Valentine's Day...

.....thinking about love and happiness. I believe that we all equate happiness with love and love with happiness. I am not a huge fan of V.D. We are a family of small celebrations. Usually no birthday presents except for children. We consider ourselves brilliant if we remember an anniversary or a spouse's birthday. Our material gifts are given at Christmas, but each day there are the gifts of calling each other to say goodbye, good morning or hello. "I'm heading to the post office. I love you." 
"Drive safely, I'll see you tomorrow."
"I'll call you when I get there." "I'm going for a walk now, see you soon."
"Come quick, look at the sun Ma."...or the moon or the dogs or the stars. Someone knows what you love to see. Someone knows what brings you joy. Someone knows you love to see the trees bending in the wind or the first and tiniest buds of a promising spring.
Each day provides us with opportunities to say I love you and you make me happy. Each day provides us with the opportunity to say I am happy because you love me.
It is a gift to give one another...this recognition of who we are and how we relate as family. There is family in the smallness of our home and the family in the big wide world.We are more alike than unlike and we all hope and dream of the same things.
It is also a gift in the giving and receiving.
I think about some of the children I had in my classroom when I read these words. I think about the words when I see some people on the streets. They are written by the wonderful author Hilary Mantel.  


He turned away; he didn't feel he could bear it. He was terribly afraid that happiness might be a habit, or a quality knitted into the temperament; or it might be something you learn when you're a child, a kind of language, harder than Latin or Greek, that you should have a good grasp on by the time you're seven. What if you haven't got that grasp? What if you're in some way happiness-stupid, happiness-blind? It occurred to him that there are some people, ashamed of being illiterate, who always pretend to others that they can read. Sooner or later they get found out, of course. But it is always possible that while you are valiantly pretending, the principles of reading strike you for the first time, and you are saved. By analogy, it is possible that while you, the unhappy person, are trying out some basic expressions-the kind of thing you get in  phrase books for travelers-the grammar and syntax of this neglected language are revealing themselves, somewhere at the back of your mind. That's all very well, he thought, but the process could take years. He understood Lucile's problem: how do  you know you will live long enough to be fluent?

May we all live long enough to be fluent. 

Best to all, e. 
 p.s. does any of this connection make sense? it does to me, so maybe that's all that matters. in the scheme of things, i will not be so serious next time..i am off to wipe chicken poop off of the eggs. love to all who read this small spot. 
p.p.s. i am an abysmal typist, typer whatever. may h. m. forgive me for errors.