So it's been a viral couple of days, although I seem to be over the worst of it now. My weekend of love and laughter was too short, or, to be more precise, Just Long Enough, which is a period of time that is only observable in retrospect. Said weekend doubtless contributed to my current raspy state: I read short stories, and engaged in provocative discourse for hours at a time into the wee bits of the morning, and all the while my immune system was mounting an assault upon a sneaking interloper. I spent most of yesterday nearly mute, my voice a croak, though it improved today, which is a good thing because I had to spend three hours on the telephone this evening doing secret business things.
Hey, look! Here's a bit of Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (or مولانا جلال الدين محمد بلخى for those of you who speak th' lingo):
Moving on, before I say too much.
The hell with it, I'll continue.
If you'd asked me, a year ago, whether I believed in love, I would have said no. Isn't that sad? I had it all reduced to neurochemistry and evolution: the limbic system and dopamine, vasopressin and oxytocin, pheromones. These days, I still know all of that--I tend not to unlearn things once I've captured them--but it matters less. I've given up the myth of my objectivity in favor of a more subjective bent, or, if you prefer--and even if you don't--a somewhat bent subjectivity. I mean! You can prattle on all you like about the evolutionary adaptation of the human brain in clever ways that promote mating and the perpetuation of the species, but how do you get from that to, say, Byron? Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance, indeed! It's not just for cryptic drunks in bars, you know. That man was on to something.
Now love is not a thing that happens to you, love--it seems to me--is a sure-footed place from which you move. No longer a state of cognitive obsession, or a trick of the neurons, but something else entirely. Not so much a happening or a doing, but a being. A verb instead of a noun. A kind of breathing flow, a daring dance with phantom partners that can at any moment resolve itself into a solid, rose-biting Tango.
The beauty of this particular dance, the energy that drives the music that moves the feet, is a complete non-attachment to an outcome. There is no outcome! There is only the dance, made up of small steps, grand spins and dips, and--if you're lucky--the close abrazo, the embrace. But even if that never comes to pass, or if it does, and then passes, you've still had the dance.
And now I've said just enough.
Hey, look! Here's a bit of Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (or مولانا جلال الدين محمد بلخى for those of you who speak th' lingo):
Suddenly the drunken sweetheart appeared out of my door.Ah, the drunken sweetheart! What a find, what a find she is. I enjoy Rumi immensely, because I can take him in any of my moods: spiritual, the beloved is God; romantic, the beloved is whomever on earth I fancy; or--at the best of times, in the best of moods--the beloved is both and all. And this snippet in particular--which is to say, at this exact time, complementing my exact mood--is a delightful mixture of the sacred and the profane. "He was all hands!" she said. Of course he was, darling! You were his drunken sweetheart, he had no choice. Even if he never touched you, his gaze was a manifold and loving caress.
She drank a cup of ruby wine and sat by my side.
Seeing and holding the lockets of her hair
My face became all eyes, and my eyes all hands.
Moving on, before I say too much.
The hell with it, I'll continue.
If you'd asked me, a year ago, whether I believed in love, I would have said no. Isn't that sad? I had it all reduced to neurochemistry and evolution: the limbic system and dopamine, vasopressin and oxytocin, pheromones. These days, I still know all of that--I tend not to unlearn things once I've captured them--but it matters less. I've given up the myth of my objectivity in favor of a more subjective bent, or, if you prefer--and even if you don't--a somewhat bent subjectivity. I mean! You can prattle on all you like about the evolutionary adaptation of the human brain in clever ways that promote mating and the perpetuation of the species, but how do you get from that to, say, Byron? Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance, indeed! It's not just for cryptic drunks in bars, you know. That man was on to something.
Now love is not a thing that happens to you, love--it seems to me--is a sure-footed place from which you move. No longer a state of cognitive obsession, or a trick of the neurons, but something else entirely. Not so much a happening or a doing, but a being. A verb instead of a noun. A kind of breathing flow, a daring dance with phantom partners that can at any moment resolve itself into a solid, rose-biting Tango.
The beauty of this particular dance, the energy that drives the music that moves the feet, is a complete non-attachment to an outcome. There is no outcome! There is only the dance, made up of small steps, grand spins and dips, and--if you're lucky--the close abrazo, the embrace. But even if that never comes to pass, or if it does, and then passes, you've still had the dance.
And now I've said just enough.
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