365 True Things: 322/Love

It's Valentine's Day, a holiday that I don't celebrate per se—no flowers, no cards, no nothing like that. But I spent a very nice day with a few of my loves: my husband, David, always and forever my number one Valentine; my goofy dog; my good friend Nina, who I'm delighted is back in the neighborhood; the cats, yes, even them.

Out on a walk this afternoon, we ran into a couple of friends, Thelma and Charlie, who I think of as good friends, though we don't see them all that much, at least not socially. (Thelma is my more-or-less weekly Norwegian-torture fellow sufferer/plodder/striver. They both do contradance with David—in fact, they introduced him to the pastime—and have sung with him in his chorus, though now they've moved on to a different one.) We mentioned Valentine's Day and all confessed that we don't pay it much mind. But we sure have clocked a few of them, and that must count for something.

This morning, we went to "church" for the first time since I was, oh, eight? I put the word in quotes because this church is nondenominational—it's called the Center for Spiritual Awakening—and for me, church is Christian. They put on a special program for the day featuring corny love songs (performed by Tony Bennett and Sheryl Crow and Andrea Boccelli via video, so it sure could have been cornier), some jokes, and a long talk about the Lord Rama—the point of which I never quite gleaned.

But one thing that was said, which David commented on and on which I concur, was how nice it was to be reminded that God ("God," I would say—with quotes: I'm not a believer, but I do believe there's magic in the universe, so maybe that's my version of "God") resides in all our hearts.

And also: maybe it's enough to think of contentment as a worthy goal in this life.

Just that: contentment. A sort of self-love, you might say. A recognition of (hopefully) a calm, easy, joyous place in our hearts that, even if we don't experience it all the time, we can settle down into frequently enough and just be.

So: there's my wish to you. Contentment. And comfort. And compassion as well, for ourselves and others. Because really, there's plenty of love to go 'round.