There's no lovers up above. There's no lovers, only love.
To keep the level of angst to a tolerable level, I will stick with my decision not to get into a lengthy rehashing of Rosie and my break-up. Despite popular notions, this is not, nor has it ever been, the proper forum for such conversations with oneself or such explanations for one's friends. If you want to know what's going on, you may inquire in person. But I would like to mention two things which are on my mind, so you will forgive this hopefully innocuous relaxation of my self-imposed prohibition of Rosie-discussion...
-- Today, I came home to find on my keyboard a check and some pictures, not of Rosie and me together (thank God), but of Paul and me, borrowed by Rosie for her trip home. One thousand and 00/100. Memo: 'thank you'. That's all. Now, Rosie could conceivably never see me again. The next line in the solemn voice-over could be "That was the last young Holly ever heard from Rosie." Perhaps it will not be. She is leaving next week for Detroit, with the intention of staying there until February, but I will also be in Detroit for three weeks at Christmas, so it is possible that I will see her. Even though she doesn't have a cell phone, so I won't be able to call her. Even though she may not respond to my emails. I don't know. I just hope this is not good-bye. I hate money. What a way for any person to part from another, but a lover especially, with a check, a sum owed, a debt paid, an impersonal sheet of paper indicating- after all that's transpired between two souls- a simple business transaction. This girl whom I loved with more feeling than I knew myself capable of feeling, who taught me how to laugh again in a way I'd forgotten, who reminded me every single day of how much there is to love in the world, whose touch I can still feel if I allow myself to think of her too much, with whom I spent nearly every waking (and sleeping and ought to be sleeping) hour from June to October, this girl who meant everything to me, left me with this. After everything, she signed her name for me one more time, in the lower right corner of a stupid check, a piece of paper I will soon lose, trading it for the thousand dollars I lent to her a month ago so that she would be able to return to me in LA quicker. Such is the last remnant of love? I would have preferred a letter, a short note, a few words scribbled on a post-it, anything to hold onto and remember on the increasingly frequent occasions when I begin to forget that she ever loved me at all.
-- Rosie hates the word "settle." To her, it has exclusively negative connotations. She challenged me once to come up with a positive usage of the word. I thought about it. There's settling for less. No good. Settling down. Well that's relinquishing one's youthful restless passion. No good. Settling in court. Generally associated with situations that were negative in the first place. The dust settles. Maybe, but that usually follows wars, bombings, earthquakes, and the like. No good. In the end, I conceded that I couldn't come up with a good kind of "settle" as, by and large, it relates to forcing yourself to be satisfied with something short of what you really wanted or needed. But today, I found it. Too late now, but I found it. Rufus Wainwright sings a song aptly titled "Want" in which he explains what he does and does not want in his life. At the end of the first verse, he sings: "But I'll settle for love. Yeah, I'll settle for love." And at the end of the second, he concludes: "And will you settle for love? Will you settle for love?" So there it is. A positive usage of the word, but maybe that's only for me, and only because the very concept defies the meaning of the word. If settling is being satisfied with something less than what you wanted, then the lyrics would imply that there is something greater than love to be desired and love is just the consolation prize. But I say no; love is never the consolation prize. Regardless of the potential pain and subsequent loneliness, love is absolutely and unexceptionally the grand prize. So "settling" for love is, by definition, not settling at all. So I'll settle for love any day of the week. But, as I said, that's just me. And there are those who disagree... who will not settle for love.
-- Today, I came home to find on my keyboard a check and some pictures, not of Rosie and me together (thank God), but of Paul and me, borrowed by Rosie for her trip home. One thousand and 00/100. Memo: 'thank you'. That's all. Now, Rosie could conceivably never see me again. The next line in the solemn voice-over could be "That was the last young Holly ever heard from Rosie." Perhaps it will not be. She is leaving next week for Detroit, with the intention of staying there until February, but I will also be in Detroit for three weeks at Christmas, so it is possible that I will see her. Even though she doesn't have a cell phone, so I won't be able to call her. Even though she may not respond to my emails. I don't know. I just hope this is not good-bye. I hate money. What a way for any person to part from another, but a lover especially, with a check, a sum owed, a debt paid, an impersonal sheet of paper indicating- after all that's transpired between two souls- a simple business transaction. This girl whom I loved with more feeling than I knew myself capable of feeling, who taught me how to laugh again in a way I'd forgotten, who reminded me every single day of how much there is to love in the world, whose touch I can still feel if I allow myself to think of her too much, with whom I spent nearly every waking (and sleeping and ought to be sleeping) hour from June to October, this girl who meant everything to me, left me with this. After everything, she signed her name for me one more time, in the lower right corner of a stupid check, a piece of paper I will soon lose, trading it for the thousand dollars I lent to her a month ago so that she would be able to return to me in LA quicker. Such is the last remnant of love? I would have preferred a letter, a short note, a few words scribbled on a post-it, anything to hold onto and remember on the increasingly frequent occasions when I begin to forget that she ever loved me at all.
-- Rosie hates the word "settle." To her, it has exclusively negative connotations. She challenged me once to come up with a positive usage of the word. I thought about it. There's settling for less. No good. Settling down. Well that's relinquishing one's youthful restless passion. No good. Settling in court. Generally associated with situations that were negative in the first place. The dust settles. Maybe, but that usually follows wars, bombings, earthquakes, and the like. No good. In the end, I conceded that I couldn't come up with a good kind of "settle" as, by and large, it relates to forcing yourself to be satisfied with something short of what you really wanted or needed. But today, I found it. Too late now, but I found it. Rufus Wainwright sings a song aptly titled "Want" in which he explains what he does and does not want in his life. At the end of the first verse, he sings: "But I'll settle for love. Yeah, I'll settle for love." And at the end of the second, he concludes: "And will you settle for love? Will you settle for love?" So there it is. A positive usage of the word, but maybe that's only for me, and only because the very concept defies the meaning of the word. If settling is being satisfied with something less than what you wanted, then the lyrics would imply that there is something greater than love to be desired and love is just the consolation prize. But I say no; love is never the consolation prize. Regardless of the potential pain and subsequent loneliness, love is absolutely and unexceptionally the grand prize. So "settling" for love is, by definition, not settling at all. So I'll settle for love any day of the week. But, as I said, that's just me. And there are those who disagree... who will not settle for love.