Love is More Than Grand Gestures

Love and Marriage by Joanna Brown

Think back to when you were young and in love. Maybe your career was just getting started and budgets were tight; you had no children to zap your energy and drain your creative juices. Think about the creative things you did instead for romantic love.

Like the final scene in the 1984 John Hughes classic Sixteen Candles, when Jake Ryan picks Samantha Baker up from the wedding, and finally kisses her while they’re seated on top of the dining room table, illuminated only by the candles on her birthday cake.

Or George Bailey’s wedding night in the rundown Granville house in It’s a Wonderful Life. George is called to the bank moments after he and Mary exchange vows, leaving Mary to reimagine their honeymoon. She uses travel posters and their wedding gifts to turn the leaky house into a glamorous far-off land, and woos her husband all over again (while Bert and Ernie serenade them in the rain).

On television’s Friends, we swooned over Chandler’s proposal. He enters their living room (which Monica had filled with candlelight so that she could propose to him) and takes over the conversation after she starts crying. Chandler tells Monica, “I thought it mattered what I said or where I said it. Then I realized, the only thing that matters is that you…you make me happier than I ever thought I could be. And if you let me, I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you feel the same way.”

These are grand, enduring, romantic gestures. They are creative and inexpensive and personal, and successful because of their simplicity.

Consider the alternative. A knuckleheaded Romeo in Idaho made headlines in September because he dragged a full-size patio grill more than four miles through the Sawtooth Wilderness in order to prepare a romantic lakeside dinner for his girlfriend. To get through the 217,000-acre federally protected area (where motorized vehicles are prohibited), he would have had to drag the grill through water crossings, over downed trees and up a number of steep inclines, according to people familiar with the area.

Extreme and inexpensive? Heck yes. Romantic? Sure. But something I would enjoy today, as I stare down my 12th wedding anniversary? Heck no. My first thought was that a lightweight cheap Smokey Joe could be found at the nearest hardware, and so how dumb does this guy feel for carrying the full-size grill all the way to the lake? Second on my list of objections is the four-mile hike; the sweat that I would produce going over downed trees and hills would kill any romantic vibe this mope was hoping to achieve. I would need a nap lakeside, not a steak.

And so I can see that love evolves. As we mature and life becomes a crazy puzzle of career and family and community, the most romantic gestures change shape. They become a leisurely bike ride on a Sunday afternoon, or a shared morning walk to the nearest coffee shop. They are trips to the dry cleaner without being asked, waiting in line for my favorite movie candy while I warm the seats, and gentle reminders to take your vitamins each morning.

If we looked for candlelight to remind us of how much we love the ones we’re with, we’d be lost. Look instead to the giant pile of clean laundry by the dresser and the gas tank that you don’t remember filling up this weekend.

Share with me the smallest gestures that remind you of how much you are loved, via email to joanna@northshoreweekend.com.