Message to an Unwelcome Presence

You don’t belong here. I never invited you and I never wanted you here. So be gone with you. You’ve caused enough trouble. Now that I know who you are and what you’re kind is like, I’m done. You frighten me, but I’m stronger and I won’t let you win. I won’t give up until you’re gone. So make it easy on us both and go quietly.

My Heart-Shaped Box of Love

I’ve begun to realize, as I’ve grown older, that my taste in things celebratory is fairly low brow. It’s not that I don’t appreciate genteel and tasteful elegance. It’s just that the low brow markers of celebration (those giant colored lights lining windows at Christmas, or the light up plastic figures in the yard) remind me of my childhood growing up in a low brow working class Midwestern town where everybody had big colored bulbs around their windows and plastic figures in their yards.

On Valentine’s Day, my favorite things are heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and heart-shaped cards cut from folded pieces of construction paper. And the boxes of chocolates don’t need to be the high-end “quality” chocolates. I love those boxes wrapped in cellophane with cheap silk flowers attached that you can buy in the supermarket. As a child I would beg my dad to get my mom a heart-shaped box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day. I loved how pretty those boxes were and was fascinated by the construction of a heart-shaped box. Boxes in general are fascinating. They hold secrets and surprises. They beg to be opened. I have many boxes on my desk and at home—some with secrets, some with surprises. I’m always just a little bit excited about opening them, and never disappointed even when they’re empty.

The heart-shaped box is something extra special though—it’s beautiful, decorated, interesting in design, and filled with candies that weren’t everyday candies. My sister and I would argue over who got to keep the empty box after mom finished the chocolates. On the occasions when I won out, I treasured those boxes, opening and closing them, finding trinkets and treasures to put into them, until they faded and wore out.

This year my sister gave me a heart-shaped box of chocolates. It was obviously cheap (my sister is poor), and the chocolates were terrible (which is saying a lot since I’ll gladly savor just about any chocolate candy), but I absolutely loved it. I don’t need fancy dinners with wine and dessert, or expensive gifts as tokens of love. Each year all I want is a heart-shaped box of chocolates, and maybe a construction paper heart that reads “Be Mine.”

Happy St. Valentine’s Day