[lit-ideas] Valentine's Day Meditations
- From: Paul Stone <pas@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 14:22:29 -0500
AA:Anybody need any more evidence that (outside of a committed
relationship) sex and love are all but mutually exclusive? If power of
one form or another was taken out of sex, lust, for that matter even
interest in sex, would disappear. Not changing the subject. Lust, power,
war they're all on the same continuum.
Yesterday, as I returned from lunch, I drove through our town, and being
the day that it was, there were countless "couples" of high school kids
walking arm in arm with all manner of balloons, teddy bears, some even with
flowers. It seemed more about the 'love' than the sex. I remembered fondly
the innocent handing out of valentines when we were in school. In the
interest of fairness, we HAD to give one to every person of the opposite
sex, but we could be especially smoochy to the girls we really liked. The
same applied to girls. It was kind of nice to find 14 or 15 valentines in
our little construction-paper sleeves hung at the back of the room with our
names on it. It was an easy measure of who 'really' liked whom.
So, as i was driving down the mile or so of main road near the High School,
after the first three or four groups of people, I started to look carefully
at some of them and wondered to myself: "wow, wouldn't it be nice to be
that oblivious again" and then I began to wonder if it might not just be
better to marry the first person who comes along and be done with it.
{perish that though!}
It would sure take the hurt out of it for so many people. But then I
thought, yeah, but that HURT's so good sometimes. It's necessary. It's
normal. It's not REALLY traumatic.
Ironically, at the time I was listening to a song on the radio that goes
like this:
"Goodbye My Lover"
Did I disappoint you or let you down?
Should I be feeling guilty or let the judges frown?
'Cause I saw the end before we'd begun,
Yes I saw you were blinded and I knew I had won.
So I took what's mine by eternal right.
Took your soul out into the night.
It may be over but it won't stop there,
I am here for you if you'd only care.
You touched my heart you touched my soul.
You changed my life and all my goals.
And love is blind and that I knew when,
My heart was blinded by you.
I've kissed your lips and held your head.
Shared your dreams and shared your bed.
I know you well, I know your smell.
I've been addicted to you.
Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
I am a dreamer but when I wake,
You can't break my spirit - it's my dreams you take.
And as you move on, remember me,
Remember us and all we used to be
I've seen you cry, I've seen you smile.
I've watched you sleeping for a while.
I'd be the father of your child.
I'd spend a lifetime with you.
I know your fears and you know mine.
We've had our doubts but now we're fine,
And I love you, I swear that's true.
I cannot live without you.
Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
And I still hold your hand in mine.
In mine when I'm asleep.
And I will bare my soul in time,
When I'm kneeling at your feet.
Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.
I'm so, I'm so, I'm so hollow.
I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.
I'm so, I'm so, I'm so hollow.
<end>
As I drove, I looked into the face of a young girl as she giggled playfully
while her boyfriend tickled her side and I thought about how wonderful it
might be if we never lost that. My mind flooded with memories of how
absolutely "TRAGIC" it seemed to my sister when she broke up with each
successive boyfriend in her highschool years: "My life is OVER, DAD!" I
also remembered how positively UNTRAGIC it was for me in each successive
instance of doing the breaking up in my early relationships. The familiar
dichotomy of women nesting and men forever prowling was suddenly upon me
again. Sex/Love mutually exclusive? Maybe for kids. Maybe they don't even
think about the sex.
As I turned off the main street, away from the throng of [temporarily]
happy yoots, I thought that it really WAS tragic that we [most of us in
today's society anyway] had to be "jilted" so many times in search of
Mr./Mrs. Right. It so rarely works out anymore, but maybe because it wasn't
really meant to. Most people have those 'lovers' who they still remember
fondly, and I'm beginning to think it's a little bit sad, albeit necessary
that that's the case.
Irene might be right that that sex for its own sake is completely exclusive
from love -- "not that there's anything wrong with that" -- but I also know
that it is completely possible to have great sex with great love and great
love, without sex. I tend to disagree that they are mutually exclusive --
except maybe in adolescents. Part of becoming an adult may be figuring this
out. Part of figuring it out may be losing that someone whom you might not
have treated as you should have, maybe they treated you in ways you didn't
consider appropriate.
Valentine's day exists for what? Other than to sell shit, maybe it just
sort of reminds us that we should try to be sweet and show at least the
signs of what some might think of as "love" of our current partner. Maybe
if we still giggled and tickled, we wouldn't be so quick to jump into the
next relationship while still singing "goodbye my lover" to the ones whose
smell we remember so fondly.
so hollow,
paul
##########
Paul Stone
pas@xxxxxxxx
Kingsville, ON, Canada
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