"I wouldn't put up with that for one second."

One of the great songs from the Great American Songbook is "My Funny Valentine" by Rodgers and Hart. Every time I hear it, I think of the woman whose response to hearing the song or to someone's making a reference to it or something was that she "wouldn't put up with that for one second."

For those of you who don't know, the lyrics --- like so much of Rodgers and Hart --- are a gently ironic but wholeheartedly sentimental expression of love; love not because the subject of it is handsome or brilliant but because he is loved. In the words of the song, "Every day is Valentine's Day."

But for some, maybe for many, and especially these days, the way the song gets there is unacceptable, not a way that self-sufficient, no-one-pushes-me-around, in-charge types can tolerate:

      "Your looks are laughable,
     Unphotographable.
   
     Is your figure less than Greek?
     Is your mouth a little weak?
     When you open it to speak
     Are you smart?"

The irony is that the woman in my story is a heart-breakingly pretty, reasonably smart, highly competent person with a compelling personality, a born leader, whose fortunate combination of characteristics has helped make her a great success in the world.

Which gets us to the point. As is true in so much of Rodgers and Hart, we are reminded that no one is perfect and that love is not earned but given.

No one is perfect, not even the smartest or the prettiest or the wisest or the most athletic or the most talented: No one gets everything.We all have strengths and weaknesses. We all have flaws, no matter how wonderful we are. We all possess wondrous characteristics no matter how flawed we are.

I don't know if it's true that making a list of desirable characteristics is an activity that is more common among women than among men. It's certainly true that in movies, it is much more often portrayed as an activity of women. But whoever is doing it is making a mistake. Desirable characteristics may logically lead us to make practically beneficial decisions, including advantageous or pleasurable marriages, but they have nothing to do with how and why we give our hearts.

Which gets us back to the song. The singer says, "Your looks are laughable, unphotographable. But you're my favorite work of art." After asking her rhetorical questions, the singer says, "But don't change a hair for me, not if you care for me, stay little valentine, stay! Each day is Valentine's Day."

We are not loved because we have earned it but because love has been given. Despite our desire to control our lives, there is precious little we can do to ensure that someone else will love us. And despite our desire to control the lives of other people, it is absolutely wrong to work at making other people become what we think is lovable.

What an amazing blessing that anyone would think of any of us this way, as "my favorite work of art." To know us in all our pain and foolishness and selfishness and still say "don't change a hair for me, not if you care for me."

That would be, you know, like awesome.

And devoutly to be wished.








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