Love, and I mean real love, not the trite and glittering pap that most of us spend so much time convincing ourselves of, comes in waves, like wind thrown through trees, down, into a valley, or armies moving on a town.
There is, first, the crush, with its unbelievable buoyancy and weight, the teetering uncertainty. A crush is like a game in an imaginary fort: an attack and repel, but a deadly game because all your life's hope depends on the result. If the crush is successful it would, I suppose, lead to a relationship. But what an awful word, relationship, what a terrible register. Success and relationship are as much the language of business as "attack and repel" are of war. What a horrible thing I have done. But, what a violence love can be. Perhaps the second wave of love is ... rebirth? I don't like the sound of that either, it smacks of sandalwood and hemp-woven clothes. Clogs and patchwork pants. Theodor Adorno once said that there was no love that was not an echo. The echo returns, yes, but marked, warped somewhat by the reflecting shape; our love smacks against us, showing who we are in the presence of the loved one. A crush consummated is rebirth if only in that we leave our caves and need show something of ourselves. We see ourselves in our lover's eyes, in each arch of back and increase in pulse. Why else is love so awkward at its most significant? The self laid bare, as it were, in bed, and on the sidewalk, with each gesture and word.
Love is a tricky fucker. After long, the crush-consummated becomes something else, and the selves involved do as well. Habits change: meal times, sleeping patterns. Why sleep on your side when you can sleep curled against the one you love? There is some intrinsic beauty in loosing part of yourself to someone else, and gaining some other person inside you. It isn't always bad to bend.
There is, first, the crush, with its unbelievable buoyancy and weight, the teetering uncertainty. A crush is like a game in an imaginary fort: an attack and repel, but a deadly game because all your life's hope depends on the result. If the crush is successful it would, I suppose, lead to a relationship. But what an awful word, relationship, what a terrible register. Success and relationship are as much the language of business as "attack and repel" are of war. What a horrible thing I have done. But, what a violence love can be. Perhaps the second wave of love is ... rebirth? I don't like the sound of that either, it smacks of sandalwood and hemp-woven clothes. Clogs and patchwork pants. Theodor Adorno once said that there was no love that was not an echo. The echo returns, yes, but marked, warped somewhat by the reflecting shape; our love smacks against us, showing who we are in the presence of the loved one. A crush consummated is rebirth if only in that we leave our caves and need show something of ourselves. We see ourselves in our lover's eyes, in each arch of back and increase in pulse. Why else is love so awkward at its most significant? The self laid bare, as it were, in bed, and on the sidewalk, with each gesture and word.
Love is a tricky fucker. After long, the crush-consummated becomes something else, and the selves involved do as well. Habits change: meal times, sleeping patterns. Why sleep on your side when you can sleep curled against the one you love? There is some intrinsic beauty in loosing part of yourself to someone else, and gaining some other person inside you. It isn't always bad to bend.