There is something about the shape of a heart that moves me. That goes for the individual indelible spirit of human hearts and those of two symmetrical or asymmetrical pieces that make up the iconic shape known as the heart. There was a season where I collected as many unique ones as I could get my hands on and while my collecting days have cooled, they still turn my head, every time. Valentine’s Day gets a bad rap as a made up holiday to sell cards and other sundries, and I get it, but as a florist it is a visual feast for my senses. My house smells like a flower shop and the overflowing buckets of blooms make my heart race faster. The shades of reds and pinks together create lovely visual impact. Hearts are everywhere and surprises abound. Its a day that celebrates something essential- love- with a whole lot of superfluous , non-essential things. Things you don’t need to survive like rich chocolate, handmade desserts, beautifully constructed cards, bunches of flowers, overflowing gift baskets. Heart shaped items you didn’t know you needed. It’s this Enneagram four’s pinnacle of special and it goes on all day.
It’s precisely for these reasons that this day that can never live up to my grandest expectations and so I have found my very great enjoyment of it lies in creating beautiful and special things for others. That multiplies the special and fills my tank. So as I look out the window and dream up beautiful arrangements overflowing with blooms, I look forward to helping you and all of yours make the day truly lovely.
And while the new lovers make for the most exciting stories- new relationships, surprise proposals, a whole red rose candle lit wedding ceremony, it’s the old lovers who have my heart. A missionary from our home church many moons ago shared a facebook post that perfectly describes the intersection of steady enduring love and reckless passion. On her 30th anniversary she was folding laundry with her husband, and he tossed her a t-shirt to fold and out fell a bottle of Chanel no 5. Well done sir, well done. Enduring love sprinkled with a bit of woo is worth celebrating any day!
This portion of a post by Ann Voskamp says it beautifully. It’s the steady drumbeat behind the flashy splashy celebrations that mark Feb 14.
Passionate love is far more than falling in love. Passion literally means to suffer—which means: Lovers are the longsufferers.
Which is to say its the old lovers who’ve suffered through much who are the most passionate of all.
It’s the old lovers who have suffered tenderly through crises and kids and the countless blur of days and untold heartaches, who live the most genuine nonstop passion. It’s the old lovers whose willingness to suffer for each other has made all their other suffering bearable. It’s the old lovers who have passionately suffered
long for each other, with each other, who have grown the most passionate, companionate love of all.
It’s the suffering, passionate, companionate love—the easy laughter and sure reliability and steadiness of companionship and friendship and withness—that makes for the happiest love of all.
And it’s the old love that is the most suggestive love of all because it suggests that the whole of us is actually seen and known, and we are still wholly loved. It is only in being really known, in ways that we wish nobody ever knew, that we ever really know what it means to be loved.
What could be more risqué than risking aging with someone and being worn down to your bare souls?
To all those engaged in the service of love , press on friends and take time to celebrate someone you love!