Valentines

Little sweetheart, it's Valentines Day and, of course, I think of our famous "Trip to the Snow" - when your folks invited us all to a weekend getaway in Lake Tahoe. 

You and I came up from SF after your class at the YC, where you were teaching. We'd passed by a shop window display a day or two earlier that had featured a pretty bra and panty set, Valentine-themed in black with red and pink hearts. You'd admired it from the sidewalk, so I circled back on my own and bought it. I gave you the brightly colored gift package when I picked you up in the car. You opened it in the back seat and swooned. I was so happy!

We had a long drive ahead through the mountains and increasing snow. We stopped at one point to gas up and get snacks. As I paid inside, I saw a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses and bought them for you. I couldn't help but gush to the cashier "have you ever seen such a beautiful girl?!" You were a little embarrassed but I was overwhelmed. 

How I love you! Forever! Take me home to you, soon!

Valentines

It’s Valentines Day, little sweetheart! 

Remember those cookies we liked at Safeway, so much? Kind of almost like little pieces of cake, soft and vanilla and thick with icing for all different sorts of holidays - green shamrocks for Paddy’s Day, Red White and Blue for July 4th, Pink and white hearts for today? We’d get a box of a dozen and try not eat them all in your car as we sat by the bay watching the waves come in, sometimes spotting a dolphin or two! Well, they had a few boxes at D’ags this weekend, so I bought a dozen (a dozen cookies, not a dozen boxes!) just for the occasion. 

Thinking of you, as always. Oh, also... I sent flowers to you and your mom, which I believe have arrived safely. 

With all my love forever. 

 

Feb 14th

It’s Valentines Day, little sweetheart! I made those sugar cookies that you like using the heart shaped cookie cutters and frosted with pink icing. Sometimes I take a few over to the rectory at Sacred Heart but it still feels too close to the pandemic to be wandering over with homemade treats, however well intended. I did send flowers for both you and your mom and I think they got there safely. I’m keeping an eye out online for delivery confirmation! 

All this really just to say, I’m thinking of you, my love, on this day and every day. 

With all my love forever.

Valentines Day '21

Happy Valentines Day, little sweetheart! 

I’ve been thinking so much about the ones we got to share, especially the one when we went to The Snow, as I’ve mentioned here just before. But another of them comes to mind. 

One when we were so dreadfully kept apart - you in SF doing “Beebo” with Raelle at The Brava and me with a gig here in NYC - and couldn’t get away. 

I remember I ordered you flowers and they messed it up somehow. The day came and they hadn’t arrived and I was on the phone with them totally livid. But you calmed me and put everything in perspective. You loved getting flowers, you said, but what you really wanted was just… me. 

And that thought - that even when parted, you were only a flight away, that I could however impulsively just get on a plane and arrive unannounced to surprise and delight you kept me going so many times, little sweetheart. 

We will again, I know. I have faith that you will find me and bring me home to you, this time forever. 

With all my love… On Valentines Day!
 

The Snow, part 2

The drive took about three hours, I think, little sweetheart, partly because of the weather. It was a sunny, warm late afternoon when we left San Francisco but dark soon and then quite snowy in the mountains. 

We kind of had all the twists and turns of the mountain passes to ourselves, little sweetheart - almost no traffic at all - and after a while needed to find a filling station. We pulled off where we saw a big lighted sign in the distance, choosing it because we figured we were less likely to get lost trying to find our way back. We were hopeless with directions - ha! 

You hustled into the little shop there to keep warm while I gassed up the Prius, then I joined you inside, where you were gathering a few snacks and a hot chocolate for the road. We took everything to the cashier to pay our bill and it was then we both noticed a little display of inexpensive sunglasses, a couple of them Valentines Day themed. You tried on a nice pink and white pair that had little hearts on the frames and I immediately wanted to buy them for you. 

As the lady was taking my AmEx, so madly in love with you in your little Valentines Day shades and everything, I blurted out, “have you ever seen such a beautiful girl!”. 

You were a little embarrassed but she was entirely charmed. You kind of shrugged at her as if to say “Sorry, I really can’t take him anywhere”. But you weren’t mad at me, thank goodness. You knew I couldn’t help it.

