I guess it’s not really shocking that this movie (Mary Poppins) comes to mind every time I think about my favorite things., what with the song an all. Also, it’s fitting since this is, actually, one of my favorite movies. I especially like the chimney sweep song and the dancing. And Dick Van Dyke.
A lot of may most favorite things are really just that simple. Sun on the bedspread, a good book, coffee with just the right amount of cream and sugar. I’m shockingly easy to please. Put all three of those things together, along with the time to enjoy them, and hey-presto: Happy girl.
It’s also interesting to note that a lot of my characters find joy in the same things I do. Waking up/falling asleep snuggled in a bed with sun streaming across the sheets happens to my characters a lot. In fact, I’ve gone out of my way in some stories to make sure the architecture of a room will allow for both waking up with sunshine, and falling asleep to it.
Coffee dressed just the right way is incredibly easy shorthand for “I love you enough to notice the little things.” And it’s a gesture that happens a lot in my books. I was once chatting with a group of authors and readers many of whom were fed up with the romantisism if men in a lot of m/m romance, citing the fact that men aren’t really romantic. That they only make the big gestures for women because we demand it.
Maybe so. I wouldn’t know. I’m not much into those grand gestures myself. All I know is, while I am not in charge of the grocery shopping, there is always cream for my coffee in the fridge, and brown sugar in the jar. At random intervals during my day, sat at my computer typing away, my hubs will bring me a cup of coffee with just the right amount of cream and sugar. And he takes his black, so I know he’s not doing it for himself.
If that isn’t romantic, I don’t know what is.
And for good measure, I thought I’d throw in one of my most classic favorite nudes, and one of my most favorite random, what I like to call “kiss-me-f***-me” pictures.
This is an image I came across back in college Art History class. It’s called “Jeune Homme Assis Au Borde de la Mer” by Hippolyte Flandrin. Pretty sure that means young man sitting by the sea. Either way, he’s pretty, and I love this painting. A lot.
This photo pops up on loops every now and then. And I love it. The socks, especially.
She graduated some time ago from college with a Fine Arts diploma, with a major in textile arts, which basically qualifies her to draw pictures and create things with string and fabric. One always needs an official slip of paper to fall back on after all….
Heidi Cullinan
Evaine
Marie Sexton
Shawny
Having someone bring you a perfect cup of coffee is highly romantic. It means so many different things – he listens, he understands, he cares… So much better than flowers.
Agreed. The romantic things are the little things. I sometimes feel the grand gestures are too impersonal to be romantic. Sometimes
I think sometimes, the pursuit of the perfect gesture can lead directly away from what a person really needs see their lover do, if that makes any sense, N.
Yes, men can be romantic. Sometimes my husband would have dinner ready when I got home from work and he always rubbed my feet while we watched TV. He always had the best ideas, like driving out to the desert to watch the meteor showers, WOW. Once he woke me very early on a Sunday morning and we went for a drive (with our jammies and robes on) to watch the hot air balloons launch. None of those things cost a lot but they were priceless.
Having your lover present enough in your every day to see what you need in the moment seems a lot more romantic to me than waiting on those big special moments that sometimes happen out of a sense of obligation. Now when they come at those odd times when you were not expecting it, on a day when you would have been happy with coffee and book in bed, that’s something really special.
That’s what I think, msculp01. I can imagine a romance between two men is filled with a ton of these little daily gestures, because in my life, I’ve seen it. Guys do all those little things because they notice what’s really important and respond to it.