Hearts and Reptiles
A Superficial Treatise
“Are you happy?”
“What do you mean? And, why do you ask?”
“It matters that my friends are happy, that’s all.”
“Wait…are we going back to…”
“No, just thought I’d check up on you and see if you are doing OK. Haven’t heard from you in a while. It’s not what you think.”
“How do you know what I think?”
That note of defensiveness was a good sign. In the best case, a certain tension added something that evaded description. It meant he was being taken seriously.
It amused him the way conversations, for some, were continually monitored for depth of interest, if subconsciously. Did it mean there was concern that things might get too close or out of hand?
In general, people don’t care enough to ask: most lived their lives with that as default.
It was about defining limits and boundaries that often differ, depending on which side is looking. It was best to be vague, oblique and inferential.
Enough said.
It was rewarding the way some would light up and glow if any interest at all were expressed. Just enough to pique imagination, and hope. That was enough, although he didn’t realize it at the time, to keep someone alive.
Hope was the best medicine.
It was likewise better if the end of the story did not arrive too soon.
***
February seemed a month of celebrations of people and events that, on a personal level, do not matter.
The culture wonks will lead you by the hand through biology, history and culture, hoping to arrive at a modern interpretation that satisfies, but only for the moment. In the end, it is as mysterious as it is open-ended.
There is the notion that birds mate in February in time for hatching when the weather clears and spring arrives. The mating implies choice in pairing off. It is a competition against which instinct and ego battle. The worst outcome is to be left out of the mix, for both bird and man.
For the biologist, the only metric of evolutionary success is the number of resulting offspring.
Love, the mating ritual and renewal of the cycle of life, are all upstream of this.
There is yet something deeply charming about the pink, heart-shaped sweets exchanged by children, in the best case, anonymously.
“Will you be mine?”
Yum.
To add visually to the taste of sweets, are flowers, cards and other expressions of awareness that one is not alone in the Universe.
What could be more exciting than sweet evidence of a secret admirer, especially to an impressionable child? Nor are adult immune, despite grave faces and stony attitudes.
…
The early Church has been aware enough of this fundamental biological urge to all the predicates of mating, to build upon what Roman Emperors instituted.
The Roman feast called Lupercalia, codified the biology in public celebration as a fertility rite.
Like it or not, biology is upstream of history, culture and religion, and it all points back to the same thing.
The calendar puts a human face and sacrificial life, on each numeric day of the year, and both church and state had significant interest in universally accepted calendars that tracked seasonal cycles.
…
Valentine’s was for lovers, a day of gifts and reminders. Where there is love, there is life.
However, Saints’ days point in a different direction.
For example, martyrdom.
The name Valentine seems to arise from of one to three historical Christian figures.
Saint Valentine (Treni, Umbria, Italy, ca. 225 -270) is the main martyr of this date in the Catholic Church. His martyrdom is listed as February 14, 269 AD. Among his relics, his skull is exhibited at the Santa Maria Cosmedia in Rome. His Feast of St. Valentines appears to have been celebrated since the 8th century AD.
An unsuccessful evangelism of Roman Emperor Claudius II, resulted in a death sentence by beating and beheading. The condemned man reportedly sent the Emperor’s daughter a letter from your Valentine which some suggest was the origin of Valentine cards.
Hopefully, the modern message is less urgent and more pleasant.
Of course, the son of Venus, Roman Goddess of Beauty and Love, Cupid, plays a significant role in the feast and its associated customs. The role of Cupid was to strike an intended target with an amorous arrow rendering the victim emotionally vulnerable.
What a powerful tool, to be able to strike any target with infatuation at the shooter’s whim. Then too, are the historical remedies called love potions that are fable for the most part, and the panoply of modern pharmaceutical fixes that assist certain physiological male issues. Curiously enough, the radio ads for pills that cure reptile dysfunction have led to more than one quizzical look of disbelief.
There you have it.
As they say, it’s complicated but perhaps not nearly so complicated and mysterious as the physiological state to which the day is devoted.
We could go on about Greek philosophers and etymologies, but that remains for another day…