You Are Like Nobody Since I Love You.

How do you convince someone you love them?  Actions.  Most people might think words, and for some it would be words.
I believe in actions.

So why all the poetry in life? The sonnets, the psalms.  Keats, Neruda, Cummings,Barrett Browning, they would all fight me pen and ink to the death over love.

They would win.

Today is, in my opinion the lamest holiday ever created by man and Capitalism.  Couples rushing about to buy flowers or chocolates to prove their love.  Engagements will take place on bended knees, babies will take their first birth in 10 months hence.

My partner has a long history of bad birthdays.  Being caught cheated on, broken up with, ankle sprains, etc.  Because of this she is  not the fondest of her day of birth.  I have tried over the last 4 years to make it special, but one something is ruined, it always feels stained or contrite.

For me that is Valentine's day.  In high school roses were given out, white for friend, red for love, pink for...I have no idea.  Or maybe it was yellow.  Every year I sat in homeroom with the popular girl alphabetically before.  Every year I watched as her desk filled up with roses.  Every year I wished I had a different last name.  Something with a Z that would have seated me in the very back row and corner.

I recall one Valentine's Day where my husband I argued, in front of the children.  The argument was about me spending too much money.

One year flowers were delivered to my work, only I did not want them.  For starters I hate roses (my middle name be damned).

One year I broke up with my boyfriend in the parking lot of a video store.

Why?

He couldn't decide what movie he wanted to rent and his lack of power gathered up into a ball of weakness I could no longer take.

I see a common theme when I look back.  It was always me.  I spent too much money.  I did not have a lot of friends in high school. I did not tell the woman I did not want flowers (or anything) from her.

I was the cause of my argument today, on this Valentine's Day.  It was my taking my words to betray her.

Words.  I am fully capable of using words to hurt.  Anyone is.  Most people do; not every fight takes place in a bar.

But that fight in a bar is followed up by actions.  Physical pain, a possible arrest, court fees, time off from work maybe.  All actions.

This is where I lack.  I am not saying I should be given a ticket for being a shit partner on Valentine's Day.  I am saying I need to use my actions to show my love.  I should do something, anything after an argument to show my sorrow at making someone hurt.

Is picking up dog shit and cleaning the table enough to undo what I said?  No, but I will do it anyway.

Is writing a blog about it enough to erase the words from her head?  No.  But I will do it anyway.

A day of forced love and I have no feelings for it that I would surround with the most passionate of soliloquy's.  I am a writer and I could create a tome full of adjectives for love and forgiveness.  I could write a love note worthy of being tucked away in a special place to be discovered by some not yet born grandchildren.

They would gaze upon the words and sigh wishing for a love as wonderful as ours.  These future relatives would elaborate in their minds the missing pieces.  They would never know that it was not enough.  It was written out of sadness.  They would never know the actions that took place prior to the tome.

But I do.  And she does.  And now, you know.  I betrayed my love with words, and am desperately looking for actions to make it all better.

I will hold the guilt longer than she will hold the pain.  I have, as I write, already been forgiven.  Tears shed by us both, apologies uttered through a snot filled nose.  There is always a probationary time after forgiveness.  Just because a bandage has been applied it does not mean the cut has stopped hurting.

If I kiss the cut will the pain go away?  Or will it just sting and bring all the pain to the surface?

If I stay close to you will you move away?

Can I make you laugh again?

I have to find the actions.  Find the actions of proof that I love her, actions to prove to my children I am here and I love them.

Words are so easy, so complacent.

Words are what I am good at.

I once used words so venomous to get someone out of my life.

It is Valentine's Day.  My only sanction is that she too feels no fondness for this day.

So it was just an argument that happened on this auspicious day where we must use words and actions to show our love for one another.

My thoughts have been so self centered I could put Ayn Rand to shame.  I drove myself inward to a dark place where I did not want anyone there with me.

My actions have been robotic and cruel and completely void of emotion.

It took this argument today to wake me up, to make me see what my self reflection has done to those I do truly love.

It took my actions to look in her eyes and feel her pain, and not my own.  To see what I have caused.

