What's romance got to do with it...?

            When I tell people that I write romance, I always feel it necessary to quantify the statement with a hasty, "Not that I am at all romantic myself." I suppose I'm a bit over-the-top with the apologizing, because I did choose to write in this genre, but it's true that the grandiose, traditional "romantic" gestures have always made me cringe.

            I like genuine romance, but not the red velvet, all surface and no substance kind. A floor strewn with rose petals, for instance, just makes me think of somebody having to clean all that up. Maybe if you were the first person ever to do that, I would think it special -- but where is the imagination? I would rather see an understated wedding, organized on a shoestring budget but with a treasure trove of imagination, than one of those overblown, tick-all-the-trendy-boxes, conspicuous

consumption affairs where the bridesmaids are all orange and shrouded in ten metres of hair extensions. I know a lot of people like the movie "Love Actually", but I just can't stand it. Forgive me. Maybe I am an oddity -- hey, it's been said before in many colourful ways by my own family. But my lingering trauma from watching that movie, just once, has resulted in not being able to look at a single photo of poor, innocent Keira Knightly grinning amiably without running screaming from the room and seeking sanctuary in a cool dark place. I once accidentally watched five minutes of "The Bachelor" and couldn't find enough bleach for my brain and eyeballs afterward. So, no, I'm not a "romantic" in that sense of the much-abused word.

            But, for me, "romance" is not big or flashy; it's all the little things that add up, the priceless details that don't cost money at all.

            My husband does not have a great imagination -- and he won't mind me saying that, because he's definitely the practical half in this relationship and I'm the one that comes up with the daft stories-- but he always finds quiet ways to show that he cares.

            He frequently cooks dinner for me, puts the kettle on for a cup of tea and straightens the bed sheet for me before I get in, because I can't stand pleats. Oh, the pleasure of a straight, firm, unwrinkled bed sheet! He opens jar lids for me without being asked - yay, he fetches the groceries, and, behold, if he's going out of town he leaves me with a ton of pastries and cakes (sometimes I wonder if he's trying to fatten me up for sinister motives) in the pantry. He politely puts up with my lack of motivation for housecleaning and politics (same thing surely -- no matter how often  we try to eradicate the dirt and slime, it always comes back again exactly as it was before we made an effort), my general air of lazy procrastination, my failure to ever follow a proper recipe without throwing in random ingredients (some would say I write books the same way), lurid speculation about the neighbors (what do they think they're doing driving up and down their driveway??), and my love of a gory murder mystery. I put up with his occasional ugly shirt, noisy cereal crunching, Mario Andretti-type driving, Rodney Dangerfield movies and the throwing of hapless objects at the TV when the ******* football is on.

            We don't go out a lot for romantic dinners, and even on "Date Night" we usually prefer to go with friends so that we're not staring at each other across a table and trying to find something new to talk about. Our best nights in are spent curled up on the couch with the dogs, to laugh together at old comedies and complain together about the state of the world (and the holes in my socks).

            To some of you this may not sound very spectacular, and it isn't really. But to me -- to us-- that's romance. I suppose what counts most is the "us" part.

            You can buy all the red roses and watch all the sappy movies out there, but if you're not on the same wavelength it's meaningless. For us, after more than thirty years together, romance is about accepting the differences; keeping a sense of humour; celebrating the ways -- big and small -- in which you do connect; knowing what annoys or upsets the other person, and trying to save them from the worst of it, and making a home that has room for both of you to be yourselves (however crazy that is), while also keeping in it the things that make you happy together. Love is in the details.

            All that said...yes, there are chocolates. I am not repulsed by that traditionally romantic fare.

 

 

Images used : Arrufos by Belmiro de Almeida 1887, photograph of woman accosting man on the London Eye 2016, and photograph provided by my sister of chocolates prior to their downfall 2018.