The Snow, part 1

Little sweetheart, I’ve been thinking, probably because I’ve been writing, about the wonderful weekend we spent together with your family this time of year several years ago. What we called our “Trip to the Snow”. 

There’s so much to it and I’ve just detailed it of late writing our book but a few memories of it come to mind I’d like to leave here. 

Your dad had rented a house in Lake Tahoe and with characteristic and breathtaking generosity invited the entire extended family, including me, to come away for Valentines Weekend. Every one had already driven up and arrived by the time we just began getting on the road ourselves because you were teaching a class at the YC that afternoon, little sweetheart. 

I often came downtown with you on those days and waited for you after. A few days before I’d noticed that something caught your eye in the window at Macy’s, so on this day, while you were in class, I sneaked back, bought and had it gift wrapped for you. When you emerged from the YC, I was waiting with car, ready to drive to the mountains. 

Once you got in, I pulled the box out of the backseat and gave it to you. It was a pretty little pink and red polka dot on black lingerie ensemble - top and bottoms. You were so surprised and delighted.

Kind of Perfect

Little sweetheart, Valentines Day is this coming Sunday. 

I always like to order flowers for both you and your mom. But she moves around so I always need to find out where she’s going to be on the day. This year, she’s in Davis. 

I hadn’t ordered flowers in Davis before but I found a nice place online and then called them. I knew what I wanted for each of you and had already written out your cards. I just had to tell the girl over the phone, At the end I thanked her for her help and asked her what her name was and she said “actually, my name is Summer, too!”. 

I thought that was just wonderful, don’t you, little sweetheart? Kind of perfect. 

Anyway, Happy Almost Valentines Day! 

With all my love forever.

An Anniversary...

Two years ago today, little sweetheart, we released “Better Girl”. It still strikes me so - its all for you! I think what I said in the liner notes is still so very resonant. I’m going to share it here again.

I love you so! Forever!

February 14, 2018
(Valentines Day)

Just six weeks ago, we released our seventh album, a 28-track double-album - SOMETIMES IN DREAMS. But, unable to restrain ourselves, today we release a new single on its very heels.

Released on Valentines Day, it’s a cover of Best Coast’s “Better Girl” and available via all the usual suspects/platforms - Apple Music/iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp, CD Baby, Spotify, Deezer, et al.

Immeasurably indebted and unbelievable flattered to (occasionally) being likened to bands like Low, Slowdive, and The Velvet Underground, who we revere, we’d like to say something about Bethany Consentino and her group - we love them.

Long story short as possible - when we were wrapping up work on OF LOVE AND LOSS, still very much shattered by grief, our art director gave us a mix tape, something put together by the great Since ’78. Entitled Adios Los Angeles, it was all around the theme of leaving, of all that’s lost and all we might hope to one day once again find.

The final track was Best Coast’s “Up All Night”, the kind of pop song so filled with the ache of longing and distance that I nearly fell apart listening the first time. And again. And again. I’d never heard the band before, so I got myself the album “Up All Night” came from (and, indeed, closes) - “The Only Place”.

As our band has moved deeper and deeper into post-rock terrain, it may seem a bit of an anomaly to hear how felled I was by Ms. Consentino and her sunny, bittersweet anthems - long-suffering friends are far more likely to hear me enthusing or indeed insisting on one more spin of “Metal Machine Music” at full volume - but felled I was.

“The Only Place” was in heavy rotation here at The Shrine for the better part of the winter I first acquired it and this mid-album track with its refrain - “you gotta keep me away from what they say about me” and its soaring repeated ending chorus “I wanna be a better girl, a better girl, a better girl” stuck in my throat and heart and chest.

This album, this song, came to me at the darkest of times, opening the wound of loss and longing even yet a bit deeper all in the service of helping me remember and keep moving, however hurting.

Our shoegazey version of this song, released today, on Valentines Day, is meant as a tribute both in thanks to its author and to our fallen bandmate herself, my love and partner. my soulmate, true love and best friend, Summer.

If Ms. Consentino herself comes across this, I hope she doesn’t roll her eyes too much. Because, in the immortal words of John Lydon, “we mean it, man.”

With love and faith…

Michael Serafin-Wells
Bipolar Explorer
New York City 

Something You Taught Me...

