Valentine for America — The Roads That Taught My Heart to Wait
This year on Valentines Day,
No roses, no cards.
Just me at midnight, hot chocolate steaming, thinking of the roads you’ve let me ride, America.
I’ve crossed all 48 lower states—
by train and car, mile after mile,
from the snowy tracks in Essex, Montana,
where the Empire Builder glides through,
to the open lounge car windows watching the world pass slow.
Gettysburg’s fields at sunset,
where a soldier’s statue stands against the light,
silhouette carved from stone and memory.
New Orleans jazz in a small room,
saxophone breathing life into the night,
brass and drums holding the heartbeat of a city that refuses to fade.
The Alamo at golden hour,
walls that still stand after everything tried to take them down.
Mount Rushmore rising against the sky,
faces carved in rock looking out forever.
Grand Canyon edges where I broke down in tears at its natural beauty.
El Rancho Hotel in Gallup, New Mexico—
Route 66 charm, neon sign glowing,
a place that feels like yesterday and tomorrow at once.
I’ve stood in every corner,
not to own it,
not to collect it,
but to love you out loud—
to give thanks without asking what you could give me back.
You taught my heart how to wait.
How to love big and quiet.
How to trust the timing
even when the answer felt impossible.
I’ve never truly had a Valentine.
Never truly let someone close enough
to learn the shape of my hand.
People drifted.
Ghosted.
Faded when the heart spoke too soon.
So I went out and loved you instead—
hard,
from sea to shining sea,
and you answered in ways no one expected.
That rare civic honor
opened my eyes again:
true love still works.
It just needs time.
It needs trust.
It needs faith.
So this Valentine is for you, America—
the vast, beautiful, scarred, unbreakable place
that showed me love doesn’t demand.
It gives.
It waits.
And sometimes—
it comes back.
And if there’s a beautiful woman out there
who has loved deeply in her own way,
who has waited her own nights,
who has seen her own horizons—
and wonders what it might feel like
to meet a man whose heart learned patience
from loving something so enormous—
she’ll find these words.
She’ll linger over the pictures.
She’ll feel the soft tug.
And when the timing’s right—
when her heart decides—
she’ll reach out.
Not to a stranger.
To someone ready
to learn something new
with someone close.
Happy Valentine’s.
To America.
And to whoever’s still carrying her heart
like an open road—
you’re not late.
You’re arriving
exactly when the story needs you.
Orchestral America the Beautiful – the version that swells like sunrise.
I loved her so hard the country leaned in. Now every note tears me open— not pain, just proof that love can answer back.
I’ll carry this ache forever, and I wouldn’t trade it.
Listen. Let it break you gently.
