Valentine's tales and 'toons

Despite of being blessed with the cartoonist’s gift for cynicism, as displayed below…

…and oftentimes seeing such holidays as mere excuses for easy cartoon statements about “these times we live in” as displayed here…

…or as depicted in this cartoon below, combining the day devoted to love, with, of all things, gun control…

…I always welcomed the occasion as an opportunity to occasionally poke fun at my own eccentric ways of celebrating the day con mi novia as depicted below:

Then there where those magical moments in my life when the day resonated with my own personal experience. As when I met Ellen and discovered the mystery of chemistry, whatever that mystical confounding wonderful nonsense, that humbug, may be.

I remain grateful yet utterly confounded by the forces of chemistry that bonds us with subatomic kindred familiarity, fusing we two with the physics of trust that bind and spark, and produce transporting moments that electrify.

At Disneyland closing time, this cynical curmudgeon’s nightmare, there we exhausted souls were, surrounded by thousands, as fireworks filled the sky over the silly fairy tale castle and what-the-hell we kissed, surrounded by the manufactured starlit world of exploding stars, and it all fell away, all of it, and we were alone among the swirling masses and there were only our bursting hearts, pulsing with each exploding firework and she felt it, too, as I looked into her eyes, the heady sensation of spinning within an unnamed constellation somewhere between the Pleaides and Orion.

Two heathens stood in the back of the massive New Orleans cathedral, mesmerized by the swaying soulful choir singing their Mass to Jesus and out the open doors all the way across the plaza to the patisserie that filled Sunday morning with the aroma of freshly baked Beignets and when it finally ended we turned to look at each other to find we were both weeping tears for our dead pious parents, her for the mother who dreamt of being a nun and I for the altar boy father, and we infideals held hands, knowing we shared more than we ever could have imagined, filled with the approval of ghosts who loved us in spite of ourselves.

The purple wine bottle from the shop next to the fragrant bakery below sat half empty and she was sleepy, sultry, saucy and quiet, lounging on the end of the bed in black lace while I, shirtless, in front of the tall open window of our second story Paris apartment felt Autumn’s gentle breeze and studied the scarlet leaves clinging to their memories of summer while lovers as forutnate as myself, arm in arm laughed down the lane that wandered up the Latin Quarter.

Moments I recall with clarity.

Escorted by her charming scholarly father, a splendid and regal man, she approached the officiant and I, her gold hair framed by a beautiful lacy bridal veil of extraordinary Kenmare lace she found in the west of Ireland, in the land of druids and runes, where we found the inexpensive ring our ringbearer would, in moments, hand to her for her to place on my finger, a trinket inscribed with the priceless Gaelic words Mo Annam Cara: My soul mate, and she ascended the steps took her place and smiled courageously at me.

How it troubles this crank to be bewitched by sentiment, and the wonder of love that endures. How can this be, in such a cruel and indifferent world where we are ruled only by our territorial imperative and biology and poetry and identity are only illusions?

But on this day, you and I surrender to sentiment, foolishness that would compel a joker like me to lay aside doubt and doodle embarrassing mawkish tender scrawlings to fold and leave for her to find, like a child passing a note to the sweet smelling child you dare not glance at seated next to you in kindergarten, drawn just for your one and only with ink and hope.

Perhaps like this one I rendered years ago, of panels that project into the future for my Valentine this reformed curmudgeon’s confident love.

And now to find that coupon from Eegee’s, that candle for the dashboard and for later, a bearable chick flick on Netflix that won’t make me bite my tongue.