's Cove and plays his flute
as the sun sets over the water.
This, I believe,
is romance. This is life well and truly lived with a taste for the indescribable
pleasure of beauty. This is the touch of the Lover. My father once told
me that I was lucky because God had given me the gift of eyes which
see beauty everywhere. I believe him but I also believe I inherited
those eyes from my father - along with my romantic last name.
The wallpaper on
my computer screen is a close up of the faces of the lovers in Ruben's
painting "The Union of Earth and Water" - my favorite painting.
I love it partly because the lovers Ruben's shows are mature lovers
- his beard gray, her body softened and relaxed by life. But mostly
I love it for the looks in their eyes - not fiery passion, not sentimental
longing, but the most enduring of romantic love - love of beauty and
open appreciation. When we cultivate appreciation and learn to look
with love our days are filled with romance and every gesture is a Valentine
to life.