Before I get on with the day, little sweetheart, I’m frosting some cookies. I baked them last night. They’re heart-shaped sugar cookies and I’m frosting them with pink icing and giving them to the lovely nuns over at the rectory of Sacred Heart.

Sister Catherine is kind of in charge over there and so very kind. She always says a nice prayer for you whenever I see her and I try to drop by with a little treat for them whenever I can.

I think they came out okay.

Thinking of you, my little sweetheart. With love and prayers and a resolve to do my best, as you show and teach and reveal to me. With all my love forever.

Valentines, Pt 2

Our second Valentines together was the very next year when your Dad very generously invited a large group of extended family and friends to share a big beautiful house in Lake Tahoe for Valentines Weekend - what we came to call the vacation when “we went to the snow”.

Everyone was coming from different places - your parents from Yuba City, your brother and his friends from Portland, Michelle and the kids from Roseville and us from San Francisco - and meeting there.

Everyone else got up there ahead of us because you had a class to teach downtown at ACT’s Young People’s Conservatory that afternoon. We’d been walking along down there on the way to one of your classes earlier that week when I saw something catch your eye in the window at Macy’s. So, I made a note of it and that afternoon - when I was meant to pick you up from class so we could begin the long drive straight from there to Lake Tahoe - I stopped in first and bought it for you. It was a pretty top and bottom set of pink polka dot lingerie set against a black background. You loved it! I gave it to you in the car.

We soon hit a lot of snow driving through the mountains, We were listening to the first Bon Ivor album over and over. We’d just got it the week before and we were singing along to one another. We stopped for gas and when we went in to pay, looked around for a snack or two. I was getting myself a coffee, when I saw a pair of Valentines sunglasses -  pink and white with hearts on the frames. I bought them for you and embarrassed you a little when I said to the cashier, breathlessly, “isn’t she (you!) the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen!”

You are and always will be, my little sweetheart. My heart is so full this morning thinking of you.

Valentines Morning

It’s early morning on Valentines Day, little sweetheart and your mom texted me to say that the flowers I sent for each of you arrived safely.

You are so very much in my heart, today, as ever. I remember our first two Valentines Days together especially being noteworthy.

The very first was during rehearsals for Tir na nOg. Edna wanted to take us all to dinner but when we got to the restaurant the lights were out and there was no power in the kitchen (or anywhere else for that matter). Instead of going somewhere else - and there was absolutely nobody else in the place, they would have closed for the night otherwise - the manager offered to have their sister restaurant cook dinner for us and drive it over in somebody’s car. We each had a choice between Irish Stew or a burger. You got the burger and I got the stew as they went around the table taking everyone’s order and offering free drinks while we waited, the place lit by candles.

We weren’t officially a “thing” yet, little sweetheart. That was still about 4 weeks away but I had such an enormous feeling of affection and protection for you. I think we would have been a “thing” far earlier had I not been so oblivious to the fact that that is exactly what you wanted (as you famously demonstrated one night a month later).

Anyway, you had made a point of sitting next to me and I was glad you had. You told me I could have some of your fries (ha!) and the two of us sat together very close, the only two not drinking, as it happened. To pass the time, Edna suggested that each of us either tell a story or sing a song. When it was my turn, I sang an old Roberta Flack song, a cappella, “Let Them Talk”.

It was an uncannily prescient choice, I couldn’t know how much at the time with its lyric about how…

“They’ll try to break up this romance.
Darling they don’t stand as chance.
We’ve got the kind of love that’s so strong
We’re going to be together from now on.
I don’t care what comes from the devil’s workshop.
True love is going to make it stop.
I want the whole wide world to know that I…
I love you so.
They’re envious of everything that we do.
But its so wonderful
When you love someone.
And that someone …
Loves…
You.!

Needless to say, the whole thing was very emotional. And seemingly out of place. Everyone seemed a bit embarrassed and keen to move on. Except, of course… of course, you, little sweetheart. You squeezed my hand and said, “I want you to sing that to me again, sometime when we’re alone. Just for me.”

Today

Little sweetheart it's Valentines Day. I make sure to send you roses each year and did again today, with this little card (below). Love you forever.

