A Love For The Ages
Valentine’s reflections and choosing love with life, as it is
A curated playlist to accompany this post: Songs To Love To
Dearest Reader,
I still get warm, fuzzy feelings when I think back to Valentine exchanges in my elementary classrooms. One of the best parts being the decoration of a shoebox with a mail-slot opening cut out of the top — a glittered pink and red receptacle for the tiny store bought cards featuring favorite cartoons and cheeky love puns. The night before, I’d fuss for what seemed like hours at the kitchen table over which ones felt appropriate to give to which person. Mixed messages were something to be avoided with first grade boys.
When I was in my early twenties and just months into living on the island, I re-enacted this grade school tradition with twelve friends and housemates. Over a potluck brunch of pancakes, locals fruits, and raw milk from a friend’s farm sweetened with maple syrup, we traded the handmade valentines we’d all spent the night before collaging and painting. At every place setting at a long, dressed table on the porch, sat oversized envelopes and heart shaped folders bearing our names in which we each collected our personalized love notes. That morning we celebrated the fostering of both new friendships and some as old as time, current partnerships and the sparks of new love, and for all of us, newly found freedom.
There was a time in between these memories though when I shrugged off Valentine’s season. A part of me still delighted in the sweet, romantic imagery from days gone by, the colors, and everything heart shaped, but the heavy marketing messages tainted what had previously felt lighthearted. The pressure to be (happily) coupled, to participate in performative acts of affection, to splurge outside of your means, to make grand gestures — it can feel exclusive, excessive, inauthentic, and ultimately disappointing.
The short of San Valentino’s story is that he was a staunch advocate for love and union (and eventually a martyr for his cause) despite the Roman government preventing marriage for young men, favoring them instead as soldiers. Essentially, we are being reminded to lean hard into love, even in, especially in, times of war. As the patron Saint of beekeepers, Valentine is also a reminder of the importance of tending to community and mutual care. If we wish to tie any part of the old story into our current era of Valentine’s Day, let it be this.
Now twelve years into living life and being in relationship with my island home, I acknowledge this place as one of the great loves of my life. It has supported me in leaning into a soft and slow life. It has shown me how to romanticize my every day life. And in seasons like this, when love is in the air, I am choosing to be present with childlike joy and with the learned lessons this island has taught me. I celebrate Valentine’s season by delighting in simple pleasures, by romancing myself, by continuing my lifelong quest of finding beauty where there may seem to be none, to finding belonging in my body, to delighting in the ordinary and finding it extraordinary. Simply, by choosing love with my life, as it is right now.
Reflection questions to journal to, meditate to, or ponder throughout your day
What Valentine’s memories do you have from being a child or younger person?
What feelings does Valentine’s Day stir up for you now? Why do you think you feel this way? Be honest with yourself.
If any part of you feels sour about it, how might you transform those feelings by reclaiming the day?
What does love mean for you? What does romance mean for you? How might you imbue your definitions of these words into your life for yourself?
Under what love language light does your own heart shine brightest? (Acts of service, words of affirmation, gift giving, quality time, physical touch and affection.) Your answer can certainly include more than one.
In what ways do you most like to experience this/these?
How do you currently express this to your self? In other words, how do you love yourself in your love language(s)?
If you don’t feel like you have an answer to the last question, what are some ways you would like to start expressing your love language to yourself? Think about when and how you feel most at home in your body. For example, if your love languages are gifts and physical touch, a desire might be “gifting myself a new body butter to massage my body before sleep.”
And finally, I’d like to share with you a page out of a now retired edition of Hina Luna’s Wax and Wane zine, On Earth And Color —
A Declaration Of Self Love
I am committed to radical acceptance of myself.
I treasure every part of me.
Heart. Body. Mind. Spirit.
I honor all that it means to have a tender heart in this world.
I prioritize taking care of all parts of myself.
I allow myself plentiful rest.
I am worthy and I am enough.
I have autonomy over myself and am also a mindful part of the greater collective.
I honor my body, in all of its levels of ability, as an altar to my ancestors.
I am an incarnation of all who have come before me, and I am my own.
I honor my body for all of the ways it houses my spirit.
I am human, therefore I am creative.
I accept and celebrate my life as a work in process.
I commit to keeping my heart and mind open.
I will not abandon my love and acceptance of my self, unless when I do, then I will forgive myself and offer myself my love again.
