"To love someone is to see the face of God"
~Victor Hugo
Jungfrau, Interlaken, Switzerland 2013
I would like to celebrate eighty valentine's days with you after this one.
In fact, even before this one.
And this one will turn into the next, and soon into many.
Maybe even forty, if we're lucky. If it only ends up being fifteen or twenty, I'd still think I'm pretty lucky.
But I have not met you or heard from you yet.
I would like to not celebrate Valentine's Day at all with you on Valentine's Day. I would like to wake up in a room where the sun doesn't face me, and groan as I grudgingly awake for work, bleary eyed and sore.
I would like to wake up early and make you your first cup of coffee, which is the best of the day. And while you are still asleep, I would run with the dog who is oblivious to the complexity of human beings and their high standards. They forgive and are easily forgiven. We often remind ourselves of that when we fought the night before. That's what makes us both dog people.
I would not like to go out with you tonight. We both agreed early on that tonight is one of the worst nights to go out. Instead, I would like us to partake in the tradition of preparing the best lobster we can try for ourselves. And it gets steadily better over the years, especially when you cook it. You know how much I love shrimp and you like my chili cheese grits.
We'd make a fire, because February is too cold and slushy for us, and then we'd watch a movie that might be too sophisticated, but we'll feel smart watching it. You'll explain it to me and I'll nod quietly and listen, already formed in my own opinion. We'll disagree on what the ending means, and we can't bother to just let it slide. We secretly like coming off as a smart couple to our friends.
One day I'll surprise you with a hand painted pot of flowers instead of pesticide-sprayed red roses. And we'll smile at our humanitarian efforts. We'll plant those flowers in our garden and that pot will be there when we are old, faded and cracked. Rabbits and squirrels will make their home there.
Or frogs and lizards, if we build our house near a creek, just like when I was little. Barefoot and curious-minded. We'll listen to them on warm nights as we swing in our hammock beneath the stars and smile, sharing a quiet moment of contentment.
That's the kind of couple we will be.
But you know that clandestinely I wouldn't mind pesticide-sprayed roses every once in a while, the orange ones. Or yellow. Even though they're commercial, you know I can't help but admire them; that is how well you will know me.
I imagine you to be tall and comparatively pale, but with sun kissed cheeks that show off your sense of adventure. You will have dark hair and dark eyes, with toned shoulders that are good for rock climbing. Your vibrant amber eyes imitate the fire, balanced by your glass of whiskey, or tamarind juice, whatever you prefer.
In the winter, your cheeks are rosey when you exercise and are cold.
Or you will be tan and blond, with eyes that reflect the ocean you grew up down the street from.
Or your eyes are green and they match my own. Green is our favorite color.
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We'll meet coincidentally, you would be the only person I overhear speaking English on Florya beach. Drawn to some form of familiarity, I ask you where your from and how long you've been here.
You might be on vacation, or a business trip. But either way, you've decided to stay longer because that's what you do. You take in the culture with your wide angle lens, that's what you do.
Over a cup of salep, I'll decide I wouldn't mind knowing you in other countries as well.
I would like to meet you on the street, walking with a purpose. But you see, I get lost easily, and you have a kind face. You are poised and relaxed, not needing to be anywhere else. Though you are talented at blending in, you do your best to help me find my way and then blush when I point out, "you're not from around here either, are you?"
I would like to meet you among the Mendenhall Ice Caves in Alaska or on one of the flowered streets in Bonn, Germany. Or I would like to meet you while voluntouring in Myanmar.
But I also wouldn't mind meeting you in Colorado, when I'm visiting home, or on the streets of Charleston. You'd frequent the same coffee shop and we'd have a strange relationship where we guessed about each others' lives and discovered later how completely off target we were, but smile at the small things we noticed, like how you look at people when they cuss to the person they are on the phone with, or the way I flip my pen when I am trying to look concentrated, but actually know you are looking my direction.
You like your coffee black, of course (just like you refuse reading on an ereader), but then sometimes you feel cheeky and order yourself a large cha i latte (and you use "large" and "venti" interchangeably because you don't want to offend, but you aren't decidedly determined to learn about the difference either).
You'll be interested in my relationship with my best friends and how we've known each other for over a decade. I'll tell you about that one time we camped in Steamboat and climbed Hans Peak; I got very badly sunburned.
I'd show you where I grew up, my high school, and where I had my first kiss (if I can find it again). You'd show me tree you fell out of when you were four and where your sister crashed your car and we'll go see a movie at the cinema where you worked your first job. That's why you can't eat hot dogs these days.
We'll think about the Gunung Rinjan for our honeymoon.
We would backpack the Jomolhari Trek on our anniversary.
By the way, your lawyer friend married us somewhere near Seven Lakes Mountain (and you know which one I'm talking about). It was really a vacation for him too; everyone needs a break for Jakarta every once in a while.
We camp. All the time.
You insist on making the fire and we don't share the same style in roasting our marshmallows.
In the middle of the night, I'll wonder if I should sneak away. I sit up, thinking I'm quiet. But you'll know and lay your hand on the small of my back and, "is everything okay?" I'll say I was just having a bad dream, but that never really happens. And in that moment, in your unadulterated concern, I'll feel okay.
Moreover, I want a Valentine's Day with you one day. After we get off work, which on a day like today, it's just warm enough to ride our bikes, we'll talk about our days and take the dog out again. You and I, we don't mind walking, even when we are exhausted. We know it's Valentine's Day, but we're not grandiose. We also don't turn up our noses at it being a corporate holiday, what the greeting card companies made up. We will actually love today and we call our mothers to tell them how wonderful they've always been.
From the very first day, we've resolved to take in the little things, like making multi-grain pancakes from scratch on Saturday mornings with fresh strawberries. You will be really good at cooking bacon and I'll make sure the kids take their vitamins, even if they stuff them in marshmallows, which was your idea and now is the only thing that works now, thanks.
They'll be messy, but it's okay because it's a slow day.
When you're older, you'll look really really good in a trench coat. It's perfect for this time of year, bold against overcast, and becomes you and your wizened face.
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"I am ready for love, but not yet marriage. I am ready for friendship, but not yet love. I am ready for romance, but not yet for arguments and making up and patience and jealousy and compromise... and I wonder if when I kiss you now I will know if we will get to kiss one another forty Valentine's Days from now."
Maybe my romance with love is that, besides perhaps grief, it is the last original thing most people still believe in and we can hope for. No matter if one's heart is broken ten times over, or maybe they are bitter, deep down, they believe it's out there and hopeful the next time it won't slip their grasp. Those who can be indifferent can have their indifference. And those who are selfish with their love can have their way.
But for the one who cares about being good and the adventure that awaits ... to the one who agrees that love is the last original thing...
"all that lies between you and I is time, and time is a mist, and it is morning, and it is late winter, and the day and the season shall warm, and I will see you soon."