My dearest darling Summer, 

Happy Valentine's Day, little sweetheart. 
I'm so grateful for you. You have filled my heart and my life with light and love.
You are my treasure, forever 

With all my love, 

Your Michael

Valentines Day 2018

Little sweetheart, today is Valentines Day and as ever I am missing, longing, aching for you. Each year I send you a dozen roses c/o your parents house (and a little arrangement for your Mom too). Here’s what I wrote on the card. Please take me to you the moment that heaven will allow.

My dearest darling Summer, Happy Valentine's Day, little sweetheart. I'm so grateful for you. You have filled my heart and my life with light and love. You are my treasure forever 

With all my love, 

Your Michael

Feb 14th

Little sweetheart, it's Valentines Day and I am missing you. And I'm remembering that you and I went to Lake Tahoe on my first vacation with your family for Valentines seven years ago. Our "Trip to the Snow" we called it. It was lovely. You and I were the last to arrive. We drove up from SF after you finished teaching your class at ACT. We'd been walking past the window outside Macy's on O'Farrell and I'd watched you eyeing a cute bra and panties set on display there. It was black and pink and very Valentines pretty. So, I secretly went back and bought it for you and had it in a gift-wrapped box when I picked you up after your class in the car. It was late afternoon and it started to get dark and snowy as we made our way up through the mountains, remember, my darling? When we stopped for gas, there was a rack of novelty shades, so I bought you a pair of pink Valentines sunglasses. I asked the cashier if she had ever seen as beautiful a girl as you. The Bon Iver record had come out and we had it on in the car on repeat. We sang and cried and held each other. It was our first Valentines together. Our last was five years ago today. We would have less than one month left together on earth. We couldn't know. We couldn't know. Oh, my little sweetheart, do come to me soon! Take me with you in The Forever. For now, I see through a glass, darkly. But then, I will know even as I am known. As you know. Please show me the way. Show me everything. Show me all you know and let me learn. Until that day! Until that day!

Feb 12...

On a Virgin America plane to SFO four years ago today to attend the premiere of the short film I made with Summer the July before, spend Valentines Day together and see her Opening Night of "On The Waterfront" in San Jose - wound up replacing her castmate in "Blackbird" so then meant to stay on to do the play with her and then both of us return to NYC in time for my b'day on April 25, to workshop "My Before and After" and see Low in Philly that night. We almost got there, little sweetheart. But I'll see you very soon and forever in the Beautiful New Place. Remembering those last weeks just now and loving you with all my heart and soul. Until that day, my love. Until that day...

Two Boxes

Sweetheart, your mom sent me two packages today, just before Christmas, just before I’m headed out there. And everything inside and about them is all, all, all just wonderful and amazing and so very thoughtful. The boxes were numbered one and two and I was instructed to open number one first because inside was a card and note explaining things. On the front of the card is a beautiful angel, just like you. The note tells me about care of the item within the box – your pretty black sunhat. Your mom has attached a lovely gold seahorse pin to it. Saying that she thinks it is something you might do yourself, one of your “tricks” as you might say. I find myself gasping and weeping at the sight of it. She’s tucked a bit of wrapping paper into the crown so that it stays upright and full and the instructions are about how I should keep that inside the hat should I decide to hang it (she’s also included a lovely wall hook for just that purpose. I stand in the kitchen with your beautiful hat in my arms looking around a bit lost, not knowing where might be a good home for it. Finally, still sobbing, I settle on placing it quietly for now on the bed next to your place that I never turn down, next to and then, thinking, atop the pillow where your famous purple shirt lay as well, before coming back into the kitchen where the boxes sit on the floor. I keep unpacking the first one, finding the hook the note mentioned, thinking I probably won't hang the hat because I may not have the proper tools, only to find the next thing thoughtfully included in the box are the proper tools – a multiple bit screwdriver - also carefully, thoughtfully gift wrapped. I set them aside together and open box two. Your mom has included swiffers on top (Needed! This place is awash in dust, brick dust, plaster dust, every kind of dust from 10 months of destruction/construction in the "posh" new parts of the building). Next, the wonderful owl sachets. Everything in this box that I touch smells lovely. An infusion of the most intoxicatingly beautiful aromas float into the air – your kind of cotton candy scent. You are everywhere, my sweetheart. Next, I spot what seems by its shape to be a glasses case. I wonder if it's the second pair of Ray Bans I'd sent your Dad (he thought he lost the first pair I got him for Father’s Day so I replaced them but a few weeks later the first pair turned up…) rendered redundant. I open it and am in tears again – they’re the sunglasses with hearts all over the frames that I bought you on Valentines on our trip up to Lake Tahoe, the weekend “We Went to the Snow”. Oh, my sweetheart. Oh, my love! The rest of the box is filled with four lush, lovely folded bath towels with the “S” Serafin monogram from the house in Davis, smelling wonderful and fresh. They come in handy immediately still awash in tears for you. It's all all all so indescribably lovely and thoughtful. I immediately call your mom to thank her so very much. And I know you’re with me, holding my hand, stroking my chest and telling me that I am your treasure. And I know I need never ashamed to cry for you. Knowing, my love, that you are even nearer by than I can readily imagine. Until that day. Until that day...xxxxoooo

