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An Affair Of the Head
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How fragile, this thing called love.
* * *
Just about all writing about love stinks, maybe because so much of it begins with something like "O!" or maybe because people are (a) in love when they write it, which makes for a lot of senseless mooning the rest of us couldn't care less about; or (b) they have just been Kicked to the Curb of Romance, in which case they would rather be pinned to an insect board and labeled than live another minute on this godawful Planet of Hate.
Sigh.
Stendhal was onto something in the 19th century when he observed that "The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears," because passionate love is also partly about terror. Bill Shakespeare had it down cold, when he had Friar Laurence warn young Romeo of the perils of passion: "These violent delights have violent ends."
And did Romeo listen?
Shucks, no! Wise counsel, patience, foresight, prune juice -- who wants that ? Is there one among us who, at least once in this life, does not want to throw everything out the door and sprint to the Disco Ball of the Brain, where there are big white piles of dopamine, where a hot and sweaty Barry White is always on stage, thumping out "You're My First! My Last! My Everything!" And there's that new girl in class! Scantily clad! She's on the floor, beckoning you! Yes, Bubba, you! Out you go, and she's saying your name and her hand slips to the small of your back, and this is going to last FOREVER AND EVER!
Here it goes, a long time ago, Abelard and Heloise, two of history's most famous lovers:
Abelard to Heloise: "So intense were the fires of lust which bound me to you that I set those wretched, obscene pleasures, which we blush even to name, above God as above myself."
She to he: "Even during the celebration of the Mass, when our prayers should be purest, lewd visions of the pleasures we shared take . . . a hold on my unhappy soul."
HONEY! BABY! SWEETIE! CALL ME!
Did we mention Abelard was castrated as a result of their affair? And Heloise went off to a convent for the rest of her life? That they named their child "Astrolabe"? What people! What passion! What the hell were they thinking?
