Love, Mom

A valentine for my girl

This is the second of two love poems I’m posting in honor of Valentine’s Day. You can read the first one to my son here. We will return next week to our regularly scheduled, non-drippy programming.

I’m not actually a huge fan of the holiday. I am happily, even blissfully married, but we’ve both always had a sort of shrugging reaction to the day. We don’t buy cards or go to dinner. Of course, he’s rarely home for the holiday, particularly if it falls on a weekday, so that’s part of it. But we have all sorts of loving rituals as a couple, jut none associated with February 14th.

I think my ambivalence about Valentine’s Day stems in part from the fact that it seems to make a lot of people feel really sad. If you’re not part of a couple, it’s bound to make you feel lonely, even if you’re not lonely most of the time. If you are part of a couple, there’s the EXPECTATIONS!!! It’s a holiday designed to trip people up, to make you either the disappoint-er or the disappoint-ed. And I’d be lying if I said some of my dislike doesn’t come from all the years in middle school and high school when I felt I was standing on the wrong side of the door. That awful floral fundraiser every year where people sent flowers to each other. Jaysus, what an exquisitely fashioned nightmare for those of us who were not part of the ruling elite. All the popular kids sashaying around with an armload of carnations, and me just trying to make it to my locker and out the door without bursting into tears. Gah!

But I remember every year that he was alive my Dad bought me chocolates and a card. They’d be sitting at my place at the table when I trudged home from school, trying to hide my tearstained face. I knew that it was maybe a little pathetic that my only valentine came from my dad, but it still worked, somehow, to make me feel less lonely and make home feel a little more like a refuge from the shi*t show of adolescence. So, when my kids were at home I always tried to do something nice for them. A silly card, chocolates, a discreet note in their lunch boxes, heart-shaped cookies if I was feeling ambitious. The photo above was from last year, just my daughter and me at home. I set this bowl at her place at breakfast with a poem I’d written for her, the one you can read below.

I can say from experience that it’s not easy to be a smart, outspoken girl in the world of teen romance. The laurels always seem to go to the ones who know how to flatter and act like they know less than they do. I never mastered those skills and neither did my girl. Brains to spare and a dagger-like wit make her one of my favorite people on the planet. But they scare the crap out of your average teenage boy. Unfortunately, their lack of courage and good sense doesn’t really help. You still want them to like you. This poem was the best thing I could come up with as an antidote to Valentine’s Day last year, a way to tell her to hang on, and to remind her that there’s all kinds of love in the world.

---

To My Daughter On Valentine’s Day

Can I tell you that I love you? 
Yes, I can certainly do that.
Can I tell you that you are beautiful? 
Yes, but you will say I don’t know about that,

Or You might be lying, 
or You’re only saying that because you’re my mother. 
So instead I will tell you that I love you, 
staying on safer ground.

And you will sigh and say Another Valentine’s Day 
with no valentine. And I will shrug and say It’ll come, 
or Boys are dumb, or sing a little snippet
of “You Can’t Hurry Love” 

And you’ll throw something at me, 
maybe just an evil look. But I’ll dodge 
it anyway, and then I’ll think how somewhere 
out there are the lucky souls

Who will love you, and luckier still, the ones 
you will love back. And they don’t even know yet
how you will surprise them. How perhaps they will 
be drawn to your sweet face but will be held 

Fast by your zaniness, by your silly looks 
and comic sound effects, struck 
with wonder by the magic improbability 
of what you might say next

And with no idea how they will 
be confounded by the push pull 
of your sweetness and sharp edges, 
your bravery and your fears.

They are out there, poor things, 
with no inkling of the great good fortune
to come. And just for now you are here with me 
and I will tell you that I love you

And I will tell you that you are beautiful 
and I will gather your dirty looks
and your eye rolls and tuck them alongside 
the photos of you making absurd faces, 

Next to the sighs and snorts and cackles 
and songs. And I will count one more Valentine’s Day 
when you, prickly-perfect piece of my heart, 
still live beneath my roof. 

---

What I’m Reading (or not reading):

• I just returned The Bee Sting, by Paul Murray to the library unread FOR THE SECOND TIME! In both cases, I had a bunch of book on hold, some of which promised too be very long waits. I figured they’d trickle into the library and I’d be able to read each of them at leisure. But no, they all landed on the hold shelf on the same day with what I can only imagine was a resounding WHOMP! It’s 656 pages and since it’s so popular right now and has so many holds in the system, I can’t renew it. I’m thinking I may just have to wait until it is not such a hot commodity. Has anybody read it? Should I bump it down the list? Or is it too good to wait for?

• I signed up for a poetry class at the local university. Sadly, I had to drop it. Long story. But I’d already bought the book for the course (Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology, by Amorak Huey) and it turned out to be the same book my daughter was using in her poetry class at college. Her copy was back ordered so I scanned a few chapters for her so she could get her first week’s reading done and in the course of doing so discover what an absolute gem this book is. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Here on Substack:

• 15thCenturyFeminist
  posted a beautifully written and thoroughly researched piece on the history of gynecology. Both sad and inspiring. One of her best yet, and that’s saying something.

The Minimization of the Mother

• This piece by

  NJ
  on women and the trap of humility has been on my mind ever since I read it. It’s honest and important. Don’t miss it.

Humbleness Is A Luxury I Can't Afford

• And

  Asha Dornfest
  at
  Parent of Adults
  made me feel seen in my grumpiness about Valentine’s Day, but she also helped me think about it another way.

I'm not into Valentine's Day

Happy Reading, Everybody! Thanks so much for being here.