It seems right and fitting to write on Valentine’s Day from New Hope, a town where I celebrated Valentines in 1991—dinner at Hotel du Village—two weeks after getting engaged, senior year in college. If you’ve followed my story at all, you already know this lifetime vow lasted twenty years. After that, many years passed during which I went from making handmade hearts with my little girl for everyone we knew, to ignoring the day entirely, to buying myself flowers and chocolates. Then, at long last, I had a Valentine. Today I treasure the contrails of that affair, and it informs the following.

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First, two old stories. One when I was on bedrest for six months. Around Valentine’s Day, I was over five months in. My confidence finally was waxing, believing that I really might become a mother after ten years of hope. I wrote a poem, “On Motherhood” and sent it to the printer in another part of the house. X brought it to my bed, supportive of my words as he often was. When he delivered the piece to me, it was edited. I recall him saying, “I had some ideas to make it better.” I will never forget how something about the “me” was gone. My spirit, my energy, my voice—I cannot tell you exactly what it was, but I had left the poem.

Two Valentines later, I made a present for him. Taking photos from our early romance, wedding, holidays and G’s first year, I made a decoupage frame. In the center I put a little painting she had just made, now almost two. I painted the trim a grey-blue and was pleased with the outcome, especially how it captured so much joy. Wrapped with a card, I gave it to him, and he opened it, looking at it carefully. I wondered what was wrong. “The lines are not straight,” he said, “it bothers me.” I loved it, so I put it up on the wall, but instead of seeing the joy, I scrutinized the lines, ever looking for what he saw. When we moved, I took it down and never put it back up.

*

This year I have G’s company for Valentines. Yesterday I mentioned how my book on our crafts was complete, and I am almost through the first ten copies I ordered. “Shall I print twenty-five more or fifty or one hundred?” I asked, describing the price break and sharing the economic puzzle in my head. I awaited her reply. G is often sage. “Is it safe for me to be honest?” she asked, reminding me of the way we used to interact when she was little, creating safe zones. “Yes, of course!” I replied, and she answered, “I don’t like the cover art.” The cover is a photo of her little hand when she was about four, holding a small bouquet of flowers. I love it. I love everything about this whole book and am very pleased with how it turned out. “Could you revisit it?” she continued. “I have other children’s crafts books, and it doesn’t look like one.”

I thanked her for her honesty, emphasizing the safety of our exchange and said, “this reminds me of two moments.” I shared the stories of the poem and the frame. For a moment she was quiet, and then she said, “but if your hair didn’t look right and you were about to go out, I would tell you.” And I said, again, thank you.

But here is the thing. I am finished with the crafts book, and I am delighted with it. I am on to the next piece, and the next. I have so many things I am trying to do that I can barely keep up; I struggle to find the time. I have no interest in redoing the cover or replacing the photo or changing the crafts book in any way.

*

In my mind, I run a quick review of what happened in the past year. It was a present for Valentine’s Day 2023 that got me started. Reaching out to a graphic-designer friend, I asked if she could create a book out of my poetry for me to give as a present. I sent her a bunch of my favorite poems, and she did. It looked so beautiful to me that I laughed and said I was going to get an ISBN number for it. I am going to make it a real book, I said. We sent it to a bookbinder who covered it with linen, stamped my title on the front and hand-sewed the binding. Although it arrived a bit past Valentines, when it did, I saw something: my first book. All of the rejections I had encountered fell away. I had my own book—with no one’s approval but my own.

I already had a collection of poetry from G’s childhood, so we did that next. Then I looked at a roman a clef I had more or less completed and put in a drawer years ago. We did that next. And then the crafts book. Today I have all of these on a small table in my living room with another volume of poetry en route.

Now I am working on completing a memoir of motherhood after a loss (also written ages ago). I am editing essays from this blog for another volume, and sometimes I find the energy to wrestle with a piece that traces my spiritual journey thus far based on a thesis I wrote for interfaith ministry. After that I want to finish the story of touring around North America in a Roadtrek for half of G’s seventh grade year. And then… it goes on.

*

Returning to the conversation with G, I referenced all of this and shared my next idea for what I want to do when these are all off my desk. She knows; we have talked about it. She has read some of it. I added: “I have no interest in refining my works after they are complete. I have no idea if they are any good. That is not the point. The point is my heart. Remember how I always used to ask what my path was, and I used to ask the angels to show me my path? Well, I’ve decided this is my path. Writing, editing, reading. But really, my path is an excavation and reconciliation of self.”

She was paying close attention. “And you know what I am discovering? That all I am, all I have been doing, is heart. My work, my words, my parenting, my marriage, my meals, my homes, my gifts—everything. It’s all my heart.”

I was not thinking as I spoke. She was nodding. I wish I had recorded our words. This is the best I can do to recreate the scene. But as I say it, I know to my source that it is true. It also explains part of how I have gotten so confused and hurt and lost. And why I built so many walls. This is tender territory: who I am, what matters to me, the root of my meaning, my heart. 

At a point, G’s tone of voice shifted, and she almost breathed her words, “God, Mom, you’re so right.”

I have been looking for a long time for what I am finding just being alone with my thoughts, my memories, a pen and notebook.

*

Today is both Valentines and Ash Wednesday. At morning Mass, Father Robert spoke of this day’s acute reminder of our mortality. He shared that in a few months he will turn fifty-five, and questions are arising.

“Is there life in the way you live?” he asked. “Is there life in your relationships?” “How do you want to live?” Lent gives urgency to these questions. His words reach me as they often do. What is the quality of my life? A friend spoke recently of failure, and I thought, golly, I could say I failed at so much, but I can’t phrase it that way. I just cannot.

Instead, somewhat ironically, I feel like I am living fully by getting quieter, reviewing my life thus far. Writing, editing, walking, praying and helping out where I can. I have a cozy little home in a corner of the world where I feel secure, ever closer to an abiding affection for myself and all I have done to defend her over the years.

Today, on my 54^th Valentines, I conclude that my adult life has been driven by heart—for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. I have been hiding from this, or been blind to it, or both. It took falling in love with someone. It took feeling safe—opening, trusting, giving and receiving. It took being seen, heard, read and held. It took this alchemy—this unlocking of locks and untying of knots, this undoing of so much of the work I did to protect myself—for me to see myself through his eyes, belonging to myself, on my own path, in a home surrounded by heart in a thousand forms. My very own Valentine, be mine.