With the holiday of love falling so near my birthday, the days become a high-stakes pair. And though I enjoy commemorating a beheading as much as the next lady, the hagiographies about Santo Valentinus are somewhat unreliable -- yet the celebration of his life, or at least what we understand it to signify, is something worth honoring. And this can go well, or really, really badly.
Justin would tolerate none of my nervous energy. This year, we're celebrating friendship and self-affirmation, he said. And that's exactly what we did.
Inspired by the More Love Letters movement, we gathered round vats of mac and cheese with our freshmen residents on a well-timed snow day, and we wrote anonymous valentines. The next morning, Justin and I packed up the results, headed into center city, and faced The Big Day together. We passed out the letters to all those with whom we came into contact -- our waiter at The Dandelion, a cab driver, a woman eating lunch alone.
The result? Truly, the best Valentine's Day I've had. Justin and I slipped and slushed our way across sidewalks, laughing hysterically, until the particularly rosy-hued sun settled into slumber.
Then, as any Penn student worth her reds and blues, I translated the experience into a class assignment. I wrote this for my poetry class, as a memorial and reflection upon the uniquely American experience of love on Valentine's Day -- and what it meant to me this year:
Anonymous Valentines
The smoke-hued snow soup in center city coated my duck
boots, and his leather loafers. Our mission: to spread love and
self-affirmation. To disrupt the gender binary. To make people smile. We packed
the hand-written cards in a crinkled Barnes & Noble bag, shared a cocktail,
fluffed our scarves, and walked outside.
Suddenly it was as if we were farmers, visiting for the
weekend, at the Big Town’s marketplace. Our crop had been sown, tended, and
gathered by two hearts beating as one—but our lovingly-doodled,
construction-paper harvest changed, when it saw Chestnut Street.
Our overconfident shopping bag birthed our goods, which greeted
the car horns as... baby chicks. Small and squeaking, with a pale yellow that
looked too innocent, too naïve, for the concrete stage-set we put them on. We
lifted them gingerly, now, and gave each a thorough once-over, before handing it
to a customer.
Some passers-by didn’t like our chicks’ chirping—such as the
middle-aged, suit-clad Latino man on a cell phone, who held our present as if
it were a rough pebble. One more thing to carry, and without a very nice
palm-feel.
Others received our gift as if it was the first animal they had
ever touched. Afraid to squeeze too tightly, or look too close at the
deceptively sharp feathers. One woman, eating alone in the pub where we shared
our rum and ginger beer, thought we had confused her with someone else. No, ma’am, this one was made just for you,
he told her. She smiled, and placed it across from her at the table.
One man refused our love token altogether. The pastel
possibility looked awkward, next to his black PPA uniform. Are you sure? we asked him. It’s
free. His head gave a stern shake, and he turned back to placing a parking
violation on a navy Subaru.
Usually, though, the city-folk met our cheeping Valentine’s
crop with hesitant delight. Like the moment you dip your toes into a mountain
lake, or take the first bite of a home-baked fruitcake. They accepted our
chicks with a knowing grin—that the pulsing fuzz they held would demand
something more. Time, patience, and ultimately letting it go: passing on the
gift to someone new.
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| My residents, distributing their own valentines. I'm such a proud mama duck! |
Thank you, Justin, for keeping me accountable to myself -- and for opening my eyes to a selflessness I've never beheld. Your commitment to friendship and your bold faith in love is nothing short of inspiring, and you give this holiday a run for its money, each and every day.
xoxo,
Laur
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