I've decided to start calling Valentine's Day, "Love Day". Millions of people saying the word "love", or sending that word in greeting cards, might help the world a little bit right now.
Over the years, I know I have been a bit cynical about this holiday. OK, so I've never (even as a teenager) had a "Valentine", or received roses or candy from anyone who was more than just a friend. The only way I seem to know about romantic love is from Mary Balogh romance novels, and of course the male heroes of these books were created by a woman! When I go into grocery stores and pharmacies in January and early February, I cringe at the wall of junky red plastic gifts, plastic-covered boxes of chocolates, and silly cards. And when I multiply one local store's worth of Valentine's Day disposable gifts by perhaps millions around the world, I could faint, pre-seeing them all in landfills and the ocean. I would trade just this one so-called holiday for a gift-free one, where the men of the world literally lay down their actual (and metaphorical) weapons in favor of genuinely learning to love. I know how hard it is, since in 67 years I have barely figured out the easiest lessons (like loving music and art and England and dogs and food!) but you have to start somewhere. A man who gives me chocolates on Valentine's Day isn't as likely to become my "hero" as one who is seriously capable of loving. And if I meet him, in this lifetime or the next, it will probably be when I am similarly capable of, and ready for, that kind of love.
This morning, Lake Superior offered up a most spectacular Love Day gift...an extraordinary sunrise. For about a half hour, the whole southeastern sky was a dramatic pink/orange/purple mass, with the horizon line brightly neon. As the sun came close to rising, all the color drained from the clouds and into the area around the sun, which then came up a blinding orange. Yet within minutes, it was as if a grey shade was pulled down over the sun, and clouds and lake quickly became solid grey. Today is warm and will soon be rainy, later snowy...I was surprised that we had a sunrise at all, given the weather forecast. I guess with sunrises, as with love and beauty, you sometimes have to look quickly before they disappear.
