In the Shape of a Heart
By Mike Haskins
Of all the four letter words, none has ever caused the disruption, despair, or cruelty and pain of the one we celebrate each February. Red is its banner. Flowers and candy, something shiny and new, a card with words romantic, sweet, and witty we wish we’d written. We seek to connect, reassure, and woo. We make gestures, go to dinner, and occasionally paint the sides of water tanks. All for …
L-O-V-E
Valentine’s Day has a long and contradictory history. It has religious origins and medieval misconceptions, layered over time with commerce, ritual, hope, and disappointment.
The first valentines were anything but sweet. In Victorian England, it was widely popular to send what were called “vinegar valentines.” They insulted and mocked appearance, social status, or behavior. To make it better, they were anonymous. Victorian trolling, sent by post. A reminder that even in the age of lace and etiquette, people found ways to be cruel from a safe distance.
Chocolate entered the picture later, but not accidentally. Richard Cadbury introduced the first heart shaped chocolate box in 1861 and, in doing so, accidentally created keepsake culture. Chocolate itself carried symbolism. Cocoa contains compounds that stimulate serotonin and dopamine. It was believed to be an aphrodisiac. Early chocolate boxes were marketed as luxury emotional gifts, not as snacks. At the time, the agreed upon knowledge was that candy was quicker. Faster to give. Faster to feel.
But before Valentine’s Day became a commercial juggernaut, it had a founder of sorts. And she was not a corporation.
Who we should think of is Esther Howland.
If Valentine’s Day had a founder, she was it.
In the 1840s, she received a valentine. It was elaborate, beautiful, and expensive. It was imported, which meant Americans were paying extra for sentiments shipped across the Atlantic. What Esther saw was not just romance, but inefficiency.
She began making cards herself. Her early cards ranged from simple to extravagant. They ranged in price from a few cents to fifty dollars, roughly fifteen hundred dollars in today’s money.
Esther was inspired and had incredible insight. Americans wanted romance, but they wanted it locally made and socially acceptable. They wanted permission, not poetry lessons.
Thus, she became an entrepreneur at a first class level, importing lace paper and many other supplies. Then she made a move almost unheard of. She hired a workforce exclusively of women and set up an assembly line like operation. She ran her business out of her family home, essentially launching a nineteenth century startup from her living room.
At a time when women could not vote and could not easily own property, Esther Howland was negotiating with suppliers, managing labor, controlling distribution, and shaping national tastes. By the late eighteen hundreds, cards, candy, and capitalism had formed a partnership with Cupid.
And from there, Valentine’s Day filtered down. Out of factories and storefronts, and into our homes, classrooms, and rituals.
Our traditions have changed with time and social mores, as all traditions do. Taping a brown paper lunch sack to the back of your school desk chair so the kids in class could drop their valentines in. The careful checking afterward. The small joy or quiet disappointment of what landed inside.
Candy hearts that once said Sweetheart, True Love, Be Mine became Fax Me, Email Me, Pager, all unironically. Today, perhaps they are as likely to say Tinder as they are to say Tender. Romance always seems to borrow the language of whatever technology we are pretending will make it easier.
When we think of Valentine’s Day now, one brand that comes immediately to mind is Hallmark. You know, the folks who bring us “moments,” and those Christmas movies about a struggling gingerbread bakery about to be part of a hostile takeover by a big city worldwide conglomerate. Spoiler alert, only an old girlfriend from high school can save the day. And she works for the big city company.
Hallmark did not invent Valentine’s Day, but it perfected the packaging of it. The assurance that love could be distilled, printed, scheduled, and mailed. That there was a right card, a right tone, and a right ending.
Still, we make our plans. Feeling both the confluence and conflict of emotions. As vulnerable as a child expressing our heart’s desires. As strong as a man can be by doing so.
Valentine’s Day asks us to perform love while pretending we are not. Some express defiance of the calendar telling us to express our affection with crass commercial cliche. Because “I don’t need someone else to be complete.” And yet, we show up anyway.
We can feel trapped by expectations and fear falling short with the words or token, while at the same time wanting so much to nail it, to make that someone feel what we feel for them.
Why do we do it? Why let a day in the middle of February, in the dead of winter, spur us to offer our hearts? Valentine’s Day is still one of the top three days of the year for marriage proposals, and we know that over fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. The others end in death.
In the hierarchy of human needs, love and belonging sit just below food, water, and safety. Simply put, we can’t live without it. That love is not limited to romance, but includes friendship, family, chosen family, and even the ways we learn to love ourselves. Still, as George Strait sings,
If you ain’t lovin’
Then you ain’t livin’
Why do we do it when we know heartbreak is more common than happiness? I think the answer may be in an old joke, most famous for its appearance in the 1977 film Annie Hall.
A guy walks into a psychiatrist’s office and says, “Hey doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken.”
The doc says, “Why don’t you turn him in?”
The guy replies, “I would, but I need the eggs.”
Love, finding it, keeping it. Romantic relationships, when you stop to think about them, are really out there. There are no guarantees, no set of rules to follow, and no two are the same. You have to take a leap without any idea how deep the water is.
It’s nonsensical.
But we need the eggs.
Here’s to a great omelet.
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