Cupid: Miscreant or Just Misunderstood?
Don’t hate the little guy in the toga. Every year, as the drugstore trots out its red doily decorations, all my single friends grumble that there are no more good men/women/sheep out there and threaten to wear black, while all the coupled ones wail about the pressures of expectation and the impossibility of attaining decent restaurant reservations. Whether you blame it on Hallmark or on Cupid– or the elusive St. Valentine, who gets remarkably little attention despite the cavalier appropriation of his name– Valentine’s Day inevitably brings with it enough sighs to fill the sails of a small flotilla.
Nonetheless, I find myself reluctant to join the hordes of Valentine haters. There are many things to love about Valentine’s Day, such as the excuse to wear shocking shades of pink and societal blessing on the consumption of massive quantities of chocolate. But it’s not just gorging oneself on Godiva that makes Valentine’s Day great. No– it’s that little guy in a toga with his quiver at the ready, wreaking havoc across the centuries.
What glorious havoc it is. Where would we be without foolish passions and grand romantic dramas? We wouldn’t have this blog, certainly. We would also lose most of the great literary canon, from Helen’s precipitate flight with Paris straight down to the tangled webs of love and betrayal in “War and Peace”. Jane Austen isn’t the only author to deal with that most human of conditions, love and the inevitable confusions that attend it. Nor is the historical record free from Cupid’s dart. Henry VIII’s amorous peccadilloes resulted in religious and political upheavals whose reverberations can be felt to this day. And who’s to say just how World War II might have turned out had Edward VIII not abandoned crown and throne for the love of Mrs. Simpson. Don’t underestimate Cupid? Those arrows pack a powerful wallop. (Children, don’t try this at home).
Abdications and Reformations may not be all that common, but Valentine’s Day inevitably whips up drama in its wake. Declarations of love, break-ups, lost restaurant reservations… the full panoply of human emotion gets played out, year after year, state after state, town after town, on this one little day, among the paper doilies and the litter of cellophane candy wrappers.
So what I want to know is… what are your Valentine’s Day stories? What was your best Valentine’s Day? And what was your very worst?
Have a very happy Valentine’s Day!
