to my deep embarrassment i've been reviewing what i've written about love. my moods vary considerably, as can be seen in the woodcut self-portraits i've just posted. lately, if i can't say something positive, i don't try to cough up any words. goethe, for example, never wrote poetry in the wintertime. smart guy! unless i wanted to vent my spleen, which, alas, i've done more than once.
grabbing a page at random from a collection of aphorisms called love and minor matters, i find such statements as these:
63. Love reminds us of life seen through a sickness.
76. Ambition is more reliable than love.
101. We need relief from love if love is to survive.
well, these don't sound too awful, especially the last one. let's face it, love can use us up, unless we find the right formula. ah, to call it a "formula" sounds worse than anything i've said before!
except my statements on marriage. here i've definitely transgressed.
17. Marriage has nothing to do with love, but with raising children.
18. People expect from marriage what they can only get from community.
19. Divorce has the virtue of putting more adults in a child's life.
the question of children makes this subject most interesting for me, love between parent and child seen as the ideal model. if children don't get it, the saying goes, they don't learn to give it. trouble is, i've known at least two women who've thrown their babies against the wall. my therapist friend karma has counseled kids whose progenitors killed each other in front of them. can parenthood always be separated from selfishness? folks love to brag about their offspring. my favorite bumper-sticker: my child the most responsive to drug-rehabilitation.
however, i'm ignoring the title of this little peregrination. or maybe not. i do have a more positive, if still realistic view, in Aphrodite Speaks.
THE MOST AMAZING
Thing
about love is
it
empties us of
everything
we once thought
important.
i invite you to search through these sins against the goddess. perhaps i've cursed myself most of all:
aprhrodite speaks: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/aphrodite
love and minor matters: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/minor
self-portrait woodcuts: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/wood
