Can you have too many Valentines?

I sincerely hope I do not need to tell you the answer to that question!

“It’s written in my heart, so that everybody can see it.”
                                                                                         -Richard Thompson

All the heart-words I collected formed themselves into something different than I envisioned.  And that is the outcome of a heart exercise – to discover more than you imagined, to reveal what is simpler than it seemed, and to recognize for just a moment:  so far, so good.

He told me once, “Making things is an addiction.”  (He probably punctuated this pronouncement with “Baby,” but it looks so cheesy typed out, you know, not sweet, and pricelessly tender the way it sounded when you heard him say it.)  He was definitely encouraging me at the time, to give in and create.

Here he is lighting some metal on fire.  He looks so happy, don’t you think?

How happy we’d be
sipping polka dot tea
served with strawberry blossom delight,

chasing butterfly cakes
that flutter away
before we taste even one bite!

I do believe it is the wish of every heart to be happy.  It is a measure of the awesome power of this wish that we will burn up our lives with fear and anger to avoid admitting to ourselves this simple desire.   Somehow our wires get crossed, and we come to believe that our bitterness will cure us of our fear, and somehow that will bring us closer to fulfilling our hearts’ desire.  The curious thing is, the wish to be happy itself is enough to dissolve the barbs and splinters that catch on our tenderest feelings.  Despite everything we have been through, this part of ourselves remains intact, and glows with love:  to wish ourselves happiness is the simplest blessing of all.

Unworthy of Goldsworthy, a poor thing but mine own.

Sky, heartwards.

You have left your stamp on my heart.  Yes, you will forgive the pun!

Cherubs from the Estate of Pat Read – believer in romance, beauty and dancing, and record keeper of beloved faces, past and present.  She made sure we all had each other.