Zooey's Words

"Being tender and open is beautiful. As a woman, I feel continually shhh’ed. Too sensitive. Too mushy. Too wishy washy. Blah blah. Don’t let someone steal your tenderness. Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things. Whether it’s a song, a stranger, a mountain, a rain drop, a tea kettle, an article, a sentence, a footstep, feel it all – look around you. All of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love."

-Zooey Deschanel 

A Loving Mixtape

I put together a small valentine mix together for you and your loved one to listen to while prepare a homemade dinner. The following are a few recipe ideas I recently came across: a clam linguine , a roasted cauliflower sage and almond risotto, and for dessert these dark chocolate strawberry cups look  utterly delicious. Enjoy!

Track listing:

thieves | she & him

by your side | cocorosie

there is a light that never goes out | the smiths

i want to sing | regina spektor

you and i | wilco

cupids chokehold | gym class heros

you will be loved | death cab for cutie

merry happy | kate nash

little bit | lykke li

can't stand it | nevershoutnever

sea of love | cat power

anyone else but you | michael cera & ellen page

toothpaste kisses | the macabees

popular mechanics for lovers | beulah

if i ever leave this world alive | flogging molly

the reasons | the weakerthans

us | regina spektor

love will come through | travis

i really do | seapony

xo.

(photo source: 1 / 2)

Valentine-ish Images

Don't get down on yourself if you're single, as I am. I haven't made any special plans for tomorrow night at all. Instead, call up a few close friends and spend the evening preparing a simple dinner and watching a heartwarming film.

Sometimes it can be nice to look back on old memories by rummaging through valentine cards and sweet notes from past loves. I tend to keep a modest collection of heartfelt pieces from past relationships. It can be painful too look at these soon after a breakup though, so you may find it wise to tuck them away for a while before being able to fully appreciate them again.

The following is a letter from years ago that made me smile...

August 2005

 Renee,

Ever since the day I met you, my heart has pounded through my chest. You can make me smile when I am in the worst mood, you have the most beautiful personality of anyone I have met, there are just so many great traits about you that it would take me a week to write them all down. I have never been happier or more satisfied than I have been with you. You truly are a one-of-a-kind girlfriend. You mean so much to me that I am at a loss of words. Thank you for letting me hold you in my arms. I have never felt so complete.

Sincerely, 

A.L.

I do hope everyone has a nice valentine's day!

________________
a few related links:
- a collection other people's love letters
- a decadent french recipe for coeur a la creme
- dear old love may leave a melancholy aftertaste
- one, two, three, four, five love quotes
- a love letter written in one sentence

(photo sources: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7)

Lovely Finds

one | two | three | four

Just a few lovely valentine gift ideas I've come across on the internet lately. You may even find that special something you've been searching for. If you're looking for a few more gift ideas for her, check out Joanna Goddards post: 10 Valentine's Day gifts for women.

(top photo credit)

Speech Bubble Card

A simple and sweet valentine card design from Our Shop. 

________________

A few more links:
-try this card if you're in a long distance relationship.

-this tea for two idea will surely warm his heart up.

-eep it simple by writing down ten things you love about him.

(photo source)

Show Love

A small list of sweet things that made me smile.

_________________________
forget to check out these links:
-le love is a blog dedicated to love, the good, the bad, and the unknown.
-on a bittersweet note, old loves is dedicated to former celeb couples.
-the six different types of ways to be in love.

(photo source: 1 / 2)

Breakups and Fresh Starts

I'm sure we all know by now that breakups are an inevitable part of life. We've all been through them, and most likely more than one. From going through short-lived and long-term relationship breakups, I have learned that not matter how bad it is, life goes on. Whether things start to fade and you begin to grow apart or something unforgivable happens, life does go on.

I've always held the belief that "everything happens for a reason". I also strive to learn something new from each relationship in hopes to better myself in some way. Learning from heartache is best if we reflect and grow from our relationship mishaps. And below are a few things I've learned throughout the years.

A Love Letter from 1919

A letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald  from Zelda.

Spring 1919



Sweetheart,



Please, please don’t be so depressed—We’ll be married soon, and then these lonesome nights will be over forever—and until we are, I am loving, loving every tiny minute of the day and night—Maybe you won’t understand this, but sometimes when I miss you most, it’s hardest to write—and you always know when I make myself—Just the ache of it all— and I can’t tell you. If we were together, you’d feel how strong it is—you’re so sweet when you’re melancholy. I love your sad tenderness—when I’ve hurt you—That’s one of the reasons I could never be sorry for our quarrels—and they bothered you so—Those dear, dear little fusses, when I always tried so hard to make you kiss and forget—


Scott—there’s nothing in all the world I want but you—and your precious love—All the material things are nothing. I’d just hate to live a sordid, colorless existence—because you’d soon love me less—and less—and I’d do anything—anything—to keep your heart for my own—I don’t want to live—I want to love first, and live incidentally—Why don’t you feel that I’m waiting—I’ll come to you, Lover, when you’re ready—Don’t don’t ever think of the things you can’t give me—You’ve trusted me with the dearest heart of all— and it’s so damn much more than anybody else in all the world has ever had—



How can you think deliberately of life without me—If you should die—O Darling— darling Scott—It’d be like going blind. I know I would, too,—I’d have no purpose in life— just a pretty—decoration. Don’t you think I was made for you? I feel like you had me ordered—and I was delivered to you—to be worn—I want you to wear me, like a watch—charm or a button hole boquet—to the world. And then, when we’re alone, I want to help—to know that you can’t do anything without me.

I’m glad you wrote Mamma. It was such a nice sincere letter—and mine to St. Paul was very evasive and rambling. I’ve never, in all my life, been able to say anything to people older than me—Somehow I just instinctively avoid personal things with them—even my family. Kids are so much nicer.

one | two | three

Liking Is For Cowards

Liking Is For Cowards. Go For What Hurts.
By: Jonathan Franzen

The simple fact of the matter is that trying to be perfectly likable is incompatible with loving relationships. Sooner or later, for example, you're going to find yourself in a hideous, screaming fight, and you'll hear coming out of your mouth things that you yourself don't like at all, things that shatter your self-image as a fair, kind, cool, attractive, in-control funny, likable person. Something realer than likability has come out in you, and suddenly you're having an actual life. 

Suddenly there's a real choice to be made, not a fake consumer choice between a BlackBerry and an iPhone, but a question: Do I love this person? And, for the other person, does this person love me? 

There is no such thing as a person whose real self you like every particle of. This is why a world of liking is ultimately a lie. But there is such a thing as a person whose real self you love every particle of. And this is why love is such an existential threat to the techno-consumerist order: it exposes the lie. 

This is not to say that love is only about fighting. Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are. And this is why love, as I understand it, is always specific. Trying to love all of humanity may be a worthy endeavor, but, in a funny way, it keeps the focus on the self, on the self’s own moral or spiritual well-being. Whereas, to love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self.

The big risk here, of course, is rejection. We can all handle being disliked now and then, because there’s such an infinitely big pool of potential likers. But to expose your whole self, not just the likable surface, and to have it rejected, can be catastrophically painful. The prospect of pain generally, the pain of loss, of breakup, of death, is what makes it so tempting to avoid love and stay safely in the world of liking.

And yet pain hurts but it doesn’t kill.