As holidays go, Valentine's Day is pretty benign, the hard edge of its marketability blunted a little by its theme: loving other human beings. Even if the emotion is extruded Hallmark sentimentality served up in an FTD reusable Merlin Olsen vase, at least it has some sweetness to it, some light and carbonation.
The heart is a versatile organ. A millennium ago people were said to feel their affectionate vibrations in their livers. But over the years loving has cut its mooring and drifted up to dock at the heart. That happened because while the "guts" are more geared to survival and savvy, the heart offers haven to all those feelings we might call "tender," feelings which might become shredded or displaced if forced to compete with the realpolitik of the guts. It's an an ascension from bile to rhythm, from digestion to cadence.
We find this "heart" so necessary to a full sense of who we are that we've worked it all through our language and our actions. Look on bumper stickers: it's there, from New York to golden retrievers. When we want to talk ideas, we have a tête-à-tête, but when we want to talk about important stuff, we have a heart to heart. When we are depressed, we're sick at heart; when we're happy, we're light-hearted. The core of anything is its heart: the heart of the matter, music from the hearts of space. (In fact, "core" comes from the Latin word for "heart," which is "cord." Shakespeare doubles the sincerity of the heart when he talks about the "middle of the heart" in Cymbeline as a person's inmost conviction.) If something is the way I like it, it's "after my own heart." To cheer up is "to be of good heart." To know something cold is to "learn it by heart." To have courage is "to take heart." I make an oath to be faithful "with all my heart." If I am determined, I have "set my heart upon it." There are damages to the heart: heart-breaker, heart-rending, a broken heart. And the heart becomes fearful: my heart fell to my shoes, my heart is in my mouth.
We should take the lead given to us by Valentine's Day and make an effort to rediscover the heart, our heart, not only the thumping blood-rich cache of our individual feelings but also the collective heart that hammers our ribs, dervishes the wind, and moves the ocean. Charles Siebert, in the February 1990 Harper's, likens our modern problems to a kind of cultural heart attack. The image is apt because for us to regain our health we are going to need to give ourselves the equivalent of cultural heart therapy: fruitful exercise, a regimen of humor and common sense, and, above all, a diet of connections. In our heart of hearts, we know exactly that this is what we need to do.
Bathtub Madonnas
Obscene Phone Call