Every February, something peculiar happens to my husband. As Valentines Day creeps closer, he retreats into his tool shed like a man preparing for a natural disaster. Romance, to him, is not a celebration – it is a minefield. And if he can hide long enough among bolts, drills and widgets, perhaps mid-February will pass him by unnoticed.
Over the years, I have given him many affectionate nicknames, but “Swamp Thing” stuck – earned from those moments when his mind turns marshy at the mere mention of Valentines Day. Flowers, cards and candlelit gestures do not come naturally to him. He is what I call a practical romantic: the sort who cooks mee sua with hard-boiled eggs on my birthday, but freezes when asked to choose a Valentines gift.
He prizes action over ornament, food over roses. For a conservative guy like him, the pathway to choreographing a romantic day is strewn with pitfalls. In his world, love is scientific – efficient, logical, quietly dependable. But, to me, celebrating Valentines Day is not an illusion of youth, but a platform to honour love and allow its fullest unfolding. It is bringing greater depth, delight and dynamism to a relationship.
As I’ve grown older, my romantic tastes have only become more imaginative. I no longer expect a blazing bonfire, but I do hope for a steady spark to keep the fire glowing.
Sometimes that means premium chocolate and lace. Sometimes it means coaxing a conservative man into a lingerie boutique – an experience he would rather trade for captivity by a cannibalistic tribe than be seen exploring silk and lace in public. Which wife would put her husband through cringe and vulnerability just to valourise Valentines Day?
Yet here is the truth I keep returning to: romance is rarely loud. It lives in the unglamorous minutes. In the way he pumps my bicycle tyres before dawn and strings tiny lights onto my old bike so I look like a mysterious night rider at six in the morning. In the way he carries heavy pails of water without complaint, lifts mattresses to change linen, and drives across town hunting for tou-fu-fah when I develop a sudden craving.
These are not gestures found in Valentines catalogues, but they speak more deeply to my soul than roses ever could.
Love, I’ve learned, is large enough to hold disappointment, humour, unmet wants and small triumphs. At its truest, it is not a single dramatic moment, but a thousand quiet ones, stitched into ordinary days.