On Thanksgiving...

I'm thinking of you on this cold and snowy Thanksgiving Day in NYC, my sweetheart. On my own. With Christmas coming. The holidays are filled with memories and longing too. I am glad and grateful that I got to spend some of the very best ones with you, my love. Still, I miss you terribly. Someone asked me lately if I had experiences that made me feel you are near me and I told the story about the watch. The watch I had that my mom gave me (and who died just 10 months before you, my darling girl.) Remember how I was wearing it when I was in California with you after Valentines Day and the wristband broke, so I threw it into my laptop bag? And there it sat, forgotten amidst the tragic events.  Months later, I came across it, looking for something else and it had stopped because it's self-winding - you have to be wearing it and moving around for it to work. I put it on the mantel behind a bunch of framed pictures of you. And one day sitting on the sofa beneath it, inconsolable, I heard it begin quietly ticking. And it's happened since. Sometimes when it's quiet or I'm terribly sad, I have heard it simply start up. I told that story to the person who asked - a friend. You know him too, my sweetheart. And he said he thinks our loved ones, our beloved, like you, are definitely around. "Oh, they're still here," he said, "and, actually, not that far away". I like that idea. Always be with me, Summer. Don't go too far away. With all my love... m

Valentine's Day - BPX cover of "I Need My Girl"

http://youtu.be/oGQEM4juzSs

Recorded yesterday. Love you with all my heart and soul, little sweetheart. Happy Valentines Day.

Valentines

Remembering my first Valentines Day with Summer... February 14, 2009. Her parents rented a big beautiful house in Lake Tahoe and we all met up there. When we "went to the snow" we always call it. A couple days earlier, Summer & I were walking past Macy's on her way to ACT and she saw this cute bra and panty set in the window. It was black and pink/red polka dot. I went back and got it for her and gave them to her when I picked her up in the car on our way to leave town. She was teaching that day. We stopped to get gas high up in the mountains and I bought her a pair of Valentine sunglasses. She had a really nice pair of shades, so these became her spare set. We went snowmobiling on trails for hours and made delicious meals in the huge kitchen and the first night we all sat down to dinner together- they were about 15 of us - Mike (Summer's dad) said "I just want to say that I read something this week that I really liked. It's Michael's play Seven Pages Unsigned. It was smart and funny and I really cared about all the characters. And I had a little tear in my eye by the end". I think that was maybe the nicest thing anyone ever said about my work and the most generous, kind thing anyone ever did in public. We had the most wonderful time. It snowed so much- we got 60 inches in a day and a half. The day we left, everyone had gone but Summer, her parents and I. We stayed for another hour or two and they all told me at the greatest length I had yet heard the story of Summer's double organ transplant. We had to have chains on the tires of our cars, the snow was so heavy. I drove Summer's Prius, following Mike & Linda through the mountains. At a pass up there, there was a roadside stop where guys would quickly take off your chains for you. We did that and in a hour were back in sunny mild NoCal. We stopped for gas and Mike said to me, "you're a very good driver. Much better than Summer. Don't tell her I said that." The Bon Iver record had just come out. We listened to it in the car, Summer & I, singing along, singing to each other, me in tears even tho there wasn't anything then to cry about. I was so happy, that's all. The second to last song ends with the line "your love will be safe with me". I promise, Summer said to me. I promise...