It is that time of year again. Your local cinema is suddenly featuring Hugh Grant. Hospitality workers everywhere are practising deep breathing exercises and shipping containers filled with roses are making their way across the oceans from South America and Africa to suburban shopping centres – the apex destination for all our romantic needs.
About 5m rose stems are bestowed in Australia each year on 14 February, according to the Australian Flower Traders Association. This sounds like a lot but roses are typically given by the dozen or more, so only a fraction of the population are chosen in this ceremony. Take pity or comfort in this wherever you sit at the intersection of romance and capitalism. If there’s no rose from your fabled secret admirer, solidarity – we are the 99%.
At one of the high schools I attended, the awkward fervour of Valentine’s Day was harnessed in a school flower drive. Students could send single roses ($5) or carnations ($2) to their crush, sweetie or BFF. As in 15th-century Persia and Victorian England, at my school floriography (the language of flowers) was practised to express truths that could not be spoken: I have a crush on you but we are not of the same status; I am a devotee of popularity and must declare allegiance to my leader lest the fragile hierarchy fall; we are two people of the same status doing something that is expected of us; and, I guess, some less loaded expressions of affection, too.
Flowers were delivered theatrically by senior students during class time. Names were called and, coyly, the adored student boldly approached the front of the room to collect their flower from a wicker basket. The accumulation of multiple roses conveyed high social standing. I recall one beacon of popularity claiming demurely to “like carnations better” as her schoolbag gaped around a conspicuous bouquet of individually wrapped roses.
But the absence of a rose, or even (eye roll) a carnation, spoke loudest of all. To this day I cannot watch that centrepiece of heteronormative camp theatrics – The Bachelor franchise – without feeling the dual disavowal and yearning of my tween years. The rose remains a thorny sceptre ceremoniously anointing the chosen.
This mild trauma response pales in comparison to the fear a maiden in ancient Rome would develop after years of lining up to be whipped with the hide of a recently slain dog by a drunk naked man for the feast of Lupercalia – the first recorded holiday marking the date.
Over the centuries we’ve toned it down. We put our clothes back on (at least in public). We sobered up. It’s impossible to explore the history of modern Valentine’s Day traditions without repeating the oft-heard killjoy declaration that the whole thing was invented by greetings card companies. Handmade paper cards gained popularity in the middle ages and, during the industrial era, Hallmark began mass producing them.
If you search the internet for the origins of the rose tradition, the apparent authorities are Interflora and Martha Stewart: two beacons of feminine committal. But red roses as ur-fleur have their symbolic roots planted deep in the soil of mythology. Ancient Greek myth has Aphrodite running through the forest following the screams of her beloved, Adonis, as he was gored by a boar. Whether it was blood from her cut feet that turned white roses red, or her tears mixed with his blood causing roses to bloom from the soil where he lay, we can agree it’s a hell of a way to cultivate a bespoke bouquet.
Flowers, of course, mean nothing in and of themselves, and neither do dates on the calendar. The meanings we burden them with come from myth and desire as readily as consumer spending patterns and global markets.
Perhaps the best antidote to co-option or loneliness this St Valentine’s Day is to honour its namesake: a radical who secretly married young couples to keep men out of the army. Love is anarchic energy. We may not feel chosen but we may choose to love. And to send it in all the directions roses don’t bloom from tears or blood or money.
