From the Ecclesiastes—also called Qoheleth in other periods of the Christian and Jewish traditions—comes an admonition about time, human time, that Time that we need to reckon with.
It says, in that prescient voice: there is time to be born, there is time to plant, there is time to heal after being wounded, there is time to dance after sorrowing, there is time to be silent after speaking out, there is time to love even after losing loving again and again, there is time to let ourselves be lost in the universe without the rigidity of rules that do not make us human and humane.
It is Valentine’s—this month being bandied about as the month of love—and it is time to reflect upon what this is, this parcel of Time and the activities of the human heart that goes with it. During this month, we will be bombarded with what I call the commerce of loving, with that conspicuous consumption that goes with capital and that bland, almost unthinking consciousness that goes with it. It in this light that I would like to reflect on the nature of the time for real love against the backdrop of what we are losing—and losing a lot.
I do not want to strip away any great meaning that comes from what I have seen and done in the popular rituals of Valentines Day.
I have had my share of both receiving, more often giving, expensive gifts and dining in lavish restaurants.
At times these rituals can be very meaningful. For someone to save a portion of her or his hard earned paycheck and spend it on someone else is an act deserving of the very least a genuine “thank you”.
To make time and have dinner with someone, in an expensive restaurant or not, with a person or a group of people is more than a kind gesture. It is a thoughtful and a generous act—and both require some self-sacrifice. I will not hesitate to join together these rituals with the act of love. What I want simply is to add to the depth of these gestures, to gain a better understanding and appreciation by revisiting the rituals of loving and by stripping these rituals of those things that do not matter.
These rituals gain a deeper meaning when we think about those who are not able to buy presents because their hard earned paycheck cannot afford them to buy anything but the most basic needs—food and shelter—if at all. A revisiting of these rituals becomes deeper when we become mindful of our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered brothers and sisters who cannot celebrate openly in restaurants for fear of homophobic reactions and retaliations.
Our understanding of these rituals becomes deeper when we think about those who can neither give or spend time because they cannot afford and/or are distanced from their loved ones. The Overseas Filipino Workers, for instance. Or those economic, war and political refugees. Or those with deceased family and friends, incarcerated peoples, undocumented immigrants come to mind. Indeed, being mindful of those that are ‘far from our embraces’ or cannot at all embrace gives meaning to an act that would otherwise be deemed superficial and trite.
Perhaps we can take a serious look at these realities and imagine what it means to be far from the embraces of others during a time where accessibility of travel and communication dis-members us from the joys of aloneness and solitude. If we step away from the most common heteronormative assumptions of love, norms involving the exclusivity between two people, maybe we can get some light and further breakdown these restrictions that are antithetical to love.
Love comes in many forms and relationships. There is love in the building of communities; there is love in the struggling together to demand the rights and livelihood of the community, tears and all, blood and all; there is love in the form of tilling the land like the love of the many tatang, nanang, manong, and manang who grew their own food in their rented farm and in their backyard; there is love in the religious lives of priest and nuns, people who live together for God, who pray together, who eat together; and there is also love in the solitude of those who wish to be alone. This should not be confused with being lonely. It is simply a matter of loving oneself and having a relationship with life itself, troubles and all, joys and all.
Valentines Day for many signify an obligatory romanticism—almost like a facetious ceremony that we are scripted to go through because everyone is doing it in the first place. No, we cannot be party to this kind of empty rituals, empty ceremonies. It high time we put more substance in what we do to celebrate love.
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