I have never been interested in love the study of it or its expression. My primary
concern was to make sure all my needs were fulfilled. I spent most of my childhood wanting my dad to come back and when I wasn't doing that I was hating my mom for not caring that I missed him, She always felt rather guilty about this but never did anything about it. So as I have reflected backwards I have seen the patterns and trends in my life.
I refused to talk to my mother and as she suspected that I disliked her, she was constantly ransacking my stuff for extracts from my mind. She would painstakingly go through every scrap of paper I had ever written but never listen to the words coming out of my mouth or what they signified. I don't know why. Having no one to talk to and no way to express it, I became quiet. Quiet on the outside as well as on the inside.
I have written more than one blog but it was always discovered by people I didn't want to share it with or got deleted or lost. In the case of my last blog on yahoo, in 2001, both happened. I have decided to write again because I find it too hard to cope without an excessive outpouring of words. In the form of a poem or so.
So I am here again, without faith just a need to be fulfilled.
On the lighter side of things I want to write about love, not too long ago, for the first time in my life, I fell, in love. It was amazing, I wanted to write him poetry. so I dug high and I dug low for love poetry that would swoon his heart and would give me an outlet to express all the things bubbling up inside me. I wanted to instead of standing mutely with desire in my face, i wanted to speak it, get off my chest. Fly.
So I investigated the most romantic form of poetry yet. Love and of the medieval poets. I found them, well crap. After reading many nameless authors sing the praises of the "great" poets, I decided to read them all. I found them and I will be really honest, crap.
Ovid had to be the biggest disappointment. How to get a lady he wrote, tell her she is the most amazing thing to walk the face of the earth. I read this I sighed. Why such a stupid lie grandfatherly one? A joke or an observation that came from observation would do, saying something memorable is the expression you are looking for, saying I am the most beautiful thing to walk the face of the earth tells me something for sure. It tell me that you are an idiot, and blind, a nice combination, I can easily take advantage of you. Well done, understand the condescending tone I take when speaking to you now?
Then he goes on the say, stay friends with her friends, make them like you, make her trust you. I think ah, the old trick, even I find my friends annoying, but you are welcome to pretend to like them for my sake. You must really like me to put up with that shit. Aww, how cute. You are a stupid boy but so sweet.
Then he goes on to say, after frequent hesitations and beating round the bush, if you get her alone and she is taking too long to have sex with you, rape her, she will get over it, after all its a thing that happens all the time. Aww, lovely. Of course, up until that point I didn't even know that you had a penis, thank you for reminding me so forceful that you do, and that all your previous action were an act to get you to this point. Even better that in this century there was no contraception and half of all women died in childbirth. I stopped reading at that point.
The more I read the more disheartened I was. Courtly love should actually be called how to have an affair. I though, perhaps this is a man thing, surely women would not write such crap. I found Marie De France, she was very different. she wrote loads of parables, lots of fairy tales. Other interesting topics included, how to pass notes to your lover and not get caught by your husband, how to pass your pregnancy off as your husband's. How to make someone sleep with you.
Ah well. At least I tried to read up.
I tried to move on the medieval poet, Chaucer, Boccaccio, Machaut, they all copied Ovid.
Mythological Allusion, as Katherine Heinrichs said in "Myths of Love" of course. At least relation you can identify, this was more difficulty. At least now I had an intellectual way to describe Bollywood film. They all were based around mythological allusions of Hindi myths. They were never about love.Ramesh Sippy is a modern day Chaucer. Oh the things that are so clear to me when mixed with Christianity are so blurred when uttered by those that repeat myths.
So where can I turn to for inspiration? How can I make my love come out, when I am sure it will come down? i read a book on modern love, turning my nose up at the book called "Love poems of Great Men". The book I read touched my heart, it was full of hope and risky first steps, regret, painful goodbyes, stalking, shame and the solace of friends.
I know what love is, I know how it makes you feel, I know what you say when it goes wrong but I still don't know to tell my Cherie in a whisper in the half light to make his heart smile. I have wondered so long, I no longer have the reason to. But I the need keeps me wondering,I may return to that place again. What would I say to make his heart smile the way he makes mine smile
