No matter how you say it ...

Soul Food

“Cupid, doves and the sweet scent of love,” an advertisement I got in

the mail proposed around the end of January.

That’s Valentine’s Day speak for perfume, a perfume so singular

and extraordinary “He’ll fall for the promise it’s sweet scent

imparts.”

Fall for that? I didn’t.

I know the scent of a pot roast, or maybe some scampi, is worth

far more at my house. And, heck, it costs far less. Cupid, shoot me

with your arrow. Valentine’s Day is here again.

For years and years, I never once wondered what St. Valentine had

to do the day. As a school girl I simply took the day for the fun it

was. I exchanged cards, homemade or five-and-dime stock, and shared

sugary conversation hearts with my friends. Sometimes, like our

mother, my sister and I got big, red, heart-shaped boxes of

chocolates. Mother’s box would be topped with paper roses and lace.

Ours would each be topped with a shapely, plastic doll with starlet

looks in an evening dress -- a forerunner to Barbie.

That was a whole lot of hoopla for us in the 1950s. Now, every

year, it seems to me, Valentine’s Day becomes a bigger and bigger

commercial fest. Anything and everything, from greeting cards to

chocolates, from diamonds to perfume, from bustiers of silk and lace

to boxer shorts printed with devilish cupids, candy or hearts, is

marketed as means to win your valentine’s heart.

The title “saint” has been dropped from the name of the day on

most, if not all, calendars. Which is just as well, I guess. Whatever

the relationship between the holiday and a saint named Valentine, the

bond has long been lost or obscured.

By most accounts there was at least one early Christian saint, and

martyr, whose name the day was given. Some accounts mention two

saints by the name.

Some, like the Catholic Encyclopedia, mention three, each martyrs

-- one a priest in Rome, one a bishop of Terni, one a Christian who

suffered and died for his faith in Africa, but of whom little else is

known.

The long-traditional focus of Valentine’s Day, on romance and the

wooing of a “valentine,” is explained in one of two ways. Many

encyclopedias and the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church

correlate the celebration, its date and its customs with the ancient

Roman fertility feast called Lupercalia.

By most accounts, St. Valentine’s Day is seen as the Christian

church’s attempt to displace the pagan celebration. The Catholic

Encyclopedia does not mention Lupercalia, though. It attributes the

romantic overtones associated with Valentine’s Day to literature and

courting customs that came out of the Middle Ages.

It claims, “[These customs] undoubtedly had their origin in a

conventional belief generally received in England and France during

the Middle Ages, that on 14 February, i.e. half way through the

second month of the year, the birds began to pair.”

According to the encyclopedia, both French and English literature

of the time alludes to the correlation between this behavior among

birds and certain social customs in courtship. It gives an example

from Chaucer’s “The Parliament of Foules.”

“For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day/Whan every foul cometh

ther to choose his mate,” wrote Chaucer in his tale.

And so, says the Catholic Encyclopedia, St. Valentine’s Day came

to be consecrated to lovers and regarded as a fitting occasion to

send love letters and other tokens love and devotion to one’s

beloved.

Whatever its origin, it customs have stayed, doggedly, with us.

Whatever its origin it’s as good a day as any to let those you love,

and those who love you, know your days are richer because of them.

It’s as good a day as any to say, I love you.

Whether you say it with a card or with chocolate; whether you say

it with diamonds or flowers; whether you say it with perfume or with

pot roast or scampi, why not say it?

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].