Be Mine

145mm 1/80 sec f/5.0 ISO 1600

Valentine's Day is upon us, and it is a much older, more complicated holiday than many people realize. The holiday celebrates St. Valentine, though which St. Valentine one is celebrating is murky since the Catholic Church has numerous martyred saints who can claim the title. There was the Valentine who, as legend has it, defied a Roman decree, and secretly married young lovers even though Claudius II forbid those marriages because he needed single men for soldiers. (Claudius II was far more into having young men become soldiers than husbands and fathers.) There was also the Valentine who helped imprisoned Christians escape out of deplorable Roman jails. The Romans weren't fond of Christians, and saw no problem in jailing and beating them routinely. Early Christianity was also in a hurry to put a stop to those pesky pagan rituals that Roman culture was so fond of. There is a belief that placing Valentine's Day in the middle of February was the result of Christians trying to rid the world of the celebration of Lupercalia which took place on February 15. Lupercalia was a fertility festival involving the usual sacrifices of animals (in this case goats and dogs), blood and hides and purification all for the sake of fertility for the women in the city for the coming year. In the legend, the young women would place their names in an urn, and the single men would choose a name and be paired with that woman. These pairings often ended in marriage, though one could clearly see how this wasn't the way the Catholic church wanted marriages to happen.

While Lupercalia made it through the initial onslaught of Christianity, it was finally outlawed by Pope Gelasius when he decided February 14 should be St. Valentine's Day. It took awhile for Valentine's Day to be associated with love and romance. It helped that, in the Middle Ages, France and England thought February 14 was the start of mating season for birds. Perfectly logical jump from birds getting all flirtatious as winter winds down to humans celebrating true love in February.

200mm 1/400 sec f/5.6 ISO 140

I have mixed feelings about Valentine's Day. There are the happy memories of elementary school and the boxes we would make in class to hold the valentines distributed by classmates. I remember my second grade year fondly, and my boyfriend, Craig. Things were going along swimmingly as the year began, and we comfortably became a couple. This was acknowledged by our classmates, and our teacher, for that matter, since a harmless romance as seven year olds was not met with the over-the-top paranoia that embraces the public schools in the 21st century. Yes, we could hold hands at recess. I came out of this pre-pre-pubescent romance unscathed, as I have to assume Craig has too. Sadly, our romance was briefly interrupted when Craig was hit by a car while crossing the road to get on the school bus one late-fall morning. My mother was driving me to school that morning since I had missed my bus, and we passed the accident. I remember the shock of his injured little body lying on the road as we passed, and the sight of the ambulance that would get him to the hospital. That day at school was spent worrying about Craig, and my classmates did the appropriate amount of consoling me because, really, our relationship was pretty damn serious for a couple of seven year olds. Craig missed two months of school while he recovered, and he returned to school not long before Valentine's Day.

The day he came back was met with great joy and relief, and a whole lot of happiness on my part. We resumed our recess hand holding as though nothing had interrupted it. A few days before Valentine's Day, right after snack time, out came the construction paper and paste, the red glitter and scraps of paper lace. Craig and I sat at one of the craft tables and adorned our shoe boxes with all the hearts and glitter and paper lace that they could hold. How can one not be nostalgic for all those wee valentines? And the conversation heart boxes and bright red lollipops shaped like hearts taped to the valentines? Every treat declaring "Be Mine" and "True Love" and "Friends Forever." And there were the cookies. Soft, cakey sugar cookies with pink icing. Forget the graham cracker and milk snack for one festive day; pink frosted cookies and milk for everyone.

200mm 1/400 sec f/5.6 ISO 140

Of course, people grow up and forget how much fun it is to sit next to someone you love and sprinkle glitter all over big, red hearts. The hope of romance and true love as an adult get dragged about until that hope is often unrecognizable. Fast forward from the halcyon days of second grade love in 1971 to February of 1983, and a viciously timed rejection the week before Valentine's Day. Yes, I should have seen it coming when the man I'd been dating for months asked in early January if I minded if he was seeing someone else as he was also seeing me. He had never gone out with two women at the same time, he said, and he wanted to be honest about it. In hindsight I should have scornfully laughed in his face, said a hearty, "Uh, hell, no, what a stupid idea!", and fled the scene. But, no, I said it was fine, and kept seeing him until, a few days after a Friday night date to see the movie Gandhi, he called to say he needed to talk to me, and came over to my apartment and announced he had chosen the other woman. Again, a little dignity would have been a swell idea, but, no, I cried too much and made him feel way more desired than was necessary, and off he went while I was left with the vase full of carnations, just starting to wither, that he always brought me before each date we went on. I will go to my grave not wanting to see another bouquet full of carnations. I sadly made it through that miserable week, a week that was full of flowery billboards and endless commercials with diamond rings and roses and restaurants offering up reservation packages for dinner on "that special night with that special someone!" I cried on a girlfriend's shoulder, I cried on my sister's shoulder (who wanted to take the cad out in a gallant fist fight in my honor. Every ounce of the not-so-feminine tomboy in her probably could have.) I cried on the phone to my father, who consoled and consoled and agreed with the cruelty of the timing. (I am sure, though, that my father was quite relieved as he really did not like the guy. There was my former beloved's dismissal of the beauty of attending the opera, which alone was enough to incur my father's wrath. The unforgivable nail in the coffin was when, after he spent Thanksgiving Day with me and my sister and my father and my father's partner, he proceeded to ask if, "Anyone mind if I use a toothpick?", pulled one out of his pocket, and, well, used it to chomp around on. My father went rigid with horror and disgust.)

While future Valentine's Day celebrations have not been as lousy as the one in 1983, I don't think that any have been as nice and carefree as the one spent at school with a healthy, recovered Craig. I mean, come on, who needs a Valentine's Day like the one I had in 1986 with another useless boyfriend who signed a card with just his name, and said the missing "I love you" was implied. Cracked himself up saying that. My dignity won that time, and that was the beginning of the end of that relationship.

May your Valentine's Days be filled with the sweetness of a Craig. With hand holding and innocent romance unsullied by some fool who decides he needs to keep his options open if you're, ultimately, just not good enough for him. And whether you're seven or seventy, always, always remember that you are good enough for anyone who truly deserves you.