“I am grateful to have been loved and to be loved now and to be able to love, because that liberates. Love liberates.” — Maya Angelou
“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line.” — Lucille Ball.
Valentine’s Day is here. As it approached, I drafted this musing about the holiday and romantic love, a look at relationships, dating, and my single status while ‘Home Alone.’ Yes, love in a pandemic. As a single person, it’s a look back at the past, skin hunger in the present, and desire for companionship in the future.
I’m a romantic at heart and have written about love in its many forms. There was a time that I didn’t believe I could thrive if I wasn’t in a romantic partnership. The gift of being single — and of recovery, therapy, time, and practice — is in the end — how I learned to love myself. Now, the irony, I’m finally ready to love someone else and due to the pandemic, I’m isolated at home. Oh, My!
For those new to my Dispatch from the Hideout series:
I began my Dispatch from the Hideout as a one-off essay in July 2017 to describe my reaction to events in the world and my need to retreat. I was also grieving the losses in my life, the most recent at the time was my mother’s death in 2016. I introduced the series as follows:
Now, before I go any further, it’s important that I share with you that my hideout is a virtual one. I don’t have a cabin in the woods, or a bunker in the basement, I only have my home, a 645 square foot apartment. It’s where I wake up in the morning, retreat at the end of the work day, hideout on the weekends when I’m writing or feeling introverted, and end my days, often falling asleep on the couch watching TV. Yeah, I’m that girl. I live alone and most days I’m happy with that choice.
I discovered that the Dispatch from the Hideout metaphor was a useful vehicle for me to express innermost feelings, like grief and gratitude, moments when I faced my shadow, or questioned my choices, plus the times when I reflected on the larger world of which I’m simply a member, navigating things outside of my control, yet still have an impact on my heart, mind, and spirit. The Hideout metaphor served me and soon became a series.
Circling back to the end of February and the COVID-19 pandemic I was forced to spend more time in the Hideout to protect my physical health, safer-at-home, I soon discovered that the isolation also affected my mental. emotional, and spiritual health. When the Wisconsin Historical Society launched the Wisconsin Historical Society COVID-19 Journal Project, I was all in and to date, including this essay, I’ve contributed thirteen installments about my experience as I shelter-in-place, plus the three musings that preceded them.
A Look Back at the Past
As a reminiscence writer and poet, I’ve waxed sentimentally about romantic love. As a child, I
loved (there’s that word) Valentine’s Day, beginning by strategically selecting the die-cut Valentines from the grocery or dime store for my elementary school classmates, my secret crush, and teacher, artistically decorating my shoebox Valentine collection box with the slot in the top, plus constructing the handmade cut-out paper Valentine heart for my parents. I was hooked by the love bug!
As a poet, three of my four chapbooks include — or the main theme is — love and Valentines: Scenes of Everyday Life, Fifteen Valentines, and Crush(ed). (See links to chapbooks below). I’ve written Valentine poems to my partners, exes, lovers, friends, imaginary next girlfriends, and crushes. I’ve mused about love as a single person, and taken a look at the different kinds of love: Agape, eros, philia, and storge.
I’ve attended not one, but two dating seminars. You can read more about my experience in my blog essay, It’s Never Too Late, plus a tongue-in-cheek and first-hand experience of what it’s like to date when you’re in your sixties, Sexagenarian Dating in the Midwest (see links below).
As I mentioned earlier, I’m a romantic at heart, and when I’m in a relationship, I enjoy the planning, gift-giving, the romantic dinners, and the anticipation of the candlelit payoff at the end of the evening. I’ve designed scavenger hunts, surprise dinners, sent flowers, delivered chocolates and gifts elaborately wrapped in red cellophane, or heart-shaped boxes with handmade Valentines.
Full Disclosure: The truth is Valentine’s Day and love relationships are not always hearts and flowers. From One is NOT the Loneliest Number:
The reality is some of my loneliest times and Valentine’s Day holidays occurred when I was in a relationship. There’s nothing lonelier than being with the person you love and feeling like you are essentially alone, unappreciated, or your needs are neglected or denied. Sometimes it’s simply a mismatch of expectations or lack of communication between partners, as in a typical match-up of opposites attract, a giver and taker, or worse yet, a taker with a taker.
Skin Hunger
I’m not sure if the itchiness I’m experiencing is due to dry winter skin, or skin hunger, the yearning for touch. Besides lathering more body lotion on myself, I’ve decided I need to purchase a back scratcher. There are itches that I can’t reach alone, definitely a metaphor for being single and for this past year.
