Singles Awareness Day got me so distracted that I almost forgot about Valentine's Day. Fortunately, this sermon reminded me of Rumi's poem that lay quietly in the archives of my mind (but beats loudly upon my heart):

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. 

The next day, while emptying the top shelf of a cupboard during the great March Forth project, I came upon an indeterminate object. I took it down and it turned out to be my father's banjo. I remembered it from our previous house (nearly thirty years ago!) but hadn't seen it since, probably because it stayed up in that cupboard wrapped in bubble wrap all these years. He told me it was given to him as a child by his neighbors. So the instrument must be at least seventy years old, and that's only if it were brand new when they gave it to him. In any case...

It's true Americana, an expression of love, a symbol of my childhood, and the perfect punctuating note for this quote.