Love, a day late...

I meant to post this yesterday, in honor of Valentines day, but alas, wood cutting and the resulting incapacity that led to a long hot bath, coupled with a bottle of Prosecco, in celebration of said holiday, left us laughing, silly and further incapacitated, enjoying the most romantic of dinners, tuna melts (the only thing we were capable of generating at that point) and falling early and exhausted into the bed.

So now, I want to share another passage from the fine book, Andy Catlett, Early Travels, by Wendell Berry, which I have finished and was so short and sweet I'm tempted to read it all over again, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

In this passage, about time, birth, death and love, he presents all of this so succinctly and well, I thought it perfect in recognition of the day of happy hearts and want to give you this:

"Time that is told by death and birth is held and redeemed by love, which is always present. Time, then, is told by love's losses, and by the coming of love, and by love continuing in gratitude for what is lost.  It is folded and enfolded and unfolded forever and ever, the love by which the dead are alive and the unborn welcomed into the womb.  The great question for the old and the dying, I think, is not if they have loved and been loved enough, but if they have been grateful enough for love received and given, however much.  No one who has gratitude is the onliest one. Let us pray to be grateful to the last."

I've not ever put a lot of store in Valentine's day, liking to think that really, we should show our love daily, and the message of the passage above speaks to me in this regard. I think too, it's not just for the old and dying, but for all of us, to be grateful for love received and given. Every day.

So I'll close with another image of this spectacular quince which has been blooming for several weeks now, its unspectacular name "bright red".  So much for creativity!