Celebrate Love

February always arrives in Eureka Springs a little softer than elsewhere. The town exhales after the holidays and before spring flirts its way back into our lives. There’s a hush in the air that makes room for reflection ... and, fittingly, for love.

Not the glossy, rom-com version of love with perfect lighting and better timing. But the real thing. The lived-in, laugh-out-loud, sometimes-roll-your-eyes, always-show-up kind of love.

Love, I’ve learned, isn’t just a feeling. It’s a language. And like any good language, it’s filled with idioms, inside jokes, pop-culture references, shared snacks, and a whole lot of meaning hidden in plain sight.

It’s saying, “I found the person who annoys me the least and called it love,” and knowing that sentence somehow holds more truth than a sonnet.

It’s the quiet promise of, “If we were on a sinking ship, I’d share my door with you,” even if we still argue about whether that door was actually big enough.

Love sounds like humor because humor is intimacy without armor.

It’s saying, “I love you more than pizza,” and letting the other person fully grasp the gravity of that statement. It’s the upgrade from snack to meal. From background noise to favorite song.

Love is pressing pause - on your favorite song, your favorite show, your own momentum -because someone else matters more in that moment.

It’s choosing a person as your emergency contact and meaning it in every possible way.

In Eureka Springs, love looks different depending on the street you’re standing on.

Sometimes it’s two people holding hands on Spring Street, walking nowhere in particular. Sometimes it’s a couple sharing a slice of pizza on a bench, negotiating who gets the last bite like seasoned diplomats. Sometimes it’s a solo traveler with a glass of wine, fully in love with their own company ... and honestly? That counts too. “Love the wine you're with.” 

Because love isn’t just romantic. Love is expansive.

It’s loving someone even when you’re hangry.

It’s loving someone even when the emails won’t stop.

It’s loving someone enough to say, “The world needs more love and fewer work emails,” and then actually closing your laptop.

Love is also deeply personal. Sometimes it’s champagne. Sometimes it’s pizza. Sometimes it’s your cat and a glass of wine and the radical decision to not explain yourself to anyone.

Pop culture has given us a thousand ways to say what the heart struggles to articulate.

“You complete me.”

“You’re my person.”

“Pick me. Choose me. Love me.”

“I love you and I like you.”

These lines endure because they echo something ancient and true: the human desire to be seen, chosen, and held (emotionally, spiritually, sometimes literally) through the chaos of life.

Music knows this, too!

Frank Sinatra croons about a glow that comes just from thinking of someone. John Legend reminds us that loving someone wholly requires showing up wholly. Taylor Swift makes a love story feel like a brave yes. Stevie Wonder calls just to say it, because sometimes love doesn’t need a reason or a reveal.

Poets understood long before us that love is both strength and courage. That it gives life its pulse. That thinking of someone can create a garden you could walk through forever.

And yet, for all its grandeur, love often shows up in the smallest ways.

In laughter.

In shared silence.

In inside jokes that make no sense to anyone else.

In knowing someone’s coffee order.

In choosing togetherness on ordinary days.

In Eureka Springs, love feels especially at home.

Maybe it’s the way the town wraps itself around you. Maybe it’s the way time slows just enough to notice who’s walking beside you. Maybe it’s the reminder that home isn’t a structure, it’s a feeling.

I tell Jeff and Kirby all the time, "Home is wherever I’m with you."

Love is the greatest adventure not because it’s always easy, but because it’s always alive.

It evolves. It matures. It deepens. It surprises you. Sometimes it melts you. Sometimes it challenges you. Sometimes it asks you to grow.

And sometimes it simply says, “Together is a wonderful place to be.”

So, whether you’re celebrating with a partner, a friend, a pet, a slice of pizza, a bottle of wine, or your own beautiful self this month, let love be what it’s always meant to be:

Inclusive. Playful. Enduring. ...and human.

Love is love.❤️