I seem to be spending more time blogging about subjects that I’d thought were best ignored whilst being unable to find the right words to express myself over subjects that I’m more interested in. But if I’m going to keep my promise to myself to keep writing I need to keep at it so...
Valentine’s Day is a very easy target. A big, fat, overly commercialised, trite and cliché ridden, crimson heart of a target. But as it seems to be staring back from every shop window, every website header and even from the nagging emails from online retailers I’ve not visited for ages, I thought I might as well go with the flow and jot something down.
Valentine’s Day is probably the oddest of the ‘occasions’ that are pushed onto us each year. All the others are ones that can be shared by everyone (religious preferences aside) and so Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and Birthdays give everyone a chance to take part. While your Christmas might not have the warm and glowing perfection of a Marks and Spencer TV commercial, if you’re spending it with friends and family that you really care about then it’s still going to be pretty good, even if Take That and Danni Minogue don’t show up. And there’s a good chance that, however our circumstances are in any given year, we’ve a large store of goodwill built up for these occasions over the years and it’ll tide us over until a better day. Valentine’s Day, on the other hand, is much more exclusive. Not everyone gets to take part and while a lot of people will prefer quiet, low key Christmases and Birthdays I think we’d all like to be sitting in that zero gravity bubble of happiness that you can only really get from someone you’re crazy about. And while I hope everyone will have some happy memories of Valentine’s Day, they’re not memories that’ll comfort you in a barren year. Quite the reverse.
It does seem to fill the shops with some proper rubbish too. There are some naff Christmas presents around of course, but you generally wouldn’t give them to ‘that special someone’, more to a distant relative or as a desperate ‘Secret Santa’ offering to that work colleague that you realise you know nothing about. Sainsbury’s have a whole aisle of stuff, none of which I’d want to give to anyone I really cared about. Firstly it’d show a massive lack of imagination. I would hope that when I’m buying something for my soulmate, the one that completes me, my missing self, my ‘My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song’, I could come up with something better than a giant stuffed hippo (£8.99 at a Sainsbury’s near you) or some chocolates with bargain basement romantic names ‘Truffle Passion’, ‘Seductive Strawbury Creme’ and so on. The Valentine’s Day aisle seems a bit convenient too. Convenience is an admirable quality when grocery shopping but I don’t think it should be a big factor in present giving. But then I’m the sort of bloke who’d offer to catch a falling star, slay a dragon or travel the world to find the perfect rose. Well, I’d offer to. I’m not sure where I’d start.
So Valentine’s Day, what load of commercialised rubbish. Humbug!
Well no, not really. How can a day when you get to show someone how much you love and value them be a bad thing? You can buy into the day itself without having to buy into the way it’s portrayed and marketed. You don’t have to play by the rules when coming up with something special for that someone you care for. Thoughtfulness, imagination, spontaneity and passion will count for so much more than some dinner in a restaurant full of cookie cutter couples and with a free glass of bubbly for everyone and a red rose.
And if there’s someone you like who doesn’t know how you feel, why not let them know? There’s no need for any grand romantic gestures, just speak from your heart. You never know. You might be glad you did (and remember to invite me to the wedding please? I don’t get out much). And even if they don’t feel the same way that you do, they’ll feel a little worthy of love and better about themselves and if that’s all the happiness you can give them then it’s still worth doing.
And if there isn’t anyone? Well, just look after yourself. Get a decent film in, order some takeaway and treat yourself to a fun night in. Maybe it’s not your turn this year, but there are 364 other days for the arrow to strike before it comes round again.
I hope the day puts a smile on all your faces.
Oh – and here’s a Valentine’s Day poem for you.
The Kiln
The kiln of my heart is overflowing
Red-hot and blistering
And the words I fashion to hold the spilling feelings
Are frail and coarse
A child’s clay fingered fumblings
My tongue twists and buckles
Cracked-choked voice
and what should be gossamer fine and filigreed
Is black and deformed
As ugly and cold as cinders
I would pour my love straight into your heart
Breathe a drowning breath of life into your lungs
vast and colourful and ever changing,
an armada of butterflies
vast as the ocean
deep enough to drown a city
Perhaps my words could rouse an ember into a bonfire.
But not strike sparks.
David Millington
13th February 2011
Nottingham
No comments:
Post a Comment