interesting times
dear friendI have been thinking a great deal about you and the story that you told me about lost love. At the time I had nothing much to say, I was overwhelmed. It does go around in my mind as I fit it into my understanding of you and of myself, there are many resonances with my own life. And we never forget our first love.This thought has been mixed with my understanding of chinese culture and the flashes of insight I have regularly when talking with you. These conversations and insights strike at the heart of love: love lost; love denied; love unrequieted and love realised. It is my feeling, no more, that a 'western' cultural background gives more of a chance for dealing with these issues than the culture you describe in China. There are large amounts of literature - romantic, academic, prosaic - and music that are cultural foundations for concepts like"it is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all""the first time I saw your face""I can't get used to losing you"The last in this list is one of the most difficult. This can be a lament, a statement of fact and sometimes a celebration of a great thing, a high point in a life. This form of celebration is typically obseved in men who have been to war as young men and for whom the wartime experince stays with them all their lives as one of the brightest and most vividly remembered of times. Sometimes - as in the case of my mothers father, this adds to their personality, in other cases -like my father - it causes problems. Problems that seem to be related to denial and violence. Make no mistake, western culture understands the connection between carnality and death. There is the italian expression describing orgasm that translates as 'the little death' when anyone can become lost in the moment of life. On the other hand there is a similar description of a sneeze, where the emphasis is on total loss of control. Some people combine both and it is not uncommon to sneeze, maybe several times after orgasm. I am one of those. I am going down side tracks, time to return to the high road.I was a little surprised by your claims to be so rational and controlled that you cannot cry when you think that you should. You are certainly not alone there, a huge portion of humanity is tormented by this. There are many reasons personal history, expectation and the need for privacy among them. Grieving is a complex thing, easily as complex as depression and as about as well understood. What I am trying to say (I have just realised) is that I see as warm and emotional person as I have ever seen when I look at you, a person who is able to to simply issues through ratiocrination and who then realises that something has been lost but since it is not something that losses all meta-information when explained as a rational process. This re-inforces the feeling of being separate as most people just never get this stuff or never worry about it. For people who are smart like we are, we 'live in interesting times' and it can be hard work, so hard and so lonely. Just remember that you are not alone.I have seen you cry even when you are not aware of it. Maybe it is me, more likely it is us, I get the impression that you speak to me from more deeply in your heart than has been your past habit. I feel we have a basic level of trust that makes many barriers superflous. Certainly there are not many one or two maybe - people to whom I would write to or speak to like this.
your friend douglas
posted by dougi @ 4:38 pm
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