Our family makes the most of holidays. The children’s birthdays always manage to extend over an entire week, and for us even Valentine’s Day is a four-day event. Today, we started the heart day festivities by inviting the former girlfriend of one of our sons for lunch.
Our son and Terri were together for five years. They did a lot of growing together and when they grew apart (as we knew and feared they inevitably would) it was hard for us all. Luckily, we’ve stayed friends. Terri’s a fine artist with a great eye for design. Today she arrived for lunch with a centrepiece she’d created out of fresh pink and rose and white tulips and whimsical hearts she’d made out of this and that. For dessert we had that most celebratory of desserts, ganache with raspberries, and we talked about art and theatre and opera and most significantly about Terri’s new love. Her face glowed when she told us about him. She looked as happy as she deserves to be – a romantic beginning for the weekend.
Tonight I’m having dinner with two women friends, whom I’ve known for a very long time. They’re both smart and funny and irreverent. Both have served as models for characters in my books, so they know enough to be wary around me. Both of them are involved in media, so I know enough to be wary around them. That said, tonight we’ll drink wine and forget to be wary, and tomorrow we’ll all wake up with new material.
Tomorrow CBC radio here in Saskatchewan is re-broadcasting an essay I wrote for the Globe and Mail’s Modern Love series. The piece is called “Jung Love”. It’s autobiographical, and I’ll be reading it myself. The producer has added a luscious Valentine note to the words: excerpts from the Ravel Quartet in F – one of the most passionate pieces of music ever. It’s worth a listen.
Tomorrow night is our family Valentine’s night. When Ted and I were first married I made him a Valentine’s dinner as a joke: a heart-shaped meatloaf, pierced by a bacon arrow and surrounded by mashed potato lace. That artery-clogger will be on the menu along with the other good traditions we have here – a rose for each of the ladies – that means a first rose for our grand-daughter, Lexi, who will celebrating her first Valentine’s this year, and something goofy for the boys and men in our life.
Sunday, my Valentine of 42 years and I will have a special Valentine’s meal for two. He’ll read Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2010 (my present to him) and I’ll read whatever book he’s chosen for me. Another tradition.
I see that Louise Erdrich has a new novel. It’s titled “Shadow Tag” and the reviews suggest that it’s an examination of a terrible and destructive love between a husband and wife. Erdrich is always worth reading, but my favourite of her novels is still “Love Medicine”, a brilliant and passionate exploration of the power and the limitations of love. In this, her first novel, Erdrich explores the many faces of love: the love of a parent for a child; the love of siblings; the love of old people; the love of a child for a grandparent; the love of friends for one another. It’s worth reading on February 14th or on any other day.