I chronicled my experience with skin hunger, the realization I was touch deprived, missing the affection and hugs of family and friends in Dispatch from the Hideout: Skin Hunger (link below). From Skin Hunger:
Physical affection has always been important to me in any relationship built on trust, whether family, friend, coworker, or member of an affinity or creative group. I shake hands. I’m a hugger by nature. I kiss friends on the cheek, family and loved ones on the lips, touch faces, squeeze a shoulder or a knee, hold hands, and in intimate moments, lay my open palm on someone’s heart. I’ll wrap my arm around a lover’s waist when we walk, and spoon when we sleep. I like to touch and to be touched.
I miss the daily casual touch and affection shared in greetings, expressed in support, and when saying goodbye. To employ a euphemism, though I’m a person of a certain age, I remain a sexual being. Self-pleasuring during the pandemic is my only option.
Desire for Companionship
Admittedly, I’m grateful to being content most days as a singleton. After 13 years of living alone, I’ve fashioned a life that serves and satisfies me for the most part, though this year, a year of pandemic isolation, and touch deprivation, I’m missing the physical contact and affection of friends and family and yes, a lover. Sometimes I dream about next girlfriends and crushes, ex-girlfriends and lovers.
Credit: Graphic designer, Lauren LoPrete, an Oakland-based artist, who created this tribute to the Peanuts.
During the pandemic, for the most part, dating is relegated to virtual options, or socially distancing and wearing masks outdoors, and for some, not me, more creative and risky options. From Dispatch from the Hideout: Skin Hunger:
Some people are experimenting with a new trend, ‘quaranteaming,’ “The latest social trend in the coronavirus outbreak is ‘quaranteaming,’ where people are deciding to quarantine, either permanently or temporarily, with someone they don’t live with.”
I’m not ready to invite someone into my home, or join them in theirs, though I would like to spend some social time, perhaps outdoors with individual or small groups of friends or family under 5 people, who’ve been socially distancing in their own homes and would be willing to share some time together, six feet apart, wearing masks. Yes, at least for now, the new normal.
As a single person for the past 13 years, I’ve learned how to love and pamper myself, whether giving myself a gift on a holiday, when preparing a special meal, reaching out to friends and family for comfort or solace, or simply affirming that I’m deserving of love and reminding myself of how important friends and family are when I’m single (and every day!), especially during a pandemic.
Gratefully, though I remain single and safer-at-home, as a cinephile, I enjoy living viscerally through romantic comedies and dramas, some which are a reminder that all relationships are not hearts and flowers, like the recent film, Malcolm & Marie.
I placed a Valentine message to my Next Girlfriend in “Isthmus,” Madison’s Weekly Independent Newspaper’s, “Book of Love.” See message at center of image.
I also have an active and creative imagination. I’ve drafted a series of imaginary Conversations with My Next Girlfriend for my blog, and dedicated a poem to her, Valentine to My Unknown Lover. (see links below). Yesterday, as I mused about this pandemic Valentine’s Day and how I would celebrate it, I decided I’d make a comfort food dinner and sample the chocolates from the heart-shaped box of chocolates wrapped in red cellophane waiting to be unwrapped. It inspired this new poem.
Comfort Food and Chocolates
The Eve of Valentine’s Day, 2021
An appetite for comfort food and chocolates.
Love in a pandemic, home alone,
single, surviving safely.
645 square feet and my imagination,
memories, musings about the past,
dreams for tomorrow, new love.
A large heart, wrapped in red cellophane
awaits me, ready to be unwrapped.
The sweetness of the chocolates will
find their way to my tongue.
I unwrap this gift, like I will you,
in my bed, in my imagination.
A polar vortex, blanket of ice
and snow outside my window, wind
blows cold, while inside, fireplace flames
dance and purple tulips open.
I look forward to the sweetness and solace,
an appetite for comfort food and chocolates,
and you.
LLL
02/13/21
Love during a pandemic: Happy Valentines Day to friends and family, all my crushes and exes, and of course, next girlfriend. Lastly, all the singletons out there, you are loved and not forgotten today.
Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
One Is Not the Loneliest Number
Conversations w/My Next Girlfriend: Episode 4
Dispatch from the Hideout: Skin Hunger
Sexagenarian Dating in the Midwest
Poetry Chapbooks from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! (on the Subject of Love)
Additional Valentine’s Day Reading
Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Valentine’s Day? (I scored 6 out of 8)
Valentighting: The Dating Trend Ruining Your February
Forget your valentine — friendships are your most important relationships
