I’m a retired romantic. That’s what happens when you marry a not-so romantic.
“Love is not enough.” The Husband would state a-matter-of-fact. He’s the person who doesn’t believe in the capitalist Hallmark holiday that is Valentine’s Day. Or most holidays that involve gift giving (Yes, including Christmas, but that’s a different story.) Come to think of it, in our entire over two decade relationship, we only celebrated Valentine’s Day once. I booked for an overpriced steak and champagne dinner at one restaurant in a swanky hotel with a starlit view of the city. The restaurant dimmed in amber lighting, instrumental love songs serenading diners in the background, human sized red rose arrangements and rose petals strewn over the table top that ended with gargantuan tasteless strawberries donning a dark and white chocolate tuxedo. It was grand for my junior corporate salary, but it was not as romantic as you think it might be. Melancholy weighed us down as he was about to leave the Philippines and me for greener pastures in Dubai.
He’s also not the type who’d regularly shower me with gifts or public displays of affection. So my heart lit up whenever he’d hold my hand, wrap his arms around me in plain sight of the public. My twenty year old self still yearned for the flowers, being fed a steady diet of romantic comedies from both local television & cinema and Hollywood and Sweet Dreams novels. Twenty years later, the longing turned dormant, focusing on more pragmatic expressions of love such as hard shoulder massages, edible pasalubong from business trips, doing the laundry, and a million more micro gestures that all add up. The most important of all is supporting me through this transition and transformation period of my life.
The past month, I worked on a story for Eater Dallas for Valentine’s Day, interviewing four couples who are both partners in the kitchen and in real life. Each couple’s story unique, nonetheless, tugged at my rusty heartstrings
This made me think about the Two of Cups - the second card of the suit of cups, which signify emotions and relationships. A man and a woman stand in front of each other, looking into each other’s eyes, holding cups as if offering it to each other. The man’s hand reaches across the gap between the two, touching the woman’s hand. Floating in between them is a caduceus, two snakes intertwined on a staff, topped by a red winged lion’s head - symbol of Ningiszida, Mesopotamian deity of vegetation and the underworld, life and death, also the more popular, more recent, Greek mythology, Hermes or in Roman mythology, Mercury, the messenger of the gods. Idyllic cloudless blue skies, rolling green hills and a home are a backdrop to the two. It is an echo of the Major Arcana’s The Lovers.
When pulled in a reading, it symbolizes a connection between two people. It doesn’t necessarily mean a romantic connection (I’m sure, if you’re a romantic getting reading for relationships, you hope it would be). Because connection can be platonic or in business. There’s a singular thing that intertwines two separate people just as the snakes in the caduceus, wrap around the staff. The red lion, colored with passion, and leadership, signifies that there could something to start in the relationship.
Each couples’ stories, ncluding ours, began with a tiny spark, a connection. But that spark isn’t enough. There has to be something else to fan the tiny flicker into a bigger flame. Or as we say today, a sustainable one. Unless, you want the kind of fire that’s too big, engulfs everything in it, reduced to charcoal and ashes.
Now that I’m older (hopefully wiser) I shelved those ideas of romance - the ostentatious, more so, for the ‘gram, gestures of adoration. Is that what Time does to you? When one becomes more practical about things, including the lofty ideals of love and romance? Is the one off spark vulnerable to fizzling out worth it?
There is truth in the husband’s saying “Love is not enough.” I still beg to disagree. Yes, there is hard work, sacrifice, suffering and a lot of luck. But the force that drives one to do and endure all is love.
I still am a romantic, after all.
What I’m reading:
“Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology” by Various North American Indigenous Authors
I sure do not like horror as much. I can’t say I’m a scaredy cat, being extra brave about other things. Perhaps more nonchalant about it since there are real world horror happening right before our eyes. The indigenous authors was the hook for me. It is continuing journey on learning more about them, the original inhabitants of this land I now call home. And yes, I had goosebumps after reading some stories. I don’t know if I recommend reading this before bedtime. But I do.
“Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs” by Johann Hari
My holiday weight gain plus overall discomfort about the state of my health (Recent blood tests reveal the approach towards pre-diabetic stage) prompted me to think about what I can do it. While I definitely do not qualify as a candidate for Ozempic or WeGovy, I thought about it. My mind balked at this quick and easy solution to the obesity epidemic. I know for a fact that anything touted to be a silver bullet has its downsides. Hence, I turned to Johann Hari’s new book for answers. Because I read his previous work (Lost Connections - about depression and anxiety and Stolen Focus - for this attention deficit plague), I gave this one a chance. And these drugs are more complex than we think they are. It made me wonder a lot about how we’ve come to think that each part of the body is not connected to the whole and how industrial capitalist food systems have done so much damage to us all.
“Fluke: Chance, Chaos and Why Everything We Do Matters” by Brian Klaas
The US managed to spread the Gospel of “Pulling one’s self up by the bootstraps” and efficient productivity around the world. I don’t know about you, but I feel it is a hyper romanticized philosophy of individual control. A very American brand of individualism. A failure to not subscribe to this is a failure of a person as a human being. I’ve balked against this in my twenties. There was something in my gut that just isn’t sold. Two decades later, I still am a non-believer because there are just things in this earthly life that we will never be able to control. Hence, this book, which argues how life should be built around the embrace of uncertainty, chaos and chance. He begins to tell the tale on why Kyoto, the initial target for the atomic bomb, was spared from obliteration. Also Google “the luck of Kokura.”