do everything that you love

in general, i try to enjoy most things unironically. so what about the roses and the pink and the hearts and the candy. i’m sure there are many happy engagements and parties and dinners. 

but it could have been a day about love; you know? it could have been in the middle of winter, a little beautiful bright day. one last day of the holidays, to clean out the winter malaise, to call in spring, to love each other again. we could have spent this day going irresponsibly skinny-dipping, cleaning out our closets, undoing where we went wrong. a day about love as a concept - love as the thaw, as the turn from the cold, as admitting we are getting a-little-stir-crazy. love like a dancing dog, like firewood, like soon-spring-will-come.

and it isn’t. it is a day that has been made by commercialism, and it is a day that survives on the same backbone of the carcass it was made from. valentine’s day is a handmade holiday with no history to breathe life into it; a strange and red box; an amalgam of romantic tokens. it is full of impersonal consumerism; a holiday without the joy or tradition. it is just a checkbox. it feels like a checkbox.

and over and over, i hear - “i hate valentine’s day.” and you should. it’s heteronormative, it’s alienating, it completely misunderstands love. even happily married people will bemoan it - they do it to, like do something, i guess, but they don’t celebrate. many of us find alternatives - we celebrate our friends, we throw anti-valentine’s parties, we celebrate by ourselves.

and this is wonderful.

love cannot be manufactured. love cannot be written into a calendar. it cannot be transcribed into a series of actions, into a placement of gifts, into a hallmark card. love cannot be bought, nor can it be sold, nor can it be reproduced by capitalism. love will know its own name in each of us. love will follow us, dog-tired, until the end of the road, and love will still be behind us in our shadow. love will hold our hand in the shower and love will curl around our broken bones. 

how wonderful, is all. they said - here is when you will show your love for each other, this is the day and the hour and here is how you will move and how you will go.

and we said, one by one - what do you know about love? i have loved this whole winter. i have loved my friends and i have loved the moon and i have loved apple turnovers and i have loved songs and i have loved myself enough to know when i am too far gone. what do you know about love? i have loved the sun and i have loved puddles and i have loved the yawn of a cat. 

Nikki Giovanni, from “Mirrors”