Home of Pie

I have a secret that isn't much of a secret at all actually. I am a closet romantic. I don't often admit nor do I talk about it because it's all so very cliche these days. For example, everyone will buy their special other red roses this Valentines Day and all the recipients will exclaim, "This is so romantic!"

Except, if EVERYONE does it, it's NOT romantic. It's cliche. It's lamesauce. Of course, I think I am just slightly partial here because for the longest time I have hated roses. Ugly, vile, thorny things. I hate em. Anyways, that's not the point. The point is, if I got roses I would probably go all cliche, but if someone were to actually hand pick me flowers from the side of the road or just surprise me with breakfast in bed I would probably swoon ten times as much as if they sent me roses. Because romance is about wanting to be with your special other just to be with them. Just to see their eyes light up when they see you. That my friends, is romance.

Let me tell you a story. When I was 13, I used to go and stay with my Grandpa in a tiny, sleepy beach town called Cayucos in California. Cayucos was full of antique stores. My Grandpa would give me twenty bucks and I would head down to the pharmacy and get a giant chocolate ice cream cone and then go antique store shopping. As I browsed through the aisles of ancient junk (and truly, it was mostly junk), I would imagine the couples who shared the furniture, the children who played with the dolls and the fine Victorian ladies who sipped from the dainty tea cups. Then I came upon a box of old cards and letters. At the top of the pile was a blank Valentines Day card from the early 1900s. I loved the simplicity of it, but when I read the poem inside I swooned. It read:

"To My Sweetheart. To My Valentine.
Tell me Sweetheart, tell me I pray,
What Gift to offer you this Day,
You have already all of my Heart,
I've never a Thought
from you apart;
And all of my Love is yours always,
so I offer you on
this Day of Days
My Heart and my Love all over again
To have and to hold
till God says when."

I still have that Valentines Day card. I told myself when I paid twenty five cents for it at the age of thirteen that I would give it to my husband on our first Valentines Day.

I'm still waiting.