Valentine’s Day & Who taught you what Love is?

2/14/2022 

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I understand that Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree is a classic. I even understand what he is saying in his picture book – love is about giving. However, I never read it to my kids because the message is weirdly dangerous, especially for women. Love should not turn us into old stumps.

I’ve been looking again at what I thought love was when I was a young person looking for it. I’ve been looking again at how I offered and received love through my adult life. I’ve come to this realization. A whole lot of what we were fed in the movies, novels, and church were a bunch of lies that made life easier and richer for others.

If looking for love means being pretty or handsome there are multibillion dollar industries to attend to that. Stop wearing baggy clothes, which are comfortable, amirite? Now Danny sees Sandy for the first time and they will be hopelessly devoted to each other forever. We know this plot, right?

These stories are props for powerful economic systems. As long as half the society is ready to pick up all the pieces of life, the rich can walk away with the wealth.

I mean, why else is agribusiness supported but childcare is ‘go it alone’? Why is the military more than 50% of our budget but education less than 10%?  Do we understand that women in the military surrounded by all those “valiant heroes” are more likely to be raped than women not in the military?

By inundating us with images of romantic love we have learned to expect love to make us happy, content, and okay with being smiled at and then set to the side. We breathe in a zillion stories and images that are all some iteration of catch and release of love partners. Throw in a lot of contextless rules about how wives and husbands should protect the sanctity of the marriage and the family, blame them if situations and kids go south. If people feel stress they can buy a product or service for relaxing – and then let the systems of power roll on.

Nothing I’m saying is new. But look back over your own life. What story, TV show, movie, or character urged you to discover your internal gifts, skills, and passions?  How many shows have you seen about lab techs? How many about cops? How many about sustainable farmers (there are a few)? How many about classical musicians? How many about criminal defense lawyers vs how many about social workers who help people build new lives after incarceration? 

I don’t mean to be wishing you a cranky Valentines Day. I do want to remind us to be wary of messages that come at us.

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Where is media asking better questions? Here’s a place to start. Let’s stop criticizing ourselves for “falling down rabbit holes” on the internet.  Often better artists, better questions, better sources of real knowledge about life now - are in the rabbit holes.

This is a Vimeo video that has won some awards. The film maker, Heidi Saman, is also the producer of Terry Gross’s Fresh Air, which is the rabbit hole that led me here.

This story revolves around the perceptions and knowledge of a maid in a modern, middle-class Egyptian family in Cairo. It reminds me of Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” – in case you watched that movie a few years ago. (Nominated for an Oscar Best Picture and did win Best Foreign Language Film, 2018.)

Servants know a family in ways the family itself doesn’t see or want to see. Servants become our eyes on a culture.

 In The Maid, Rasha serves and interacts with the women in the family with affection. She also sees where the lies are. I’ve watched this video several times and am still intrigued by how Rasha sees, protects, and calls out both the love and the dishonesty around her.  At the same time, she, too, is seeking love. Good questions.

The ending of the video is an old woman hanging clean clothes as she sings to herself, “Love is like this.” 

Best Greek chorus ever.

https://vimeo.com/136439908  And hey, it’s only twenty minutes long.

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Happy Valentines Day. I wish you a good meal, good chocolate, and good questions.