On Valentine's Day

Photograph by Terry Rowe, Sweet Dog by Keenthings, http://keenthings.com/home.html

Yes, it's Valentine's day.

Red roses are nice but I love tulips. I do love the graphically beautiful, the quirky, the sweet vintage Valentine cards of long ago. And chocolate, you can almost never go wrong giving me chocolates. I'm a sucker for boxes of chocolates with a variety of fillings - Butlers, Irish chocolates or Fannie May creams, even Lindor's truffles. My favorite perfume. A good dinner at a favorite restaurant, always appreciated.

All that said, I'm not a fan of Valentine's day.

As a child (before the politically correct days of every child gets a card) Valentine's day was a competition of who got the most cards - and woe the child who got none - the pain of a child who feels unloved and is teased for a lack of cards is hard to heal. As a young woman cast down when no cards or flowers came, and elated when they did, Valentine's day was still dreaded. As I have gotten older, Valentine's day has become an obligatory cards, candy, restaurant reservation chore.

I prefer to let the people I love know it on a regular basis, surprise them with gifts, or candy, or flowers just because. In fact, the best gifts for me are the surprise gifts, the just because I thought of you today gifts. Flowers because it's Monday, chocolates because it's raining, dinner out because I know you like it.

So if Valentine's day is special and important to you - I'm glad. I just won't be wishing you a happy Valentine's day, I'll surprise you some day with an unexpected gift.



If you would like to see my work on a daily basis, as well as other projects I undertake, please follow me on Facebook at tART - Photography and Art by Terry Rowe,  https://www.facebook.com/tarrowe. If you'd like to purchase a print of any of my images please contact me or visit my website, http://terry-rowe.artistwebsites.com/.