valentine

There is a trend in Facebook this week for folks to change their profile photo to one of them and their beloved spouse or partner. This is very sweet, but also hard to look at, it being so soon after the closure of my long-term relationship with my beloved. We sort of sizzled out, so at least I don't have to suffer the memory of some big blow out or a ritual dumping. Neither of us is a dumpee.


Still, I couldn't seem to stop myself from changing my Facebook status to a quote from that wonderful cynic and queen of dry wit and sarcasm, Dorothy Parker, who penned these words - "Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporanea, and love is a thing that can never go wrong, and I am Marie of Romania." She sure got that right! Because really, everything that can go wrong with love usually does. People who stick with it, despite the moments when they want to strangle their lover, are the authentic valentines, not the ones who claim to have never had a fight.

The Vancouver Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony featured a beautiful acrobatic performance by a young man, who performed to music by Joni Mitchell.

"Moons and Junes and ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real; I've looked at love that way.
But now it's just another show. You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away.

"I've looked at love from both sides now, from give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall. I really don't know love at all."

Since we're talking about hearts, let's not forget the thousands of purple hearts that have been bravely earned by our soldiers around the world. I worry that with the emphasis on the Olympics and Haiti, that we might lose sight of the fact that we have men and women in danger throughout the world today. I really wish we could bring them all home. I bet their sweethearts wish that too!

That Facebook status that I mentioned earlier? Dorothy Parker's quote just barely beat a quote from Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons. "Love is like racing across the frozen tundra on a snowmobile which flips over, trapping you underneath. At night, the ice-weavels come." This quote perfectly encompasses the incredible breathtaking nature of love and its miserable counterpart, obsession. It makes me smile, but with a tear in the corner of my eye. Because who wouldn't take that crazy, wonderful gasp of love, even while knowing the ice-weavels might come?

Oh, Eros. You have been my muse and my temporary demise. You have given me my highest highs and my lowest lows. I have skated with you in a beautiful dance that took my breath away. I have been heated by you to such a burn that my brain nearly exploded with the intense pleasure of you. And I have sobbed with you, thinking my heart could not recover. But would I meet you again? Would I travel with you again? Oh my, yes. Yes, yes and yes.