It is four a.m. in the morning.  I awake to get a drink of water.  Words are running through my head, “Love, love, love….” it is that great Beatles’ song.  I remember it is Valentines Day this week.   The time for lovers, the time for hearts and chocolates – what’s it all about?  I went into Winn Dixie yesterday (okay, now it is City Markets) and Easter candies and baskets are well stocked!?   Wait a minute, there was two days until V-Day and we were already selling Easter?

I walk into my kitchen for water and see the dining table is covered in red and pink. There is red satin all over it, paper hearts, and a pile of cut-up paper and home made cards. I smile… and remember my fifteen year old is having a party with her girlfriends on Valentine’s Day and she has been preparing.   She had asked me the night before if I remembered any Valentine’s Day games from my childhood.  I thought back…remembering those cold prairie days in my country school when V-Day was most certainly exciting.   A time to bring your carefully selected cards, the corrugated kind you punched out of sheets of paper.   Looking over your selection you’d pick which friends were worthy of which ones. The best one going of course to the boy or girl you had a crush on. How risqué could you be with sayings like, “Be Mine”, “Be my Valentine”, “You’re my Sweetheart” and would they really know you liked them anyway?  

We’d all bring in baked goods from home, and walk from desk to desk to deliver our cards to each other into our personal mail boxes made days earlier,  before gorging ourselves on sweets.  Then we’d take our cards home for review again and again to of course try and find encrypted love between the lines.   I still have some of those cards as one year in grade school I glued them into a scrapbook.

I heard my youngest suggesting something with the theme of Spin-the-Bottle (a game she plays at birthday parties to select which present gets opened first), and I snapped back to the future.

“I don’t recall any games specifically” I told my daughter while two of my other children listened in, but I quickly retorted, “But, you could play the ‘Warm Fuzzy Game’?”

“The what?!” they asked.

I’d remembered an activity in high school we did in a “Life” class. It was called ‘life’ because we discussed human nature, our futures, growing older with responsible, a lot of psychology – a really great class!  One day our teacher had us tape a piece of paper to our backs. The exercise was to go around the room and write something positive about each person in front of us. We of course could not see what was on our backs until the end. It was one of the nicest things I’d ever done up to that point in my life. I still have that piece of paper too and it still gives me the ‘warm fuzzies’ when I read it.

Including my youngest’s idea of Spin-the-Bottle I told her they could sit in a circle, and spin the bottle. Whomever was spinning had to say a something nice about the person the bottle pointed too when it stopped.

She loved the idea. . .

Reflecting on the current issues of the day, we are in a time of political unrest as this country prepares for elections. The tabloids are filled with Anna Nicole and Shane Gibson, and between all of this, our busy lives, our jobs, we have to (of course by choice) fit in thoughts of love, lest we forget our loved one/s on Valentines Day. Go easy on yourself, as this is really something we should be doing every day anyhow.   We put so much emphasis on one day that really it is the thought behind it that matters most, and although it is nice to be remembered, remembering can be done on any given day.

Why not give someone a Warm Fuzzy. Tell your children, your parents, your friends that you love them.  Give someone a hug. Write a love letter, send an E-Valentine,  Perform a random act of kindness.  If you don’t find time on V-Day, do it any day. Love is contagious...so pass it on. Become inspired!

Because as the Beatles once said,

There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game.
It's easy.

Nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time.
It's easy.

All you need is love.
Love is all you need.

Nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.

All you need is love.
Love is all you need.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

I can be reached at robbin@thebahamasweekly.com