Delusions of Grandeur in the Hunt for Love
Improvised dance and writing for the 8th Annual "River of Mnemosyne" Challenge.
When you sit in a restaurant and see couples eyeing their phones rather than engaging in conversation, when you witness partners staying together out of habit rather than happiness, when pairs split seemingly suddenly after years of what was truly an intricate, intimate façade – you wonder.
And at some point, I had to know. What is love? This gigantic notion that consumes so many of us, that so many say “you just know” what it is, yet so many seem to get it wrong.
So I started asking questions.
First, innocuous ones. Subtle ones. Some of them weren’t even questions. Just prying, just probing.
----
“You know, none of us would be mad at you if you decided to leave Dad.” I let the words linger as my mother sipped her coffee in the kitchen one Summer’s morning. I looked down into my tea briefly. I pride myself on my honesty, but even for me this felt as though it could have been a little much for 9am on a Monday. Isn't it sad that we can have spent almost two decades growing up with someone, telling them we love them, and then find it harder to broach intimate subjects with these very people than with people who are near strangers by comparison?
Indeed, my mother was clearly not quite ready to open up to this statement – she shifted slightly and frowned a little, looking up at the ceiling as she titled her head to one side, as if unsure of her own feelings. I do wonder if we’re really ever unsure of our own feelings, or if we just prefer not to confront them.
“I know,” she lied, “It’s just that… You know, I don’t want us to be another statistic… And I think about what would happen if you came from a broken home… And your father needs me… And…”
She went on. Isn’t it interesting how affected we can be by another’s words?
Two years prior my mother had approached a friend in private.
“Pamela,” she’d confided, “I think I’m going to leave Henry.”
Pamela had good intentions of course. But Pamela came from another background, another world view, another idea of loving and living. Pamela had been practically rescued by her own husband, and she came from a family with deep religious ties (whether or not she was religious was beside the point thanks to such deep social conditioning).
Pamela came from a family which valued the family unit, marriage vows, thick and thin, sickness and health, life and death – all of it.
“But Charlotte,” she’d contested, “He’s a good man. He’s just hurting. He’s come from a hard life, and unfortunately he doesn’t know how to love. He doesn’t know how to express his hurt. He needs you. He has no family without you.”
And with a twenty second rebuttal, the biggest decision my mother never made was vetoed.
A bold goal, to find out what love truly is. I think I felt this in myself – like I was going to uncover some great truth just by asking the right questions, by getting others to be open. We’re all humans, we’re all experiencing this weird state of being together, so why aren’t we more open? Why don’t we share more? Why do we put up walls when our shared experiences could help us amount to so much more?
I started asking more questions.
----
Cole and I were looking out over Porto when we started our discussion. It was dark when we arrived, but the Portugal winter was so mild we decided to cross the bridge and look out over the city.
It was refreshing to again be with someone so calm. Someone so comfortable, and someone I could be so open with. I’d made the decision a couple of years ago to only put energy into relationships that felt open and honest and loving, platonic or otherwise. Cole fit somewhere along the sliding scale of love.
Our homestay was a petite woman with dark hair and an excitable personality. Her lounge looked out over the river and was filled with Lonely Planet guides (in several languages) and various travel trinkets. It seemed she hadn’t left many corners of the earth untouched.
“The rent has become so expensive here that I had to rent out two rooms,” she’d told us earlier that evening. “But I’m a traveller, so it feels like the perfect fit. Now, when I’m not travelling, I can travel vicariously through my visitors.”
She’d also commented (as all our hosts were to do that week) about “the other couple” staying in the other room. Neither of us corrected the “couple” mistake.
We’d wandered past all of the Port wineries and were heading back over the bridge towards our homestay’s corner building. Porto, we’d discover, was an entirely different beast by day – but still magical.
“Do you think it’s time that degrades love?” I asked.
He frowned as we strolled along the river, “I don’t know. I feel like all of my friends our age say their parents are no longer in love.”
