The Other Side

Words Fail, Almost

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There just aren’t that many different ways to say, “I love you.”

That hasn’t stopped people from trying to come up with new twists, especially in February. No easy task, since most of the time when you get the urge to say something new, you inadvertently reinvent an old cliché. Clichés have a well-deserved bad name. Avoid them like the plague! But when you give her a Valentine’s Day card and the shop-worn endearment inside is “With you, my heart is home, wherever we are,” … well, any port in a storm, I guess. Better the cliché than “Can you believe how the refs screwed up that call in the Super Bowl?”

Old workhorses like “I love you to the moon and back” balk at the sincerity fence. It’s OK to be inarticulate, after all, several presidents of the United States have struggled to speak intelligibly. One of them claimed he’d been misunderestimated and another promised to cut taxes bigly. But the real problem with the oft-repeated oldies in billets-doux is not their lack of originality, but the insincerity.

When you write from the heart, as that other venerable cliché goes, your message is probably sincere. Borrowed, pre-written lines don’t come from there. They are generic. Everyone wants to be special.

Unfortunately, you can’t avoid clichés by skipping words altogether. Handing her a dozen red roses flown in from Ecuador and/or a box of chocolates in a heart-shaped box are accessories, not substitutes, for saying “I love you.” The roses and bonbons are themselves clichés, just not confections of words.

C’mon guys, we really need to try harder.

Which brings us back to those danged Valentine’s Day cards you and I have fewer than 14 days to get ready.

Despite this year’s resolution to write an original endearment on a homemade card, odds are we’ll end up recycling something that’s been on love notes since the cuneiform clay tablets exchanged on Valentine’s Day in Mesopotamia. Better choose carefully.

Clichés may be inescapable, but word to the wise, there are some clichés best avoided.

For instance, should your evil angel tempt you to write, “Every day with you is a gift, and I feel so lucky to have you in my life,” your romantic partner may well be reminded that, actually, you are the luckier one. Think back to the greeting line at your wedding recep- tion. Did anyone say “Congratulations” to her? Probably not a good idea to bring up your good fortune, given the unequal gifts of good luck. 

If you are one of the rare fellows who can do cute in a John Deere baseball cap and Danner Loggers, then you just might get by with “Every love story is beautiful, but ours is my favorite.” For most of us, though, trotting that old pony out would be laughably out of character. Arms akimbo in her frown and Manolo Blahniks, she’s thinking, “Tell that to the Marines.”

Maybe you are tempted to go all the way with hyperbole. “I love you more than all the stars in the sky.” Nope. That’s one of those astronomically nebulous quantities that tries (and always fails) to say that you love her more than the simpler, “a lot.” If it comes to numbers, be careful: she may be hearing, “There are many fish in the sea.”

And watch out for this popular exaggeration: “I love you more than you’ll ever know." If she doesn’t know how much, it’s because you haven’t shown her. Think about it.

Anyway, Catullus copyrighted all this over-the-topping a long time ago. In one poem, he asks his girlfriend for 1,000 kisses, then 100 more, then more and 100,000 more, so many that they’ll lose count. The Roman poetproudly imagined no one could ever outdo him, but then, Cristóbal de Castillejo with a “Hold my beer, watch this” (in 16th century Spanish, of course) translated the verses and added the finale, “Then let’s count the kisses all over again — in reverse!”

And speaking of counting, countless desperate, tongue-tied men, red marker in hand on Feb. 13 with an empty card at the kitchen table, have erred by pushing the hyperbole to the max. They’ve thrown up their hands and fallen back on the expedient “I love you more than words can ever say.” Sorry, amigo, don’t go down that well-traveled road: This exaggeration is as old as the potholes on Tacoma streets.

Anyway, what a bizarre notion, using words to say words can’t say something! I suppose a love greater than words can ever express must be pretty darn big, but she wonders “How much bigger?” Size matters and specificity is recommended here. For instance, “I love you more than my Ram 2500 pickup.” Now we’re talking!

Still, thinking of the ineffable is on the right track. Love is so much harder to talk about than to make. Perhaps all the sweet nothings on Valentine’s Day cards, no matter how sweet, really are just nothings.

When it comes down to it, “I love you” says about all that can be said. It means something, the way the clichés would like to but don’t. Its meaning is less about cheesy notions than the way you love her the other 364 days of the year.

Following my own advice, my Valentine’s Day card message this year is brief. Before the words stumble into clichés, at the place just before words start to fail, it stops.

I’m going with “I love you, Gem La Terre.”

Dan Clouse lives in Lakebay.


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