Valentine's Day can feel like a performance: the set menu, the red roses at triple price, the pressure to post a photo. If you'd rather celebrate love quietly, you're in very good company. Some of the oldest Valentine's traditions were about words, not things.
A Valentine from a prison cell
Charles d'Orléans, a French duke and poet, was captured by the English at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 and held prisoner in England for about twenty-five years. During his captivity, he wrote poems, including verses addressed to his wife that mention Valentine's Day. One of them is often cited as among the oldest known Valentines. A love note written from far away, in a time when words were all he had.
By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, exchanging handwritten notes and verses on 14 February had become a popular custom in Britain and beyond.
Why a letter is the most romantic gift
Flowers fade, chocolates disappear, restaurants are forgotten. A letter can be kept for a lifetime, reread on a hard day, found by your grandchildren in a box. It shows the one thing every lover wants to know: that you've paid attention.
What to write
You don't need to be a poet. Choose two or three of these:
1. The moment you first noticed them. Be specific: what they wore, what they said, where you were. 2. Something small they do that you love. The way they make coffee, laugh at their own jokes, hum while cooking. 3. A memory from this past year. 4. Something you've never quite said out loud. 5. A wish for the two of you. 6. A line of poetry, if you like, with its author.
It's not only for couples
Write a Valentine to a best friend, a sister, a parent, a child. Love comes in many forms, and all of them deserve to be written down.
Make it beautiful
Good paper, a pen you like, your best handwriting. Seal it with wax if you have some. Leave it on a pillow, slip it into a coat pocket, or post it, so it arrives like a surprise.
Love letters, every month
The Letter & Magazine subscription sends you a letter and a postcard every month, with a meditation and a story about art, plus a seasonal issue of "(meditating) On Art". It also makes a lovely Valentine's gift for someone who'd rather read than receive roses.
Remember to take as much time as you need, and meet me at the next one.
Love, Evi