Happy Valentine's Day.

It's been feeling more and more like spring where I live. The sun is warming up the air in the early afternoon, the birds are chirping happily in trees about to literally burst open with latent energy, and the light has that spring softness which puts haloes on things that grow.

I love the spring. When I began to sense this change in the air recently, I put a very special CD in my car so that I get to listen to it on the way to and from work. It's the CD that began the serious work of bringing my now-husband, then-crush, and I together. It's the first CD he ever gave me. He gave it to me in the spring, and we began dating that spring, and I fell in love with him that spring. And when I listen to it now, and sing along, it's uncanny how well I can remember what I thought and felt when I listened to it the first time. And all of those memories are tied to the season and the music and the atmosphere. And they make me feel whole and joyful and younger, somehow (even though that was only three years ago). Three years later, I still love the band to which he introduced me, and to which many parts of our combined history are strangely connected, and I love Nathan more. So very much more.

(A small note of explanation: I planned this incredibly mushy mass of observations for V-day, and meant to post it on Saturday, but we were so busy eating heart-shaped Krispy Kremes for breakfast and watching Rick Steves in Vienna and ordering pizza that I completely forgot. It doesn't matter much: everyday should be all about love. It's all you need.)