While it is the case that I’ve posted to this webspace on Valentine’s Day before (here, here, and here), I’ve not yet given a post to the observance, as such. It seems a rare thing; I often post about holidays on holidays, about observances on observances, so to have missed one…it’s a rarity. And it’s something I need to correct.

There is no shortage of commentary on the event, of course, and no small amount of it critical, often pointedly so. As with so much in the world, it is and has been made crassly commercial, and I confess that I am not immune to its presentation as such; I know where and when I grew up, and I know that one of the accepted and encouraged ways of demonstrating affection for a person is spending money on that person, often on some consumable that will not last / will need to be replaced in short order. I also know that some of those for whom I care are similarly steeped in such ways, such that, even if they know intellectually that affection and expenditure do not necessarily correlate, their feelings would be hurt if I didn’t do at least a little something for them.

I care about them. I don’t want to hurt their feelings. (Find fault with me for it if you must, but if you must, I must assert unpleasantries about those who act with disregard towards those they claim to value.) So I do what I do.

So much said, though, I don’t think it’s wrong to set aside a day to celebrate romantic love. (Yes, I know there’s a lot of cultural focus on such things already; “Why do you need a day for something that’s praised all year?” is a question worth asking, to be sure. There are issues with setting anything as a norm, of course.) I also don’t think it’s wrong to set aside days to celebrate other forms of love, and there are many other such. The love I feel for my wife is not the same as the love I feel for my daughter is not the same as the love I feel for my mother is not the same as the love I feel for my brother is not the same as the love I feel for what of The Work that is still mine to do, et cetera. But “love” is a bad word, not just because it’s a four-letter one, but because the translation’s so…squishy; there’s too much that it covers for it to be as useful as it really could be.

And there’s less of it out in the world than it would be useful to have. But that’s another matter entirely.

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Maybe help me make today special for my Valentine?