Friday, February 26, 2010
The flip side of Valentine's Day
Emily Paine Carter | So Salem
Loving companions Rossetti and Millay curl up together on a cold day.
Emily Paine Carter is columnist So Salem. You can contact her at 981-3430 or via e-mail.
Emily Paine Carter
Recent columns from Salem, Glenvar and western Roanoke County
We have celebrated long-lived couples in this space. Hooray, y'all.
But what about others? Whose dreams of married bliss morph into wedded "hiss"?
Friends ask my advice -- although why in the name of Venus they do so escapes me. See, I had a 2009 New Year's resolution: "Get divorced." (At last, a resolve I could keep. Yeehah). Maybe they see me as a cautionary tale?
Yet love has many faces. So, a Valentine P.S., a mixed philosophical bouquet:
n A poster in Roanoke College's Miller Hall: "About love / I know only / what the three-legged dog knows / about cars" ("Epistemology," Ann Deagon).
n "To love ... is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket -- safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable" (theologian C.S. Lewis of "Narnia" fame).
n Speaking of animals, woman-with-cats is such the cliche. But isn't the accompanying photo sweet? Now my terms of endearment are literally "pet names." And an amusing "Cat Yoga" book replaced my coffee-table volume of love poems.
n Another funny book: "They Call Me Naughty Lola: Personal Ads from the London Review of Books," David Rose, editor. Recently NPR interviewed him about his new book, "Sexually, I'm More of a Switzerland: More Personal Ads From the London Review of Books" (Scribner, $16.)
n Also: "Six Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak," Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleisher, editors. Some nuggets: "No, you can't have the toaster" (Diana Spechler). "He e-mailed again, and I deleted" (Molly Antopol). "I'm your one that got away" (Mary Elizabeth Williams). But also "Love: eight pounds and six ounces" (Kenny Clark). And "my heart is my strongest muscle" (Shanna Katz) (Uh, "cats" again?)
n Dare-to-Dream / Better-Than-Diamonds Dept.: "Solid" companion Maurice Tempelsman walked "the final road" with Jackie Kennedy Onassis, praised LA Times columnist D.G. Fulford (1994). "Maurice's kind of love means that there's someone to assure you that the monsters won't get you when you turn the corner and must begin, once again, to walk the road alone."
n But you can also endure alone: "Remind me I'll be OK when he leaves," said a friend. You will, you will. (Maybe helped by blessed friends sharing food and shoveling sidewalks.)
n As the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens sang, "There's a million ways to be" (movie, "Harold and Maude"). Murmuring sweet-nothings? Ranting together politically? Whatever, it's all good.
n Still, we are fans of love! Sure, do your research, but then "seize the day," friends. Throw your heart out of the box. Let's watch Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" again; I think C.S. Lewis would approve.
