Valentine’s Day arrives each year with its pink insistence.
Hearts. Chocolates. Roses. Public declarations.
It is based on a true story. It is set in a dairy valley at Federation. There is courtship. There are buggies. There will be a wedding.
Yet none of that is what lingers.
What lingers is this.
Who speaks first.
Who waits.
Who protects.
Who grants permission.
Who withdraws.
Who makes room.
In this valley, no one arrives and takes a place.
You are given it.
Or you are not.
A father moves.
A mother sees what others miss.
A young man waits to be called forward.
A young woman chooses her moment.
Not scandal, legitimacy.
Its the small gestures. A father stepping between a young woman and a threat. A quiet welcome offered in passing. A line about being properly home. A wedding that marks recognition, rather than spectacle.
The politics of intimacy unfold long before the church doors open.
I am drawn to earned standing.
Protection without dominance.
Authority without humiliation.
Recognition without erasure.
I am not writing a fairy tale where the man saves the woman.
I am writing the moment when a family recognises her.
Much of my life has circled questions of voice, legitimacy, and who gets to speak without being diminished. It is no surprise that the same questions surface here, inside a dairy valley more than a century ago.
So on Valentine’s Day, while the world sells romance as performance, I am writing about consent inside families.
About being allowed to stand where you stand.
Love is not a fairy tale smothered in roses.
Love is who you are proud to stand beside.
And who is proud to stand beside you.