Wont it take action to see her eyes light up again?

It is not often I am living outside my head, today I have.

Scary place.

Then again so is the grey matter I shuffle around to find the words to berate myself or others.

I will not use my own words to write a love letter worth keeping for the ages.

I will steal what someone else has said, and only hope I can live up to it with ations.

"So I wait for you like a lonely house
til you will see me again and live in me.
Til then my windows ache."
 - Pablo Neruda

But...Oh...

Do you have a moment in your childhood that you recall so vividly you could direct a scene of it in a movie? Hopefully all of us have many of those.

One of mine is when my mom came home with a surprise for me.  Standing in the dining room she handed me the DOUBLE album of Grease!  It was not my birthday or any holiday, she just gave it to me. Memory being what it is I had probably nagged her for weeks to get it for me; conveniently I do not recall doing this. Just my mom walking in with something behind her back and handing it to me.

Immediately we put it on.  my kitchen chairs became bleachers, the carpet in the living room became the beach, the sofa of course was a car.

I sang my heart out to learn every single song.  I pined and sighed looking at the album (the inside was full of pictures like a yearbook).

In my head I was there.  I hand jived, I was left at the drive in, there were worse things I could do.  I loved them all.  Well, especially Rizzo.  Much like Danny being the "bad boy" Rizzo was the "bad girl".

Recently I had the pleasure of watching a new rendition of Grease with a few of my kids.  They had seen the movie as young children, and now we replicated that moment adding wine and cheese.  I was dubious, but it was great.

About a year ago I entered into a discussion about the movie with a friend.  She hated it.  Said it was sexist. Pointed out how Sandy had to change for him, pointed out lyrics ("Did she put up a fight"), pointed out how Danny was an asshole until he saw Sandy with teased hair and sewn on pants, and numerous other atrocities of the film that make it bad for young girls to see.

Huh.

Fortunately, I had a backup that still remains my favorite movie. Gone With the Wind. Again, in some debate over movies my friend could not believe I would say this.  Scarlett is a manipulative bitch, and Rhett offers nothing for her.

WHAT?!

I could use the argument (and did) that Scarlett and Rhett were identical in their actions, with the exception of Rhett being more polite to all ladies.

Danny was conflicted the entire movie and went out of his way to change as well (he did letter in track).

I reminded my friend it was a certain era for both movies, set in a different time.  I may not have been consciously aware of this when I was a child watching Scarlett flirt with the Tarleton twins, or steal two husbands.

I may not have (yet) known a pregnancy scare like Riz.  Even Kenickie tried lamely to do "the right thing". Did Riz accept?  No.  She said she would handle it.

Why didn't Rhett notice how happy Scarlett was after he carried her up those stairs? Some would call that rape. Others would find it a Fifty Shades of Grey moment.

We did not argue about the portrayal of slavery, that is just accepted in a period movie.  But my friend argued that Scarlett is was and will forever be reprehensible.

And so would Sandy.

Huh.

To me these were beautiful strong women I wanted to BE (Riz not Sandy -- I was never one to be like her in the first place.)

Does this mean I am not a feminist?  A word that over the years draws the brain to men hating, bra burning, hard women.

My kitchen chairs may have become bleachers and I may have a time or two taken on southern drawl or pouted like Scarlet to get my way, but I still believe in equal rights for women.

Should I have not shown these movies to my children?  Do they now think rape scenes in movies are okay?

(No one was raped in Grease [Rizzo gave full consent], and Scarlet may have been drunk but being swept up and carried up those hellish stairs was romantic.)

Because of Gone With the Wind I was happy to tell people I was born below just below the Mason Dixon Line, thus making me a Southern Belle, should I have chosen to be one.  Growing up in New Jersey gave me the option to be brass and brazen, again if I so chose.

If I am not a feminist because I will always swoon over these two movies, then so be it.  But to me every woman has a right to choose their own character.  It was Sandy who asked for help, it was Scarlett who made things happen.

I will always long for those summer nights; either holding a radish to the sky with determination, or holding my school books, with my head held high.