From Morocco, With Love · Global Voices
Jillian C. York

On this, St. Valentine's Day, the day for lovers, poems, flowers and romance, Moroccan bloggers are sharing their hearts.  Few holidays have the ability to inspire both love and blog posts, but today's is certainly one of them.
Some bloggers are in love and not afraid to share.  Sassy Gal, of The Adventures of One Sassy Gal and Her Topsy Turvy Luggage, has written a poem:
I admit it. I’m scared
I’m scared because no one explained to me that your frequency to vibe as often as I do would permeate right down to every follicle that sways each time you get near.
This is me admitting it.
I’m scared because when you told of where you’ve been, I related with fierce commitment to a past that didn’t adhere to conventional standards and grandeurs of youth.
Here I am admitting it
Scared because when you look at me and time becomes fluid and manipulated by the beats my index finger makes when wrapped around yours, I know harmony exits.
I sit
Yes
Admitting it
It beats
I’m scared
It beats
I’m here
And so are you
And so is LOVE….Holla!
Others aren't afraid to admit confusion!  Kaoutar of Big World Learner shares a couple of scenes she scripted about the holiday:
Scene 2:
He: Has the woman on the radio said that they’ve been talking about love for an entire week? Weird choice! What’s going on?
She: Yes! Well it’s Velentine’s day!
She2: Don’t you know about it?!
He: (A bit surprised, laughs) Lucky you!
She: What do you mean “lucky you”? Valentine’s day is everybody's business!
He: No… We celebrated our Valentine's Day a long time ago. Now it’s your turn.
She: Love has no age! (Playfully) Come on! Why do you men keep coming up with pretexts to ignore this kind of occasions? Just to avoid buying presents? :p Why don’t buy a present to your wife after work. She’d be happy about it.
He: (Laughs, addressing He 2): We have women’s movements here.
Question 2: Why are men too proud to admit that they do care about such things as love!?
Still others choose to share stories…La Gatita Gringa, who technically is no longer a member of the blogoma but lived in Morocco for long enough that I'll include her just this once, shares the story of a lovelorn pachyderm:
Draw near gentle reader – gentle lovelorn reader – on this, the day of Saint Valentine, the most lugubrious day of your year, and listen to the edifying tale of Petita the Pining Pachyderm. Heed my words and hearken unto them that you may find succour and draw strength from them on this most cruel of days.
Matthew Helmke, a resident of Fez, shares tips on Valentine's Day fun for married couples:
I have been married for more than 15 years to an amazing woman that I love and respect greatly. When you are in a relationship for a long time, it can be easy to get into a rut. Here are some (often silly) ideas to spice things up. Really, this is just for laughs, unless you are with a significant other with a great sense of humor like mine. However, if you use one and it works, please comment and say so! If you have any other good or goofy ideas, I would love to hear those as well.
1. Pretend you've never met, then loudly try out lame pickup lines in a upscale cafe. Act like they worked.
2. Go on a walking journey and every fifteen feet draw a chalk arrow in the direction you're going. At the end of the trip, leave a big pile of chalk.
3. Create photo evidence suggesting that you went on an adventure that didn't really happen.
4. Go for a drive. You can only make right-hand turns. When you finally get stuck, turn around and then you can only make left-hand turns. Repeat until you find something interesting. Take pictures along the way!
5. Build forts out of furniture and blankets, and wage war with paper airplanes.
6. Go to a major chain bookstore, and leave notes to future readers in copies of your favorite books.
7. Write a piece of fiction together. Outside at a cafe. Ask strangers when you get stuck.
8. Try and visit as many people as you can in one night, and turn as many things inside their apartment upside down as you can, without them noticing.
9. Do the lamest tourist thing in your area that you have both secretly wanted to do forever. Have an unabashed good time!
10. Hide and seek in the park.
11. Go around the city with sidewalk chalk and draw hearts with equations inside on random things.
12. Drive somewhere unknown and have dinner in a city you've never been to. With fake names.
13. Go for a drive with the passenger blindfolded, choosing directions at random. see where you end up.
14. Dress up as pirates, commandeer shopping carts, and have a war upon the high seas.. er, parking lot.
15. Go on a search for as many good climbing trees as possible, climb as high as you both can in all of them, compile photo evidence.
16. Rent a movie you've never seen before. Set on mute and improvise dialogue.
17. Dress up as pirates and go parrot shopping at local pet stores.
18. Go to the airport, get the cheapest, soonest departing flight to anywhere when you show up, and stay there for a weekend.
19. Walk around a city and perform short silent plays in front of security cameras.
20. In the middle of the night, drive to the beach, so you arrive just as the sun is rising. Have a breakfast picnic, then fall asleep together. Bring a sun umbrella.
And when words fail bloggers, they share the words of others.  Myrtus presents us with a beautiful image and quote from Erich Fromm:
“Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.'”
— Erich Fromm
If love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired, then the question of how to make ourself more deserving for it makes love an art. Fromm's book The Art of Loving is an excellent guidance for young people who are looking forward to a beautiful new life.
And when there's no love on Valentine's Day?  Celebrate it anyway!  Carpe Diem (fr) shares some words about celebrating the holiday as a singleton:
Pour cette Saint-Valentin, je me joins aux milliers d'hommes et de femmes qui célèbrent leur célibat pendant la fête des amoureux…
Finally, one blogger shares some Valentine's Day Goodies!  Chergaoui.com (fr) has a whole list of fun V-day things to do online.  Check it out!
Creative Commons-licensed photo by dieselbug2007