Whenever I spend time wandering the city during Valentine’s Day, I always see groups and groups of people taking pictures together and meeting at one specific spot in Nolita – in front of a small black brick wall painted with small red hearts all over its surface. For friends, families, and lovers all alike, the wall sparks a sense of excitement and romantic charm on this day of the year – serving as a reflective backdrop of the love they’re celebrating.
Yet, with all the attention we give the wall on this day, it almost seems as though the wall is less significant during the rest of the year, when we aren’t celebrating Valentine’s Day. So, while my favorite little wall in the city always makes me smile, it also makes me wonder:
Why is it that we only dedicate this one holiday to celebrate love, when Hallmark and Godiva tell us to? What about the rest of the year?
On Valentine’s Day, we become so used to associating the holiday with dark chocolate, chilled champagne, strawberries, red roses, perfectly shaped hearts we find in greeting cards – and the list goes on. But if we take a step forward and look at the wall more closely, perhaps our sugary perceptions of the holiday become merely surface-level.
The red hearts on the wall are of different sizes, face multiple directions – some upright and some upside down, and have cracks in them from the bricks on which they’re painted. To me, these hearts are what honestly represent the meaning behind Valentine’s Day – much more so than the bouquets and confections we become so attached to on this one day each year.
As the wall vividly conveys, love can make us feel big, love can make us feel small, love can seem twisted and turned and make us feel as if our worlds have been turned upside down, love can make us float on air, and sometimes, love can even cause our own hearts to crack a bit – just like the hearts painted on these bricks.
Sometimes, we seem to forget these truths as we focus on the sweet stuff, but perhaps these are the true qualities we should embrace on Valentine’s Day – the traits and textures of love that make us feel and think and reflect, the ones that make us grow and bring us closer together and make us stronger, that make us human and make us love harder and more honestly than we ever knew we could.
As we reflect upon the brick wall on Mott Street and the truths about love it represents, let’s celebrate the authentic beauty of Valentine’s Day. Let’s embrace all its beautiful cracks and imperfections, and break down our own walls – to soak in the love that surrounds us in its most raw and honest form, today and always.
Love,
