I had no intentions whatsoever of being reflective on V-Day.
Though I wrote this last night…
Often, finding the right short words is certainly more difficult than putting an entire book down on paper.
After over two months, my coffee boy finally works morning shifts again. On Wednesday I walked in earlier than usual.
He remarked his absence and while forgetting the vanilla syrup as usual I only said: ‘I noticed you weren’t here.’ Something had changed.
A nervous laugh ‘oh Really!?’… more silence, coffee, I seat myself in my ‘writing corner’, half an hour later I walk out, towards the unattainable.
And, then I read this now…
Francis Bacon painting of burglar who broke into his house sells for £42m
The headline does not reveal much of a love story here but once you know the truth a spectacular psychological profile of Bacon and the burglar unravels. And as so many things including love, it sells for millions.
Shops and the media lure us into a peculiar safety and a completely false understanding of loyalty. Why else would you be able to buy 10 V-Day cards (sometimes even in one box) for £1? The clever answer from a male, of course, would be: to give them to my one and only, one card for every year we are together, or for every hour of the day (It took me a month to come up with this logical answer!). The good news though is, perhaps, that we keep the usual roles: the man plays an active role in seduction (or just clinging on to his little hope of not dropping off the dividing line between animal and civilised persona) and the female waiting passively.
I can live with that.