Double post!
I have just been writing such sad things lately, but I wanted to share something good (bittersweet, but good) that happened today.
Now, I told a professor of mine at the beginning of the year that I didn't believe in love. He thought that was rather depressing. I thought it was rather realistic. You've read about my family. And if you haven't, don't.
Slowly, that class has been shifting my opinions. I can't read Donne without this sort of sexual glow --a third of which, I confess, owes to his masterful language, another third of which I'll allow to his innuendo. But the final third belongs to his belief in love, and how moving and rich and varied and true but at the same time impossible is his vision of the emotion. Donne is everything I ever wanted to believe in, and witty to boot.
But of course a sweet delivery makes the sense suspect. So I can't say --though I am inching my way back to some kind of acceptance of Christianity, and isn't that strange, that I should make my peace with Christian theology through a libertine poet-- that Donne has made me believe in love.
Actually, it was the old man at the pharmacy today, who just started talking to me. And to be honest, at first I was thinking, jesus christ, get me out of here. But you know, by the end of it--
Well, first it was about his job. And that kind of pulled me in, because some of what he said about taking no leave, never stopping to enjoy or live, working so hard --I see that in my mom. It was like talking to her, under circumstances where she would be honest, and wouldn't try to hide how much her work stresses and scares her.
But then he mentioned his wife. He showed me a picture of her. Sassy looking woman, gorgeous and built with this little unamused look on a face that I pretty much knew would be stunning when she smiled.
He talked about living with her. They met over newspapers (she asked him to hand her one.) She kept the money he gave her in the laundry room; her dog never liked him. She traveled all over the place --he never went, so she told him about it. Loved her money. He used to send her roses. $500 for Christmas, $500 for her birthday.
Had a stroke. Hair went white. Developed Alzheimers.
Died ten years ago, November.
He just kept saying to me, "Never love anything you can't lose." And "God, how I miss that woman. God, how I miss that woman. She was something."
And you know what? I believed him, and I believe he loves her in the great, true, Donne sense.
If there is a heaven, it exists for people like them, and I find myself hoping along with Donne that after you die, your soul goes straight there, no stops, no detours but what you've earned, just plop, no waiting for judgement. It doesn't seem fair to keep those two apart any longer than life must.
He said he wondered why he was still around, said how he'd never planned to outlive her. And this is egotistical, but I'll stand by it. I can't help but think that a little bit of why, was so that he could say all that to me.
I'm not the center of the universe, or anything. Just standing in. :P
-Rantza
Now, I told a professor of mine at the beginning of the year that I didn't believe in love. He thought that was rather depressing. I thought it was rather realistic. You've read about my family. And if you haven't, don't.
Slowly, that class has been shifting my opinions. I can't read Donne without this sort of sexual glow --a third of which, I confess, owes to his masterful language, another third of which I'll allow to his innuendo. But the final third belongs to his belief in love, and how moving and rich and varied and true but at the same time impossible is his vision of the emotion. Donne is everything I ever wanted to believe in, and witty to boot.
But of course a sweet delivery makes the sense suspect. So I can't say --though I am inching my way back to some kind of acceptance of Christianity, and isn't that strange, that I should make my peace with Christian theology through a libertine poet-- that Donne has made me believe in love.
Actually, it was the old man at the pharmacy today, who just started talking to me. And to be honest, at first I was thinking, jesus christ, get me out of here. But you know, by the end of it--
Well, first it was about his job. And that kind of pulled me in, because some of what he said about taking no leave, never stopping to enjoy or live, working so hard --I see that in my mom. It was like talking to her, under circumstances where she would be honest, and wouldn't try to hide how much her work stresses and scares her.
But then he mentioned his wife. He showed me a picture of her. Sassy looking woman, gorgeous and built with this little unamused look on a face that I pretty much knew would be stunning when she smiled.
He talked about living with her. They met over newspapers (she asked him to hand her one.) She kept the money he gave her in the laundry room; her dog never liked him. She traveled all over the place --he never went, so she told him about it. Loved her money. He used to send her roses. $500 for Christmas, $500 for her birthday.
Had a stroke. Hair went white. Developed Alzheimers.
Died ten years ago, November.
He just kept saying to me, "Never love anything you can't lose." And "God, how I miss that woman. God, how I miss that woman. She was something."
And you know what? I believed him, and I believe he loves her in the great, true, Donne sense.
If there is a heaven, it exists for people like them, and I find myself hoping along with Donne that after you die, your soul goes straight there, no stops, no detours but what you've earned, just plop, no waiting for judgement. It doesn't seem fair to keep those two apart any longer than life must.
He said he wondered why he was still around, said how he'd never planned to outlive her. And this is egotistical, but I'll stand by it. I can't help but think that a little bit of why, was so that he could say all that to me.
I'm not the center of the universe, or anything. Just standing in. :P
-Rantza