The optimist in me says there is love everywhere, you just have to look for it. The pessimist in me says I shouldn't have to look. It should be evident.
I've never been a person to say I love you. It's my feeling that my family and those I care about know I love them by my actions. Thinking back, both my husband and I have rarely said the three words some people believe have to be said continually to show they are loved.
We respect each other, we love one another, but we show it in small ways. I make his favorite cookies, he paints the fenders on my tractor and the horse feeders purple. My favorite color. He brings me wildflowers when they bloom. Or points them out for me to take photos. I take care of all the housework and help him when he needs it. I clean out his pickup and run his errands. I make sure we always have his favorite licorice in the house and Oreos. We kiss in the field, we kiss in the kitchen, we hold hands or rub each other's backs. It is the actions, not the words that bind our hearts.
We don't have to say the words every day, we show each other every day that we love one another.
That's what I try to do with the characters in my murder mystery books. Mystery readers are turned off by "mushy" scenes. And that is where my non-verbal "I love you" can convey how the characters feel without alienating my murder mystery readers.
Right now I'm having fun with a triangle of sorts in my new Spotted Pony Casino Mysteries. My main character Dela Alvaro has had burning embers for FBI Special Agent Quinn Pierce, but her old high school sweetheart has returned to the reservation and is working for the Tribal Police so they are running into each other during a murder investigation. Both men like Dela. She will take many books to decide which man might win her heart. But there won't be any bed hopping. She is the kind of woman who only gives in when she is completely sure she won't be hurt.
And my character, Hawke, in the Gabriel Hawke Novels has fallen for a woman. They are sleeping together but that only gets mentioned in fleeting sentences here and there. It is their actions, rather than their words that show the reader their growing intentions. In the book I'm currently writing, they are stuck on a mountain in a snowstorm and she has a broken leg, Hawke had to set. And now he has to figure out how to keep her safe and catch a killer. Excitement and tension abound but he will do little things that show how he feels about her. And she will do the same.
My take on Valentine's Day. While I will make heart-shaped pancakes and brownies, which I have done for my children when they were growing up and I do for my husband and granddaughter that lives with us, it isn't because it is a day that you are to express your love for someone, it's because it is a kind of holiday and I celebrate them all. There shouldn't be one day that you shower your loved one with goodies. If you must buy goodies, spread them out a little every day. Show the person what they mean to you every day in little ways.
Showing others you care in little ways can go a long way to making you feel better. Spread the love!
1 comment:
Words of wisdom, Paty. I will add that not everyone sees those actions as a form of "I love you" and thus misses the message and the knowing that they are loved.
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