Every Valentine’s Day found the students of McNulty Elementary School filling up bags with Valentine cards for our classmates, and by the time the afternoon rolled around most of our bags were filled with the innocuous cards that kids (or more likely their parents) picked out for one another. Cartoon characters or superheroes or unicorns and rainbows, they were a varied bunch – a mish-mash of harmless lovey-dovey sentiment before any of us had any idea what romance meant.
This post is going to be a little like those bags of Valentines – some of this, some of that, none of it very serious, none of it very meaningful. ‘Tis the damn season. First up, a poem, because I’m not entirely ready to forego some Dorothy Parker:
Experience
Some men break your heart in two,
Some men fawn and flatter,
Some men never look at you;
And that cleans up the matter.
~ Dorothy Parker
Second, a song – sort of a companion piece to this ‘Crazy’ entry, but something more upbeat and bombastic. I’m heading into a Beyhive moment, and this one pushes all the right buttons, charging all the right stations. It’s a song for strutting when you’re in the throes of that first flush of love.
Third, a more recent, and heartbreaking, poem, to show the other side of love, because there’s always another side of love:
A Regret
by DAVID TRINIDAD
And finally, a few quotes for this day:
“Loneliness is not being alone, it’s loving others to no avail.” ~
“Lovemaking is the consolation for living in the body, just as art is the consolation for living in the world.” ~
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” – Oscar Wilde
