|
Maryann's Page of Romance What is Romance? It's painful thinking about the existence of all these people who aren't present to me: like in Africa and stuff, but I mean seriously . . .When I read something that moves me, like when someone listens to a particular song while they get ready for their boyfriend to show up, what makes it far sadder for me is if I think, 'This feeling of longing, epitomised by this song, is so real, but it seems to fade and even vanish away completely when you think that hardly anyone will ever know about it, only maybe a few hundred people from amongst one billion.' And of course it's even worse for us real life people, who aren't in books. We might have a sensation of torturous nostalgia listening to a song we associate with our dad being divorced by our mother, but it's only us who will ever feel it. Our feelings should be worth more than this, crushed by the weight of the indifferent mass of humanity. (This has nothing to do with wanting 'attention,' I'm talking about the reverse: about things ceasing to exist because there are too many people for you to have any significance at all. How could any feelings come from you that are strong enough to not be crushed by the insignificance of your 1/billionth-ness? There should be less people, a manageable number. Or at the least, we should be protected from the knowledge of how many people there are.) But I think that in true love, you can let one person stand in for the entire world - or to put it in another way, they dwarf the billions of people. They 'blot out the horizon,' as it were. In a good way - basically, they make the world of manageable proportions. One person becomes a shorthand for everything; but they are the perfect symbol, for they do indeed contain everything within themselves. But Colette says ... But you counted without my beggar-woman's pride. I refuse to see the most beautiful countries of the world microscopically mirrored in your eyes. I have forgotten him, as if I had never known his glance or the caress of his mouth, forgotten him as if there were no more imperious need in my life than to look for words, for words to describe how yellow the sun is andhow blue the sea and how brilliant the salt in fringes of jet white. Yes, forgotten him as if the only urgent thing in the world were my desire to possess through my eyes the marvels of the earth.
|