A few years ago, quite a few, in fact, a new holiday was created, a day specifically for lovers. At the same time this new holiday came into being, perhaps a little before, an article was written, one which will not be reprinted here. It won't because we seem to reprint it every year, sitting on our laurels, beginning to sound a lot like that relative who (at least in the movies) is always telling the same bloody story year in, year out, until you refuse to visit them, make faces behind their back, tape notes to their bottom when they get up to go to the toilet, sprinkle sand in their hat, chop their furniture up into kindling.
The holiday was Día del Inamorati, and we were it's primary sponsors. It was, as you no doubt know, an alternative to the rather high-pressure atmosphere of Valentine's Day. The new holiday was low-pressure, floating, and redeemable whenever you deemed fit.
This is the story of it's inception. And not a reprint of the issue declaring the holiday. Honest.
Once upon a time, there was strand, and not the sort of strand you envision when you normally say strand, perhaps thinking of Dun Laoighaire or the cliffs of Dover, though if you were thinking of the cliffs of Dover I'd have to remind you that I said 'strand' and not cold windy cliffs, to which you might respond, "I know you did, but I associate the sea with 'strand', and the picture of the sea that leaps most readily to mind is off Dover, and outings we would take when I was but a child, out to the cliffs, where once I imagined my brother blowing right off, into the sea, never to see him again. Of course, that was right after he'd taken my ice cream with flake, so I was glad to see him go, but these are the things that stick with one, aren't they?" and I would allow the point, perhaps admitting that it might just well have been cliffs I was thinking of, as well, when I said strand, though, still, not the sort of cliffs you would be inclined to think of should I say 'cliffs'. No, this strand (or cliff) was warm, very warm, very untroubled by nasty winds that threaten to carry you (or your brother) off into the sea, and if they did, they would threaten in the nicest possible of ways, and, upon landing in the sea, you'd find it quite comforting, an intoxicating sea instead of suffocating, one on which you'd be more than happy to remain afloat for years and years, if not for the ghost of a couplet in the back of your mind about "any drop to drink..." and the albatross flapping overhead.
So there was this couple, who, I believe, was running in slow-motion along the strand "to escape the madding crowd," to borrow a phrase from ourselves for a moment, whom had originally possibly borrowed it from Thomas Hardy, whom had probably gotten it off someone else, though we can't prove it. And they were getting on, being quite lovely, frolicking this way and that, making eyes, holding hands, all that sort of gob, until the man of the couple, as they are wont to do, realised that Valentine's was the day after this day on which they happened to be frolicking. He also remembered what tended to happen to him on Valentine's Day.
You see, the previous six or so years he had spent Valentine's Day with the one he loved, only to have his and her life endangered by either a landslide, a mountain lion, or a duck (the duck being the especially vicious instance, and terribly hard to live down, being given a beating by a duck, and almost losing a finger.) He also, while he was at remembering a lot of things, remembered that he hadn't bought anything for Valentine's Day for this woman with whom he was frolicking, who also happened to be his loved one, and that she wouldn't be entirely happy to find that, while he hadn't forgotten about the holiday, his memory was slightly less prompt than she might have liked. So, citing the previous six years worth of catastrophes (possibly leaving out any real details about the duck), pulling her to one side, sitting down on a grassy knoll, after giving the rabbit that was occupying the knoll next to them a wary look, and keeping a careful eye out for any sudden movements, they lolled about the grass, discussing a new holiday, one not frought with so much violence, poor luck, and frustration. The only solution they saw to the inevitable seeking out of a day dedicated to not having bad luck, frustrated efforts, and violence by the same would be to create a floating holiday, redeemable at your leisure, out of harm's way, and well away from the windows.
And thus was borne into the world El Día del Inamorati.
disclaimer:
All right, I've been thinking about it, and it has to be a strand, not a cliff. It just wouldn't make any sense, and I'd feel inclined to kill off the characters in the story if there were a cliff nearby. Granted, it may be a romantic death, but it'd still be death, and, romantic as they might have been, they'd really be a whole lot less romantic, for me, at any rate, if they were all battered and broken at the foot of the cliffs.
Plus, it makes the bit about the knolls extremely hard to believe, as they're just such a likelihood that they'll slide right down and into the ocean, after first having plunged unceremoniously down the face of the cliff. Which is terribly unromantic, and, since the holiday is all about romance and that lot, uncalled for.
Yer Weekly Horoscopes. special, this week, and every week.