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Thoughts On Valentine's Day From The Desert Sage

Photo by: Nathan J. Fish

Commentary: It was 8:15 p.m. on Valentine’s Day, a busy hour on a busy night for restaurants; but all was quiet at Walgreens, where I stood at checkout with a bottle of wine I had judiciously paired with a can of Progresso soup.

A young man of 25 to 30 walked in hurriedly, looked into a nearly empty bucket, and behind pleading eyes asked, “Are these the only flowers left?”

The cashier and I, two older males, regarded him with sympathy. “Last minute gets last pick,” the cashier said. The younger man shrank a foot in height and departed, probably to try his luck at Walmart if he had not been there already. Or a gas station. It’s true: Last minute gets last pick.

You can’t tell most young men anything. Otherwise, I might have suggested that with some creative imagination, a Walgreens on a Friday night offered ample ingredients for something thoughtful, perhaps offbeat but still unique and memorable, even if assembled late.

Depending on which survey you believe, Americans like Valentine’s Day more than Christmas yet 30 percent of us would be happy to forget it altogether. In either case, the notion of a day to celebrate love, affection and eros seems to be popular, while opting out remains an option.

It takes its place beside Christmas as a consumerist event, with the National Retail Federation projecting Americans will spend $27.4 billion on their valentines (or their friends) in 2020, and there is a marketplace ready for people with crammed schedules and a bit of room left on their credit cards.

Sometimes people criticize the commercialization of the holiday, yet what do we think has been displaced? The legends of Valentine’s Day are historically somewhat tenuous.

Its connection to the gory rites of Lupercalia in ancient Rome, with its sacrifices of goats and puppies followed by whipping people with strips of fresh goat hide, seems to please our imaginations, possibly because we do not have outlets like that.

It is sad to imagine what the 21st century commercial version of that tradition would resemble: A semi-nude man running into Walgreens, late, frantically selecting one of the manufactured faux-leather whips near the counter and a plastic bottle of gluten-free sacrificial blood?

The legend of women putting their names into earthen jars to be selected by lottery for coupling may have been fabricated, and as for Saint Valentine and the true reason Pope Gelasius declared the feast day for him — well, we have more legends and disputed connections than historical certainty.

Yet the day has a permanent place on the calendar, and those who do not give themselves permission to decline the appointment often feel pressured to comply. The problem is not so much the commercialization of love and sex as this pseudo-bureaucratic requirement to present something. This is not necessarily a true expression of love and intimacy, which can be explored in solitude as well as in a relationship.

What I do know is that in the parking lot of Walgreens, as I departed, my attention was caught by a man sitting in the vehicle next to mine, moving his hands vigorously. He had an iPad propped against the steering wheel, and on the screen was another man conversing with him in sign language.  

These devices and social networks are often blamed for reducing human contact, yet here was a reminder of how useful they are for bridging distances and helping humans connect.

So where does Valentine’s Day come from? Heck if we know. Much like love.

And we retain the option not to buy into the hype, to explore our feelings adventurously and take stock of our relationships on our own terms.

 

Algernon D'Ammassa's columns appear weekly in the Las Cruces Sun-News. Follow him on Twitter at @AlgernonWrites.