February, the month of Love by Nancy M Bell

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February is the depths of winter here on the Canadian prairies. One of my friends in Cornwall, across the pond, recently posted a photo of the snowdrops currently blooming in her garden. My world is full of frost encrusted trees, building, fences and long grasses bent under the weight of the hoar frost left by the ice fog of the past couple of days.

Valentines Day is the bright spot of February. It's lovely to receive cards and messages of love and good will at this time of year. It breaks up the cold dark days of winter. Although the hours of daylight have been slowly increasing since the Winter Solstice we still have a long way to go before Spring Equinox when the hours of light and dark are equal and we embark on the long joyful ride toward the Summer Solstice and longest day. When I was in grade school back in the 1960's it was a tradition that on Valentine's Day every student in the class brought Valentines for the other students. The day before we would create big paper pouches which we decorated and taped to the front of our desks. Then on Valentine's Day after lunch everyone would move around the room and deposit their cards into the pouches. Some would write who it was from while others would leave it as a secret. Even in those younger days it was always exciting to try and guess if one of the secret Valentines was from the boy I currently had a crush on. Of course, I never found out for sure, but I did keep certain Valentines for a number of years, in fact I probably still have a few tucked away in my grade school keepsake book. Those were all the rage in the 1960's and early '70s. My mom bought ours from the Regal catalogue. There was a pouch for each school year where you wrote down the year, the school, teacher, friends etc and then into the pouch went things from that year, birthday cards, pictures, report cards etc.

These days Valentine's Day is pretty low key. Earlier in our marriage, it was an occasion to go out for a fancy dinner, this slowly wound down as the time went on. Now, maybe I might get a card- this would be a highlight LOL- or he might remember to wish me Happy Valentine's Day without me nudging him. After this many years I guess it doesn't really matter. The romance is in the everyday living now not in the expensive celebration of traditional holidays.

I wish you a Happy February, Happy Valentine's Day and Happy Life!