Column: We’ve got a groovy kind of love

I have a long, complex relationship with Valentine’s Day.

It started in 1974, when I was nearly fired as editor of my high school newspaper for writing the banner headline, “Happy V.D.!” in the February 14 issue. The assistant editor (in an obvious power grab) accused me of “cutting Valentine’s Day down.”

My mother recently reminded me that my sisters and I had some terrible boyfriends in those days, an undisputable fact that partially explains my Valentine’s Day ambivalence.

My sister Ellen and her beau came home from a fishing trip with a huge, uncleaned bluefish that he stashed in the back of our refrigerator until he could return for it. By the time she realized she would never see him again, we had a hazmat situation.

A boyfriend of my sister Judy’s college days drifted into her life for a few months and then faded away, appearing suddenly one day at my parents’ house, where Judy did not live.

“Can I crash at your pad?” he asked them.

I had a Valentine in college who was a thief of a spectacular sort. During his last year at the University of Virginia, he and a buddy removed an extremely valuable — and fragile — bust of Thomas Jefferson from university property. It was eventually returned unharmed. Somehow he escaped imprisonment, but he never publicly admitted the theft, although it was an open secret he was guilty.

If I had any doubts, they were confirmed when he broke up with me and kept the Chinese opera recordings I had lent him, denying he ever had them. It’s not easy to find classical Chinese opera on vinyl, and decades later I still miss those records, but not him.

I have settled into a view of romance that centers on the birds and the bees, and by that, I mean two people committed to keeping the birdfeeder stocked at all times, who also occasionally share a corn muffin with honey.

For some people, celebrating Valentine’s Day involves gifts of jewelry, roses, chocolate, an expensive meal — all things you can do as well on Shelter Island as anywhere else. But the Island offers an assortment of other activities, ways to celebrate your good fortune to have love in your life, without the taint of commercialism.

For example, you could get a closer look at the place where birds do it at the plover nesting area on Shell Beach. That is as long as you don’t step in the actual nesting area, and don’t expect to see any nesting birds because it’s February and they migrated months ago. You’ve heard of taking your honey to see the submarine races? This is the avian equivalent.

Go for a sunset  — 5:23 p.m. on Febuary 14 — beach walk wearing waterproof shoes with stiff soles for walking on rocks, and staying well below the mean high tide line to avoid irate property owners. Love means never having to say you’re soggy.

Conduct a thorough, mutual tick inspection. This is only romantic if you do not find any.

Surprise your Valentine with a rare treat. Take all of the trash, including the paper, plastic, metal and glass recycling, that bag of out-of-style shoes and the pile of leaking batteries to the dump. Nothing says “I love you” like empty recycling bins.

Get crafty. Did you know that you can create a negligee from an extra-large 5K T-shirt cinched at the small of the back with a 5-inch strip of duct tape? Or that last year’s 10K string bag can be fashioned into a thong?

This year, I think I’ll make a bouquet for my Valentine with items from the produce section of the IGA. I’ll use a few leaves of Swiss chard, some asparagus spears, a bunch of broccoli rabe and carrots, with a red ribbon wrapped around the base to make a lovely nosegay. If he’s too shy to accept it, I’ll make it into minestrone.

Of course, the ultimate romantic thing to do on the Island is get married. One Saturday last fall I rode my bike up the hill to the Ram Island Inn at such a slow pace that I had time to thoroughly inspect a wedding party on the lawn. There was the familiar line-up of guys in tuxedos, flanking a woman in a white gown so voluminous it could have been the mainsail of a seagoing vessel with a train trailing behind her in a light rain that had just begun to come down harder.

She was a little damp, but beautiful, and happy. And everyone looked very much in love.