Soaring Through Blue

I know, I've said it before.

Every year.

I hate Valentine's Day.

There. I said it.

Again.

I hate the forcing of pink thrust down our throats everywhere we turn, the crass commercialism and money-grubbing restaurants with their menus for lovers, expensive entrees loaded with succulent meats and rich cheese and cream.

I hate the smattered splatter of red hearts glaring from all the store displays, like a bloody bath of aloneness, never letting me forget that I had no one for all those years.

This year? Is different.

A little, anyway.

You see, my friend, the one whose very own pink heart was battered, shattered, blown to smithereens by a guy she used to date? You know, Mari? The one I told you about on Twitter? Her? Well, she called me up.

And I knew.

I knew, with the knowledge that only comes from having gotten there first, that she had found love.

I could hear it in the phone, over the miles, her voice as light as an island breeze caressing my eardrum. Lighter than I've heard it in years. Through the phone I could hear her shriveled, closed heart opening to the warmth of love, like an island sunrise over Puget Sound with the ferry's long, low horn sounding in the distance, and gulls swooping at bread crusts floating on the water's surface.

That sound.

That's love.

You see, I had been there myself. 39 years of alone, within hours of hanging up my dating shoes for good, I found him.

And then my world exploded in a flash flood of love, a rush to make up for an adulthood of deprivation, late nights of our hands and mouths never resting, the smell of truffles, even the dirt under his nails a thing of exquisite beauty to me.

I could hear all that in her voice.

That's love.

Her voice, an echo of my experience. Softer, coming from far away, never to have the force of my own. But she was sweet to try, at least.

But that's her story to tell, the story of her friend for so many years, whose wife was also her friend, whose wife battled cancer so bravely and who died so sweetly and valiantly, and how he grieved for a year (I want to be sure you know that, that she didn't just jump in there the minute she read the obit), then called her and she said yes she said yes I will yes, yes, by god YES. She opened her heart to him, let him in, let herself love him after so many lonely, hard years of being alone, alone with her dark, closed heart, a ragged half waiting for her other ragged half to make her whole.

But really, that's her story to tell. It's not about me at all.

So, this year? This year? This year I'm spending the day in my pajamas, on the couch. Moving around Valentine's Day sideways, not really looking at it. Muting the TV commercials for heart-shaped hot tubs in cheesy resort hotels, for restaurants and their greedygrab menus with inflated sweetheart menus.

You see, Papachef won't be here to cook for me. With me. As usual, he will be spending the day cooking for other people. People who don't love each other nearly as much as he and I love each other. People who throw drinks at each other, who break up over their filet and lobster, people who thought they were going to get married but who end up embarking on a long, lonely, loveless period in their lives instead. People who don't deserve the food that my chef, my husband, my love feeds them. People who don't deserve his attentions.

People who want to think they're like us, but aren't.

But he'll leave them when his shift is over. He will come home to me. I'll have made dinner for him, my love, my everything. Then we'll watch tv together, on the couch, and eat.

That's love.

And I hope that you can find it yourselves someday.

You probably won't. But you can always read about my and I, here, and maybe that will begin to fill your heart.

A little.

yes,

Shasta

Recipe for Lovers who hate Valentine's Day

Make a roast. Pork butt is good. Or ham.

Really, any pork product will do.

Using butter that you have softened lovingly on the counter for a day, pipe a heart on the top. Spread some red jelly inside it.

Eat.

Feeds 2 lovers.