For the love of mystery

Portland, Maine has a Valentine’s Day Bandit. Or rather, we have a whole pack of them. But no one has ever ‘fessed up to being responsible for the taping of hundreds of photocopied pink-red hearts all over businesses (and the occasional statue) across the Portland peninsula every Valentine’s Day since Feb. 14, 1976.

Given how many businesses receive the honor in the dark wee hours of the morning every Valentine’s Day, there are clearly several bandits (or Phantoms, according to some) in on the scheme. In recent years there has been a heart flag flying from the 204-year-old Portland Observatory viewable from my window (despite that the historic signal tower is closed in the off season). A huge banner gets draped from the I. M. Pei-designed museum of art. One year there was a heart flag run up the central fire station flagpole (a fire lieutenant denied any knowledge). But none of these people aiding and abetting are making a peep.

The truth is, nobody in Portland wants to know. This is easily the best-kept secret in town, and we like it that way. I have friends who make a point of going out for an early walk the morning of Feb. 14 every year after the Sun is up to be sure to see all the paper hearts before anyone takes them as souvenirs. Though I have to say, they generally remain untouched through the day. I think we have a certain reverence for the taped-up copy paper; it’s an extension of our gratitude and glee toward these people determined to make a whole city feel loved without seeking credit for it.

We crave the mystery. A newspaper reporter covering the story in 2008 confessed the reluctance of everyone in the newsroom to probe deeply, and decided any interview with the bandit would be anonymous. Even in this age of internet hyper-knowledge, investigative journalism, soul-searching, therapy, self-help books, WikiLeaks, science and skepticism — or maybe in part because of those things — we want to keep the identities of these people secret. It’s not quite the same as denial, also rampant in society these days. No, this is a very conscious decision. There is something very satisfying about this particular not-knowing; we don’t need to know by whose hand this event occurs for it to make us feel good. It just does.

As much as we try to understand how to make our relationships more loving, how to make them work, this thing we call ‘love’ is still — at heart — a mystery. Oh sure — when it comes to ‘falling i love’, whether with a newborn baby or a new lover — we can point to all kinds of hormones. We know about genetics and the limbic system, patterns of relating in families of origin, pheromones and sexual response.

But somehow it still feels mysterious. We end up on this planet with this amazing emotion that goes beyond the survival instincts of most animals and we don’t really know how that happened. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. It’s exciting. It unites us (when we remember to let it), kind of like these paper hearts. They tear, fade, fall down, get taken indoors. But we know they’ll be back again. That’s all we really need to know.