V-Day Romance: Finding Acts of love that really matter

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Every February, I find myself hedging about Valentine’s Day. I hate the holiday because it’s a manufactured excuse to extract money from Americans for cards, dinners, gifts, flowers, and chocolates, as though all the concern and care lovers should show to one another can be expressed via a big credit card spend on one over-hyped night. At the same time, I like Valentine’s Day, both because it’s a chance to show people I care about that I’m thinking of them, and because it’s delightful to be the recipient of those cards, dinners, gifts, flowers. My usual way of dealing with this ambivalence is to resist all efforts to plan something for that night, but then to grab the relationship of the moment (and it’s been a different one every year, I confess), and go out for a small dinner, nothing excessive, followed by a quiet night alone together.

This year, in the still-early stages of a relationship I truly hope lasts into next year and beyond, I’m thinking about what I could do to make Valentine’s Day more meaningful this time around (the other choice seems to be to ignore it completely.) And so, with that in mind, here are some thoughts on how to I might add depth and resonance when Feb 14^th comes around in my own life the year:

Buy or make some great V-Day cards
This year, I decided I’d sent cards not only to my main sweetie, but to other people I love, including a former boyfriend, a dear friend and occasional boyfriend, and two female friends (platonic).If Valentine’s Day is about affection, why not share the love?

To make these cards really impactful, I went onto my favorite crafters’ site, etsy.com, and picked out and ordered some lovely cards. If I’d been feeling more creative, I could have actually made cards myself, but buying some one else’s labor seemed fine.

Select some special poetry for your beloved
Reading poetry to one another is a fabulously sexy and intimate act. Some great poems to consider are

• WH Auden's Lay your sleeping head my love
• ee cumming’s I like my body when it is with your body
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s How do I love thee?
• Parts of the Song of Solomon (Chapter 2)
• Adrienne Rich’s Twenty-One Love poems (excerpt)
• Edna St. Vincent Millay: I dreamed I moved among the Elysium fields

Create a special gift, something unique and special
In a world where so much is pre-packaged and pre-fab, hand made and customized gifts show you’ve given someone time and attention, qualities lovers value. Some of the best presents I’ve given(or gotten) have been the following:

• Small flipbooks made from flickr photos by Quoop--that commemorate time together
• Stones, driftwood or emphera from a special place, framed or arranged so it can live on my desk at work
• An external hard drive or a thumb drive full of carefully arranged (and legal) music, movies, poems or podcasts—what shows care better than items to listen to/watch/enjoy?
• A framed picture of yourself and the person, perhaps in a collaged or stickered frame.
• Handmade items like a scarf, gloves, hat, customized T-shirt or jacket.
• A list of things you love about the person

Plan a meaningful event
Going out for dinner is the classic V-Day activity, followed by a romantic night, but who’s to say that’s the only way? Mix it up with some of the following possibilities:

• Massage and hot tub for two at a spa
• Session at the batting cage or the