Candy? Flowers? Hearts? Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to rejuvenate and revive the truest meaning of love, for love is ultimate bliss. We are taught that God is love, admittedly a hard one for me these days! I’m what might be called a realistic romantic, not a Disney romantic...so thinking about love in this time of uncertainty brings up a bunch of questions, like love, life, death, this pandemic we are living with...I’m in the “at risk” group... everyday I am grateful to still be alive, so this Valentine’s Day starts with me, who I am, what makes me laugh, cry, to stand in the reality of me and love what I see even with all my not so lovable pieces... not an easy thing to do.
When I said yes to writing this blog I had some major fears... the greatest was that I CAN’T SPELL worth a plug nickel. Even spell check trips me up. When it corrects a word, sometimes it’s the wrong word (...bear-bare, homonyms kill me) and I don’t see the mistakes. Not to mention the fact that God Only Knows what I was daydreaming about in High School English class, because grammatical rules fail me, and punctuation is something I throw in the air and wherever it falls is fine with me.... write a blog??? A bunch of laugh emojis should string across the page at this point...😂😂😂😂😂😂
I can’t kid myself, I’m no writer, I don’t write much, I avoid it when I can....Obviously a blog is going to expose my lack, and who wants to embarrass themselves in a public way, especially when so many people I know are academics, but like with love, writing this Blog will no doubt fill me with uncertainty about myself.... but I am resolved to do it anyway.
My other fear is that no one is going to read anything I write. This venture would be a waist of time, and at my age, contrary to The Rolling Stones song Time Is On My Side, time is definitely not on my side. I look at it like this, I’m not an influencer, online or otherwise. So if no one gives a fig about what I say on social media, or worse, as has happened, “unfriends” me because they disagree with my political views, or my Earth and ecological leanings, then why would they bother reading my blog.
The first fear is understandable, it is my reality, I am not a writer, and it falls in the realm of my self-confidence and self-esteem. The second fear is not real, and is based in the belief that I will be found out, not measure up, won’t be lovable, but even at this late date I am trying to overcoming the second fear. I guess this is where the hearts and flowers come into the picture, to love oneself enough to admit who you are, to be gentle with what makes you you, and then laugh rather then cry !
Thomas Berry once said that here in our modern society we have lots of old people, but no elders. So I decided that maybe I still have work to do, thoughts to share.... I don’t just want to be an old person going on river-cruses and playing golf....or worse posting cute kitten and puppy pictures on Facebook, so l’m gonna let the chips fall where they may. I know I will make mistakes, and I will have to remember to laugh at both my strengths and weaknesses. So, yup self-love and acceptance is an important part of the creative alchemy that I said yes to as an artist, and now that I decided to write, I am trying to push the fear of failing out of my mind and start creating without expectation.
This Valentine’s Day is a great day for taking stock. I pray that what I write helps others stretch outside their comfort zone, think a little outside of the box, or at least my admission about a life long embarrassing struggle with my inability to write helps all of us be a bit more gentle with that person staring at us in the mirror...
Happy Valentine’s Day!