While she lies sleeping, I rise and finish my poem to my best beloved, in which I recall those sweet, brief glimpses of her that glow ever in my memory and fuel my soul. It will get penned onto a large paper heart and, after reading it to her over breakfast, it will join the others in the countless clutter of scribbled love verses published on the north wall of our house. The remainder of our Valentines Day ritual involves lobster, highly-over-priced Champagne, a trek of recollection down some wooded trail, and other intimacies. After all, what is life without love and what is love without celebration?
Now I realize that behind the sound of my popping the cork, murmurs the call from all those unlovely folks spouting the commercialism and silliness of Valentines Day. Masking their fear with cynicism, they insist we should plunk our minds onto more serious matters – presumably the rapes, corruptions, and murders that fill our nightly “News You Need to Know” columns. Yet my personal crusade for glee, laughter, and the volcanic passion of love, claims as honored an intellectual pedigree as any of those whose preachments would send us ever down rabbit holes of endless anxiety.
I refer to philosophy’s 18th century crew of visionary thinkers – The Romantics. These poets, writers, and students of life looked inward, seeking and examining the full potential of the human personality. Romantics hung their first glance on the ideal – studying the potential and imaginatively catapulting it into a path for brilliance. They were preoccupied with the hero and the genius that glows as a waiting ember within each of us. So this February 14, I invite you to love like a Romantic – cut loose. Seek that that absolute best and powerful potential of those you love and then whip up a little joyful hoopla in gratitude that such wonders of love float dazzlingly around us.