“Do you think it’s just impossible to be in love forever?” I asked, before taking a little time to admire the patterned tiles adorning the tunnel ahead and point them out to Cole.
“I do have one really close friend,” I continued, “Who has three kids and I think she’s been married about ten years, and she seems really happy.”
“But do you think it’s because it’s only ten years?” he replied, sliding his fingers along the tiles as we passed into the tunnel. “Do you think it’s different after twenty? After thirty? Do you just have nothing left to say?”
“I don’t know,” I replied softly, turning the idea over in my mind.
“It’s depressing to think that’s the way it might be,” I decided quickly.
“Maybe it’s more that we put so much emphasis on one person being one thing – being the only thing, the only one, for us. I don’t really believe in one true love.”
He nodded thoughtfully in response as we crossed out onto the cobbles and continued up the dimly lit street.
----
It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon when I visited Nika. Her babies were asleep and so we managed to steal a quiet moment in her garden. The pear trees were heavy – just the week prior a local community group had come and taken two hundred kilos worth to distribute in care packages, but they were still brimming.
We’d been talking a little while when she set down her teacup and looked me in the eye.
“But Laurelle, I have to ask you, you talk about Jared as if he is someone you care for very deeply, but not as if he is a man you’re in love with.”
I was taken aback, and didn’t answer straight away.
“I…” I paused and briefly broke eye contact with Nika.
Nika and I were both big on eye contact. The same way we were big on openness, vulnerability, and love. I can honestly say my life is richer for having Nika and her caring soul in it.
There was a soft thud on the ground as a gentle Autumn breeze rustled the fruit trees.
“I don’t know.” I then conceded – or perhaps, answered too quickly.
“And I guess, if I don’t know… Perhaps you’re right.”
Grand intentions indeed, this discovering love business, for a woman who didn’t even know herself what love was.
Or maybe I wasn’t really unsure of my own feelings, but just afraid to confront them at that moment.
Improvisation - "Covering the Ground with Big Intentions" from Siobhan Milner on Vimeo.
I started seeking out the meaning of love recently. Maybe 6 months ago. Maybe 2 years ago when my heart was broken. Purposeful seeking, pointed searching.When you sit in a restaurant and see couples eyeing their phones rather than engaging in conversation, when you witness partners staying together out of habit rather than happiness, when pairs split seemingly suddenly after years of what was truly an intricate, intimate façade – you wonder.
And at some point, I had to know. What is love? This gigantic notion that consumes so many of us, that so many say “you just know” what it is, yet so many seem to get it wrong.
So I started asking questions.
First, innocuous ones. Subtle ones. Some of them weren’t even questions. Just prying, just probing.
----
“You know, none of us would be mad at you if you decided to leave Dad.” I let the words linger as my mother sipped her coffee in the kitchen one Summer’s morning. I looked down into my tea briefly. I pride myself on my honesty, but even for me this felt as though it could have been a little much for 9am on a Monday. Isn't it sad that we can have spent almost two decades growing up with someone, telling them we love them, and then find it harder to broach intimate subjects with these very people than with people who are near strangers by comparison?
Indeed, my mother was clearly not quite ready to open up to this statement – she shifted slightly and frowned a little, looking up at the ceiling as she titled her head to one side, as if unsure of her own feelings. I do wonder if we’re really ever unsure of our own feelings, or if we just prefer not to confront them.
“I know,” she lied, “It’s just that… You know, I don’t want us to be another statistic… And I think about what would happen if you came from a broken home… And your father needs me… And…”
She went on. Isn’t it interesting how affected we can be by another’s words?
Two years prior my mother had approached a friend in private.
“Pamela,” she’d confided, “I think I’m going to leave Henry.”
Pamela had good intentions of course. But Pamela came from another background, another world view, another idea of loving and living. Pamela had been practically rescued by her own husband, and she came from a family with deep religious ties (whether or not she was religious was beside the point thanks to such deep social conditioning).
Pamela came from a family which valued the family unit, marriage vows, thick and thin, sickness and health, life and death – all of it.
