The first time I became aware there was something like Valentine’s Day was when I was six or seven and able to read. I remember entering a flower store decorated all over with red hearts, and I asked my mother what it was all about. She told me that it was a day for lovers to send flowers. And she made it clear, immediately, that she didn’t want any for herself on such days because it was merely a business idea. “If you really love somebody, you don’t need a special day to emphasize it. You show it to that person every day.” I was impressed. And I became aware of more – that my father, indeed, remembered year after year the day that he first met her rather than observe Valentine’s Day.
No hustle, no stress: Our Valentine’s Day takes place at home … 365 days a year.Valentine’s letters at school? Oh my, that would have been a no-go! Some of my little friends received folded squares of checkered paper during school lessons that had been sent along furtively from one end of the classroom to the other (and you better didn’t get caught doing that). How we crowded around those girls at breaktime to read the usually awkwardly written note, “I love you. Do you love me too?” It made us others giggle and a bit jealous – but also glad that we didn’t have anything like that to tell our parents. A Valentine’s letter to anybody? What an embarrassing thought.
Of course, times changed, and later, in my twenties, I’d have loved to receive a Valentine at one time or another. I never did. But neither did any of my friends. It was just something you heard about vaguely. Or you read about it in novels or watched it in Hollywood movies. Or you saw men rush to the flower stores after work to buy some red roses for their wife. I distinctly remember one occasion when I ran into a colleague of mine who asked me to help him out with some Deutschmarks – flower prices had more than doubled from when the store had opened that morning to when the husbands arrived in the late afternoon. Call that romantic …
At one time in my thirties, I had the privilege to travel to a trade fair in Birmingham, UK. It was over a Valentine’s weekend. I was staying at a fancy hotel near the elaborately restored Canalside, and the entire city had done its best to decorate for that Saturday’s Valentine’s night. As I entered my room, I found a gift from the hotel management. A CD with lovely lounge music (which I have kept and still listen to), a rose-scented candle (which I lit, and the hotel alarm went off – turns out it was not my fault, but a kitchen fire somewhere downstairs), and a flask of massage oil. Now, don’t get me wrong. I appreciated the CD very much, and I have always loved candles. But when you are a single, nothing – excuse my pun! – rubs that sorely felt fact in more clearly than a bottle of massage oil. It made me wonder how anybody who took Valentine’s Day more seriously than I would feel about not getting a Valentine’s letter in class that day, having not enough money to buy a gift like flowers, a fancy dinner, or even an engagement ring, or being on the non-receiving end of such gifts.
I live in a nation now that celebrates Valentine’s Day, and the stores have been decorated towards that purpose ever since Christmas Day. (Yes, indeed!) I think my husband and I did the shenanigans with balloons, flowers, and a restaurant dinner twice. Then, I’d had it. Because I love flowers, but I don’t want them because it is done on a special day. I like going out – but I dislike feeling rushed, crowded in on, and seeing people standing in line, waiting. I do get my flowers. I do get taken out. I receive a thousand tokens, big and small, all year long that show I am meaningful to the man I call my husband. It can be as useful as repairing something for me, as prosaic as planting vegetables with me, or as romantic as retuning his guitar to play my favorite song. Vice versa, I also try to see to it that he is not just at the giving, but also at the receiving end. Valentine’s Day, therefore, is just a beautifully decked table and a fun, extra-special home-cooked dinner for us.
As a child in Germany, I sometimes found my mother shortchanged herself when she didn’t want flowers on Valentine’s Day (or, as a matter of fact, on Mother’s Day either). Today, I feel like her. And in the middle of all the bustle about February 14 I don’t want flowers or extra gifts as a sign of love. Because I just know …
