Valentine's Day

According to Wikipedia, the day of Saint Valentine's association with romantic love began in the dark and encumbering middle ages when courtly love was all the rage.

So what then is courtly love?

In medieval Europe, "courtly love" was a chivalrous conception used to describe the ways in which members of nobility expressed admiration for one another (Additional note: Sources say this admiration was the kind not practiced between husband and wife). Although its interpretation has been misused and debated, the advancements of courtly love has been connoted as being erotic, passionate, humiliating, and transcendent.

Valentine's day is what we consider today to be a celebration of 'love' or the pursuit of something resembling love through the transactions of words, gifts, and precarious thoughts, that can either result in great success or mortifying moments.

I guess we could say that not much has changed from the times of when our ancestors still walked on their neighborhood streets filled with their own waste and other unmentionables.

Although I have someone I consider to have a special relationship with, the matter of gifts and the symbolism they may hold for him or me remains to be too boggling for me to ruminate on (Or rather that I haven't bought anything and doubt highly he has thought about it at all). Tomorrow, I shall choose to leave the absurdities of courtly love behind, leaving them within the pages of the Cantabury Tales, and not take the chance of being humiliated.

Happy Valentine's day everyone, especially Emma