jeff obafemi carr: the media scientist

i’ve not celebrated Valentine’s Day in over 20 years, and my love life has been all the better for it. in that time, i’ve lost count of the dates i’ve had, not counting serious relationships, but one thing i can say for sure: my women have been glad i don’t get into it.

i don’t get into it for the same reasons i don’t get into most commercial holidays. Christmas is a retail-sponsored celebration of excess that has little to do with the Mass of Christ. Easter has less to the rising of a Savior from the grave and more to do with the matching of a suit to a pair of shoes for a once-a-year visit to church to style. Halloween, well, if you aren’t seriously delving into a worship of the dead, then it’s all about whether you like the peanut butter candy in the orange or the black wrappers. in the end, they’re mostly about one thing: Seasonal Sales.

Easter brings sales of clothing and flowers. Halloween brings sales of costumes and candy. Christmas brings sales of everything else. that’s 3 major holidays. why not make it 4 and secure for the candy and greeting card industry another blockbuster: Valentine’s Day. never mind the plethora of myths that surround the so-called “origins” of the Holidaze–they’re interchangeable. they generate retail income for business owners. i ain’t mad at retail. i applaud the gimmicks. on tomorrow, restaurants will be packed, jewelry stores will be orgasmic, flower shops over-run, last-minute road side vendors empowered, hotels-a-bursting, and fine chocolatiers well-spent. that’s good money. but not always good intent. let me tell you why i stopped celebrating Valentine’s Day and went for Double Love instead.

i used to workout like crazy, and when you do that, you’re around a lot of testosterone. i can’t tell you the number of guys who’d be out macking, spending up the mortgage money in the strip club, and chasing tail, who figured they could get a pass if they just bought the right ring, flowers, or dinner package for Valentine’s Day. i’m not a Saint by any definition, but that stuff used to scare me.

at the same time, i was running with some “enlightened” cats who traveled all over the place to hear good speakers who were culturally aware. this one gentlemen started speaking about the nature of love and holidays and he made two points i’ll never forget:

1. Birthdays are about the mother in many cultures, not the individual. why? well, because we didn’t do anything when we first emerged from the womb. nothing except cry. our MOTHERS endured the pains of death to bring us into this world.

2. People go all out on Valentine’s Day, even though they may treat the ones they love like crap the rest of the year.

those things changed my perspective. from then on, i started celebrating holidays a little differently.

on my birthday, i call my mom, or get her flowers or a thank you card, to let her know that i appreciate her. i do the same for my mother-in-law on my wife’s birthday. if i’m tight with you, on your birthday, i’m liable to call your mama before i call you to say “thank you for all the work you put in to bring _____ into the world. you deserve all the love you gave.”

i resolved to not participate in the Valentine’s Day fiasco–with an important Caveat: i resolved to do every single thing men do in going all out for their women on Valentine’s Day, on a regular basis, the whole year round. i’ll write a poem on impulse; i’ll leave an “i love you” card at any given moment; i’ll wash up those dishes; i’ll have that bouquet delivered; i’ll have that surprise meal, and that kicking it night out all throughout the year. my goal (and no one is perfect) is to have my woman so flooded with love that when she hears how her peers’ men did “special things” on V-Day for them, she’ll say, “wow, that must be tough for you to not have it like that all the time, honey!” i don’t want to throw salt in anyone’s game, but many people i used to know went so far out on V-Day simply because they’d not done anything at all throughout the year.

how’s that for pressure?

but let me tell you this: it works when you create your own, meaningful rituals. my family and i beat the crap out of established Holy-daze.

CHRIST-MASS

We created “Christ-Mass,” where we put up an Ancestral Tree and make our own ornaments. this year, the tree was topped with a fishing hat some Nubian brothers made for me in Aswan Egypt. We sneak into the kid’s rooms and take stuff they already have, wrap it up in paper, and stack it under the tree. they open them on “Christmas Day,” laugh (or cry), are admonished to be grateful, then we eat a big meal. the next day, we pass out money, and we all go shopping and get double the things we could have gotten if we’d played into the commercialism of “Black Friday” and beyond.

DOUBLE LOVE DAY–Feb 15th!

Double Love Day is our alternative to “Valentine’s Day.” with no disrespect meant to Esther Howland, we just love loving on each other and people we know. Double Love Day starts the day after Valentine’s. we get up and hit all of the retail stores, when all of the candy and cards and everything is 75% OFF, and we load up the car with stuff. then we go around to family and friends, flood them with candy and hugs, and sing to them a theme song we wrote:

“It’s Double Love Day, Time For Double Love!”

we laugh, act silly, show love, but most importantly–we stick it to the man (whoever the hell that is these days).

so i’ll be gearing up tomorrow to celebrate the day after V-Day, and encouraging all my friends to do the same. i’m nowhere near perfect, and i always feel like i can never show enough love to the people in my life who are valuable, especially my wife, who deals with four kids on top of my own insanity everyday without blinking. when you have someone special in your life, you really have to think outside the box.

when i started dating after my denouncement of Valentine’s Day, and i would tell a woman i didn’t celebrate it, she would wince and look me up and down. she’d ask why, and when i explained, the look always softened.

you can answer the question yourself: which would you prefer–if you had to choose:

A) An annual, super-sweet, extra special day in February where you feel like a Queen or King?

B) Royal treatment all the time, an earnest “i love you” every day in thought and action, honesty, sacrifice, and random acts of kindness?

okay…if you wanna stick a “C” in for “all the above,” i won’t be mad at you…

HAPPY DOUBLE LOVE DAY! Spread the love (and save the cash) Feb 15th. i may be dropping something on your doorstep…