Welcome to Musing Interruptus. We are a full 10 days away from Valentine’s Day. Some may say, -so what? While others may be preparing a surprise for a special someone or a plurality of someones. Whatever floats your boat is what I always say. There are those who would shun this day, as love should be celebrated every day. I agree. This is not wrong, especially if the celebration includes the physical expression of love. However, if you are a rebel and resistance is your thing, then Valentine’s Day is a day you should be observing and, why not, even celebrating. Today: What’s to love about Valentine’s Day?
Love has such wonderful expressions. I do not distinguish types of love but feel it is a  continuum, like a river, which flows through me as I swim through it. There are places where love is expressed differently, most likely because of who is on the receiving end. If I had to force my mind to think of types of love, then today I would speak of romantic love, the type that inspires great minds to write and leave a testament of truth for those unlucky or plainly too stupid to appreciate how great it is to fall in love. One such testament is the case of  Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare, my favorite part says:
… Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
That type of love maddens people and causes them to do brave and impulsive things. Including participating in an act of resistance that would one day be observed by some as Valentine’s Day.
Many believe great love has to be sealed with the promise of forever. For those, what better way to do it than through marriage. I will not get into the institution of marriage as a tool to exert control over sexuality, I’ll leave that for our Valentine’s Day episode. Today we will invoke one of the many explanations behind Valentine’s Day, the one most befitting my argument, of course, that of the despotic emperor of Rome, Claudius II, who prohibited marriages to ensure young, unattached soldiers, were available for war. A suffering Roman Empire needed all the soldiers they could get, but a priest named Valentine would marry the young men in secret, thus ensuring they could bind themselves to their beloved forever. An act against the ruler and Rome itself. A rebellion against control.  Our priest Valentine was sentenced to death! As his acts were certainly acts of treason.
This February 14th, join the resistance and fall in love, buy that special someone chocolate, diamonds and flowers, speak sweet nothings to their ears and remember there was a time and a place men were not allowed to marry and two monumental institutions were at odds. I would be remiss if I did not say, we are indeed just pawns and carnage in someone else’s war. But then we wouldn’t celebrate Valentine either. So join me in looking at only one side of the story and resist by falling in love.
What do you think about Valentine’s Day? What other stories behind Valentine’s Day do you know? Are you part of the resistance? I’m listening.

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