When I started this series three weeks ago, it was with the very conscious notion that it'd be winding up on one of the most ridiculous holidays in the world to be coopted by modern consumers, Valentine's Day.
Let us make no bones about it: Valentine's Day sucks. Having any designated day to buy things for other people sucks. Not that buying things for other people is bad; it can be excellent, when offered up in the right spirit of freedom, love and joy, just as most things are. But to know which holiday is on the rise two (or three months) out by the color of the merch poking out of the pallets in the CVS aisles as last holiday's tatty crap is offloaded from the "seasonal savings" ghetto to the final dumping grounds of off-price land, well, call me a cynic (as if you haven't already), but that, my friends, is one step away from hailing Big Brother in the streets.
So fuck that flowers and candy shit. Seriously. Fuck it fuck it fuck it. I have a far better way to honor the true spirit of the day, a festival! of love!, and save yourself money and help some people in need at the same time.
My friend, Uma, is in a hospital in New York City, fighting for her life, following a brain aneurysm two weeks ago. She's got people all over the world rooting for her recovery because yes, of course, she's one of those Fantastic People we really, really need more of on this planet. (And for you hopeless romantics who need your gooey icing on the cake, she's 27 and just got engaged.)
Her fiancé and her best friend have been sending out updates daily with news of her health or lack thereof, so we have a way to focus our thoughts. (You can read much of them online starting here.) It's a scary mix of not-good and good right now, with the not-good being about massive stroke and swelling of the brain and the good (the excellent) being about rapid neurological recovery that no one can explain.
This morning's request was a simple one: wear green. Draw a green heart on your hand, if you have no green. Send waves of good, positive thought out there towards Uma.
Uma was no more a fan of the crappy Valentine's Day that's turned us all into February scrooges than you or I. But as her best friend, Erik, points out, Uma is pro-love, and in a big way. And, in her more active times before this fall, was a hell-raisin', law-unabidin' rebel who viewed acts of rebellion small and large with glee.
So I cannot think of a better way to end this series than with an ode to Uma, and a plea for you to perhaps take a moment of your Wednesday to send a healing thought, or a minute to draw a green heart on your hand.
Except, perhaps, to end-end it with this:
Uma, wherever your thoughts are at right now, I know they approve...
xxx c