It’s Valentine’s Day today and later this morning I’ll be doing a Valentine-themed reading in the RDS library. I’m really looking forward to that, but I’m not looking forward to beating my way through the thousands of ads encountered during the day that suggest the only way to express true love is though the purchase of designated romantic commodities and through designated romantic gestures.
Don’t get me wrong – when said purchases and gestures are backed on the other 364 days of the year by the small, practical gestures of kindness and support that build and sustain a long-lasting relationship, then I’m all for it. But they are no substitute for the real thing.
Here’s to celebrating love, in whatever form and shape it takes, not just today, but every day of the year. I’ll leave you with a poem that says it much more eloquently than I can.
ATLAS
There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;
Which checks the insurance, and doesnt forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;
Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists
And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds
The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.
And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dry rotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.
U.A. Fanthorpe
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Anne Tannam is a creative coach who helps her clients to develop empowering and fulfilling relationships. For more on Anne visit www.creative coaching.ie