The Story of a Certain Affection: Notes for St Valentine’s Day

On 14 February, winter momentarily releases its glacial grip to make space for smouldering confessions of love and vows of fiery passion. Well, it’s St Valentine’s Day… It’s good to remember that, other than watching over lovers as their patron saint, St Valentine is also charged with caring for the deranged. Of course, as some rational mind noticed, the two states are not always far apart.
On such a particular day, let me tell you a story.
It is not easy to write or speak about a feeling that has left its mark on your entire life. Yet now is perhaps the best moment to confront its power and profundity.

I first met her at my family home, which she would occasionally visit. She was a warmly welcomed guest, and everyone listened to her with attention and respect. Her visits, sometimes short and at other times longer, became special occasions, even if they occurred on the drabbest of days. There was always something ceremonial about those meetings.
At the time, my child’s mind might not yet have grasped everything, but I already realised how exceptional our visitor was.

What made her so exceptional?
I recall her from those years as beautiful and riveting. Sometimes sensuous to the point of madness, and at other times gently touching the heart. How pleasant was her aura! The best companion for dance and for meditation.
Although much older than I, she utterly enchanted me. At every encounter, I literally drank in her presence, always trying to be as close to her as possible.
And yet she barely seemed to notice me. I sometimes might have found her too haughty and distant, yet she would immediately set me straight, enticing me into the aura she exuded at every encounter.
In those moments, I was happy just to have her around.
I enquired about her here and there. Some information was really new to me, some confirmed what I already knew. I committed it all to memory, categorised it in my head, and used the pieces to put together my vision of her.

In my imagination, we held long conversations.
My dreams of her were becoming more concrete over time, while my feelings – which I only now, after so many years, realised I had harboured – started forming a stable and solid ground.
What could I have given back to her then? What could I offer? A shy smile, a series of clumsy bows, awkward compliments, and cheeks flushing red with emotion whenever she turned up…

As a teenager, I began to entertain the first serious thoughts about her, which is quite infrequent in boys of that age.
I was losing sleep, as the feeling that had only recently taken root now started to blossom. After classes, I’d go running to the places she frequented, or where I expected to find her.

I sought her in the parks and quiet orchards that she had frequently graced previously, but also amid the hustle and bustle of promenades. And in school classrooms.
I went in search, and I found her. Just as if she had been waiting for me.

Time was passing, and I came to believe that I had gained her favour. My belief might have been prompted by the fact that, from a particular moment, we needed no words to understand each other.
Both she and I became deeply committed. I was certain about that and tried writing clumsy letters to her and to understand the ones she sent me.
Was I the only one? Today I know that I wasn’t, yet back then I didn’t want to think about it, simply cherishing the happy feeling that I was the chosen one.

And yet, I deserted her. Not because she suddenly lost her place in my heart. I simply knew it would be for the best. That there was no other way out. That this parting would do us both well. It was a conscious decision of a mature man. I went my way.

Life followed its natural course. I never forgot her, but I no longer had the courage to intrude on her attention after I had left.
Much has changed. In all those years I changed, yet, in a way, so did she. No, she hadn’t grown old, none of that. Time could never touch her.

I returned to her as a grown man. I knocked at her door, shyly and delicately, just as one strikes the first note before following it with a cavalcade of sounds. I couldn’t be sure she would recognise me and, even if she did, whether she would deign to entertain me. It’s never easy to return after so many years.

The door creaked open like the hinges on the lid of an old grand piano. I stepped inside and at that instant I was all ears. Things were the way they’d always been. She was the way she’d always been. At that moment, I already knew that I would stay with her forever.

As you can see, this love story does have a happy ending. There is no reason to dampen your Valentine’s Day mood with a melodramatic tragedy.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce… the one and only, the object of my pining and dreams…

The object of my purest and truest devotion – my Music!