Imprimis:
All you need is love. -The Beatles
While I can't say I have found this particular edict from my beloved fab four to ring completely true in my own personal experiences to date, I will wager that of all the things we need, love is the most important. We need salt, we need water. We need time to be together and time to grow wiser. We need inspiration and fortification, hands to hold and fornication. We need discipline, poetry, education, grace, and a good warm pair of woolen socks. We need the kind of friction that fits like a brace and turns abrasive if we lose hold of one another, forcing us to fight back into alignment. We need the cool dark lovely night and the orisons of the moon. But above all, we just need love.
I've never really been bitter about Valentine's Day. Never been a girl to relish in anti-heart's day parties and penis pinata smashing. However it wasn't always my favorite holiday from the get-go, either. No, something special happened to seal old VD the tops in my heart.
Four Valentine's Days ago, I was a shy 19 yr old college freshman, nursing a heart still swollen from my first real break up. I went to bed the night before crying softly and thinking maybe he'd wake up and say "I wish she were here next to me this Valentine's Day morning," and then he'd call, and I and my crazy little heart would go running back to him and crawl up into bed and things would be ok, if only for a day. But of course this did not happen. He did not call. He did not text. He did not break the three week wall of silence that lead up to that morning and would continue on for a good 15 months thereafter. What did happen was a snow day.
On February 14, 2007, Gettysburg College woke up to a completely unexpected, unpredicted, unanticipated foot of snow. Our classes were cancelled, emailed our professors (many of whom lived within a few blocks walking distance and easily could have held lecture), go outside and play. The sunlight crackled through with an extra magnitude of brightness, reflecting off the lake of virgin snow outside my dorm. I pulled the shade down extra tight and snuggled back under the covers, indulging in the happiest three hours of extra sleep until the sounds of laughter from boys playing ice hockey in the quad and the girls throwing snow balls at them woke me from my slumber. My friends and I went around laughing and taking pictures in the snow. Our hands got so cold I don't think we made it through even half the cigarette we split between the three of us. It was such a nice surprise, it caught us all so off-guard. It seemed as though happiness was infectious that day. Whether it actually was or not, I can't say. Maybe I'm the only one whose tortured heartbeat was so syncopated by the heavenly surprise. But ever since then, I can't think of Valentine's Day without remembering the feeling of being really genuinely happy.
And so it is, I think, with love.
Four years later, despite more heart ache, and once again an empty space in my bed where a boy used to lay not very long ago, I can't think of love without remembering the feeling of being really genuinely happy. Of being alive and focused on a whole new level. Of the peace of mind, the utter relief, the faint, fractured pulse beating through shades of navy blue. I'm sure I've cried myself to sleep many more nights than not, but somehow this hasn't made me the least bit gun-shy. I only seem to want more.
More love, please. More life, please.
And so this year I have decided to dedicate something to the cause of Valentine's Day. Love in all its infinite varieties, not limited to college dorm-sex romance, or romance in general, for that matter. From here on out, let this little corner of silicon interface be my love letter to love actually. Love between mothers and sons, love between neighbors and friends, love between that lady in South Dakota and the rock she felt compelled to marry. Unpretty love, ugly love, fake love. Whatever love. I will attempt to assemble artifacts (quotes, clips, photos) daily during the two weeks advent leading up to the big day, and then after that whenever I feel like it. In between updates on real news like the crisis in Egypt, check back for a reminder of what the world revolves around when it's not revolving around money, nukes, oil, and religion.
Love,
Becca <3
Song of the Day: All You Need Is Love by The Beatles
Poem of the Day: How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Clip of the Day: 500 Days of Summer: You Make My Dreams Come True
Through the Looking Glass - Valentine's Day Special Edition
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