Hearts and Flowers

Yesterday I was with friends who said that in church that morning the preacher had suggested they give some thought to people who were alone on Valentine's Day, which he added was at least partly a made-up holiday. I was trying to remember what I'd heard myself about its origins, and I dimly recalled reading that the fellow in question wasn't so much a real loverboy or anything. It was more that he was friendly, wrote people nice letters, something like that. I decided that once home I would look it up, and good old illusion-destroying Wikipedia says that outside of his having been a martyr, we don't know a damn thing about St. Valentine.

It was Geoffrey Chaucer who started the whole Valentine's day thing, it seems. Well, good for him. There ought to be a day consecrated to Eros, and if it's in the winter, so much the better, no? It's the summer in the Southern Hemisphere, of course, and that works too. Pretty much any day would work. But even if there's no real reason that it should be on February 14, we might as well leave things as they are. After all this time, six or seven centuries, "Valentine's Day" sounds like what it is. Suppose the Church researched the matter and found that the real patron saint of lovers was Athanasius, say, or Norbert? "Here you are, honey, Happy Norbert's Day?" No, no, I'm all for being real and genuine and accurate but in this, let's just carry on as always.

One more thing: Until my last haircut, I'd not heard about this gold rose thing. The woman who cuts my hair receives a gold rose from her husband every February 14, and she was telling me he wanted to give her a silver one this year because it would make a nice contrast, and she told him he was wrong, gold and silver don't go together, it doesn't work that way. We both agreed that men are clueless about such things. I went home and checked it out and found you can get a gold rose for about 60 bucks, which is roughly what a really nice bouquet of real roses might cost. Personally I think the real ones are the way to go. Gold roses are made by taking a once-real rose and electroplating the damn thing. I think that's a horrible, torturous thing to do to a rose. Flowers are ephemeral—it's one of the things that makes them charming. You might as well give someone a rose that was mummified.

At any rate, let me belatedly say that if your life is blessed with the love of which the poets speak, then good for you. If you have something going on that works for you okay, that's also nice. If there's someone you remember wistfully, someone you hope will be happy forever, well, that's love too, isn't it? Or maybe you have a pet that you love, or a place, or a piece of music, or a moment in a piece of music—whatever moves you, whatever becomes a part of you, somehow. I don't know what you call those feelings if you don't call them love.

And if you're thinking back over the your love life, cataloging the good bits, you might even feel free to think about someone you encountered just for a moment once, might you not? I was walking down a sidewalk years ago, and a young woman came winging around a corner fast enough that her handbug swung out and some sort of pen or eyeliner or something came out and clattered on the ground. She didn't notice, so I picked it up, called to her, and offered it. She turned around and stopped— tall, she was, pretty, with raven hair. When she realized I was giving her back this thing she'd dropped, she gave me an absolutely dazzling smile. "Merci," she said, took it, and continued briskly on her way. That was in Paris, actually, on a warm, sunny day long ago.

So! Anyway. Valentine's Day was yesterday, today is the 15th and it's time for breakfast.