“But Charlotte,” she’d contested, “He’s a good man. He’s just hurting. He’s come from a hard life, and unfortunately he doesn’t know how to love. He doesn’t know how to express his hurt. He needs you. He has no family without you.”
And with a twenty second rebuttal, the biggest decision my mother never made was vetoed.
A bold goal, to find out what love truly is. I think I felt this in myself – like I was going to uncover some great truth just by asking the right questions, by getting others to be open. We’re all humans, we’re all experiencing this weird state of being together, so why aren’t we more open? Why don’t we share more? Why do we put up walls when our shared experiences could help us amount to so much more?
I started asking more questions.
----
Cole and I were looking out over Porto when we started our discussion. It was dark when we arrived, but the Portugal winter was so mild we decided to cross the bridge and look out over the city.
It was refreshing to again be with someone so calm. Someone so comfortable, and someone I could be so open with. I’d made the decision a couple of years ago to only put energy into relationships that felt open and honest and loving, platonic or otherwise. Cole fit somewhere along the sliding scale of love.
Our homestay was a petite woman with dark hair and an excitable personality. Her lounge looked out over the river and was filled with Lonely Planet guides (in several languages) and various travel trinkets. It seemed she hadn’t left many corners of the earth untouched.
“The rent has become so expensive here that I had to rent out two rooms,” she’d told us earlier that evening. “But I’m a traveller, so it feels like the perfect fit. Now, when I’m not travelling, I can travel vicariously through my visitors.”
She’d also commented (as all our hosts were to do that week) about “the other couple” staying in the other room. Neither of us corrected the “couple” mistake.
We’d wandered past all of the Port wineries and were heading back over the bridge towards our homestay’s corner building. Porto, we’d discover, was an entirely different beast by day – but still magical.
“Do you think it’s time that degrades love?” I asked.
He frowned as we strolled along the river, “I don’t know. I feel like all of my friends our age say their parents are no longer in love.”
“Do you think it’s just impossible to be in love forever?” I asked, before taking a little time to admire the patterned tiles adorning the tunnel ahead and point them out to Cole.
“I do have one really close friend,” I continued, “Who has three kids and I think she’s been married about ten years, and she seems really happy.”
“But do you think it’s because it’s only ten years?” he replied, sliding his fingers along the tiles as we passed into the tunnel. “Do you think it’s different after twenty? After thirty? Do you just have nothing left to say?”
“I don’t know,” I replied softly, turning the idea over in my mind.
“It’s depressing to think that’s the way it might be,” I decided quickly.
“Maybe it’s more that we put so much emphasis on one person being one thing – being the only thing, the only one, for us. I don’t really believe in one true love.”
He nodded thoughtfully in response as we crossed out onto the cobbles and continued up the dimly lit street.
----
It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon when I visited Nika. Her babies were asleep and so we managed to steal a quiet moment in her garden. The pear trees were heavy – just the week prior a local community group had come and taken two hundred kilos worth to distribute in care packages, but they were still brimming.
We’d been talking a little while when she set down her teacup and looked me in the eye.
“But Laurelle, I have to ask you, you talk about Jared as if he is someone you care for very deeply, but not as if he is a man you’re in love with.”
I was taken aback, and didn’t answer straight away.
“I…” I paused and briefly broke eye contact with Nika.
Nika and I were both big on eye contact. The same way we were big on openness, vulnerability, and love. I can honestly say my life is richer for having Nika and her caring soul in it.
There was a soft thud on the ground as a gentle Autumn breeze rustled the fruit trees.
“I don’t know.” I then conceded – or perhaps, answered too quickly.
“And I guess, if I don’t know… Perhaps you’re right.”
Grand intentions indeed, this discovering love business, for a woman who didn’t even know herself what love was.
Or maybe I wasn’t really unsure of my own feelings, but just afraid to confront them at that moment.
Comments
And your style is much-improved. Crisp, clean, honest.
Because it's only four parts, I'm sure I'm going to cuss you out in a little while.