As soon as the retail stores clean up their Christmas displays, then up goes everything Valentine-related. Every other commercial on television seems to be telling you what to get your special-someone to show them you love them (I hope you don’t need a holiday for them to know that). It’s kind of hard to avoid. If you are like me and don’t like having things constantly pushed in your face, this over-advertisement alone is enough to make you dislike the holiday.

However, the curious part of me always likes to understand things, even if I’m just planning to use that knowledge as an argument against something. So, I looked Valentine’s Day up on Wikipedia, and was rather pleasantly surprised by what I found there. Hate to break it you, folks, but Valentine’s Day was around long before greeting cards even existed, let alone the companies that sell them.

There were actually about fourteen different saints named Valentine in ancient Rome, all martyrs (as most saints were at that time). The name Valentine was popular because it came from the word valens, which variously meant worthy, strong, and powerful. (Side Note: I am kind of falling in love with the name Valentina, and I’m feeling that it may have to make it’s way into the form of a short story.)

According to Wikipedia, the first association between Valentine’s Day and romantic love was made by Chaucer in the Parliament of Fowls in 1382.

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

(For this was Saint Valentine’s Day,
when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.)

Anyone who knows me and my literary tastes should know that I adore Chaucer, especially Parliament of Fowls, as well as The Book of the Duchess and Troilus and Criseyde. So, the fact that Chaucer endorses the romantic aspect of Valentine’s Day is enough to win me over in favor of the holiday.

Shakespeare also mentions Valentine’s Day in one of Ophelia’s speeches in Hamlet (Act IV, Scene 5).

To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,
And dupp’d the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.

I don’t believe that either Chaucer or Shakespeare were paid off by some Medieval or Renaissance Greeting Card Company to make an extra buck (or pence, as the case may be).

So, knowing that the romantic aspect of Saint Valentine’s Day has medieval roots, where does that leave us today? It doesn’t stop us from being buffeted by the over-commercialization of the modern holiday. In fact, it may not have any effect on you at all. For me, it made me stop and think, and reflect a little on what Valentine’s Day has the potential to be.

This Valentine’s Day, I encourage all of you to celebrate in your own way, not the way that the media and various corporations tell you to. Take this as an opportunity to break the routine of your current relationship and do something new to express that bond you share. Get drinks with your other single friends and laugh over past exes and future loves. Ask your Crush out for coffee and see where things go. Celebrate those relationships around you that give you hope for the future.

For most of us, our day-to-day lives don’t leave us much time to actually spend outside. We spend most of our time inside our homes, cars, and work places. The only time we are actually outside is when we are rushing from one place to another. To actually take time to specifically spend outside in nature has a certain sense of adventure, a deviation from the norm, that giddiness that comes from playing hooky from school or work. Taking a break to explore nature means that we are taking a break from all of our regular societal obligations, something that is generally frowned on or that we feel would be frowned on. However, I’m a firm believer that breaking patterns can be a good thing, and that it is a great way to wake up a sleeping mind. And when our minds are more active, that can benefit us at work and in our relationships, as well as in our creative lives.

When I am working on stories, I like to write in coffee shops, bookstores, libraries, anywhere that there are people around, just not people who will actually want to talk to me, like friends or family. The stories that I write are all very character-driven, and so it helps me to be around people, “people-watching” one might say, so that I might take inspiration from the way a person looks, or talks, or the way they drink their coffee. However, when I am out in nature, all alone, with just my thoughts and only the natural world to distract me, that’s when I feel like I could be a poet. For me, nature is a place for emotions and the senses, where the falling of a leaf could be a complete story unto itself. I can get in touch with my own thoughts, without the distraction of the rest of the world. Just being away from Internet access can be rather freeing, these days.

So, where do you go to find inspiration? Are you drawn to different places when you are searching for different things?

As I have grown older, I have also learned to love taking road trips all on my own. As much as I enjoy having someone else in the car with me to talk to, there is also something very meditative about being alone with your own thoughts for long stretches of time. With no distractions, you are almost forced to deal with thoughts that you might otherwise push away. The sense of movement, of going from one place to another, of having a destination and a goal, keeps away the feeling of needing to do something. Sometimes it can be hard to realize the benefits of doing nothing, of just letting your mind wander from idea to idea. In our day to day life, we are often too busy with too many distractions to let our subconscious bring to the fore anything we may being mulling over or dwelling on. However, it can be hard to grow mentally and emotionally if we do not give ourselves time process the thoughts and feelings that floating around our heads.

For me, road trips are the times when I can hear my muse the clearest, perhaps because in the car she knows that she has my undivided attention. When I am driving, it seems like every view, every road sign, every car I pass has some story that I can practically reach out and grasp. When I am listening to music in the car, every song lyric and every note can stir up my thoughts and feelings and give me some emotional insight to a character I might be working on.

Another beautiful thing about road trips, and traveling in general, is that there are two parts: the journey to where you are going and the journey back home. Or, to steal from Tolkien, There and Back Again. The first part of a trip is all excitement and speculation, and there is that sense of freedom from having left the everyday life behind you and breaking routine. Your destination can vary (from a quiet retreat into the wilderness, to a big city holiday, to an exotic and foreign adventure), but hopefully it is something that feeds your soul and sparks your imagination. Then you have the journey home, where you are able to process, speculate, and revel in whatever your traveling brought you.

I am a traveler by nature, who has merely gotten in the habit of staying still. But every now and then, my traveler’s feet begin to itch, and I know that I need some movement.

I’ve had a pretty good feeling about 2012 so far. I’ve been feeling good energies all around, feeling strong inside,  and have been filled with an inspiration and an energy I haven’t felt in longer than I care to admit to even myself.

It was with the energy and enthusiasm that I decided it was a good time to get this website going again, my own little home on the Web. This will be a place for my writing, both finished stories and half-thought ideas, and a door to the rest of the world.

Please come back often and check out this blog, where I will be talking about books, movies, writing, and anything else that takes my fancy. Also, be sure to check out the story of the month for a taste of my short stories and travelogues.