The Valentine goes to...

Joe Bender. The lover man that keeps on giving. The lover that holds me through dark winter nights when I writhe like a dying fish in grief over some loss that has nothing to do with him. Joe, who picks me up off the floor an tucks me in, brings me tea, tells me everything is going to be all right. That he still loves me. Joe, who believes in me when I don't. Who has evolved into the man of my dreams. Who stands up to my extreme bitchiness with nonviolent communication. Who recognizes when I'm taking out all of my feelings of injustice on him, even when I skillfully disguise my accusation against some small, innocent gesture as an injustice committed against all womankind. When I push Joe to the breaking point in a storm of confusing emotion that would lead most people to eject themselves from our ship to swim to save his own life, Joe finds his sea legs in the hurricane and sets me, and us, straight.

Joe's love is especially commendable when I'm seasick and suffocating, flopping around on the slimy deck due to the loss of another love. I am in the best relationship imaginable, one that has withstood 27 years of tumult, finally able to rest on the smoother waters of parenthood alongside three magnificent kids--all artists in their own right, and who love us so much that they want to be part of our community--having spent so much time together we can be 100% ourselves... In a marriage built on complete honesty about everything under the sun, including our other lovers: for this Joe gets the deepest, darkest, bittersweet chocolate heart of my devotion.

Ash Wednesday. I stopped into St. Patrick's on Mission just in time for mass. Packed to the gills with people of all colors, all ages. I usually only go into a church when it's empty. I like Christ stripped down of all religion and rhetoric. I like most prophets and saints, in spite of their religious affiliation. I like rituals. For Ash Wednesday...I contemplated my transgressions. For lent, I am giving up a person.

Pic: In the Temple at Burning Man 2012, Joe guiding me on a trip that included a four hour, major dust storm.