Sunday, February 15, 2009

A Year On . . .

I saw The Reader last night. It was an appropriate Valentine's Day selection, stressing the painful, surprising, haunting forms of love that are not celebrated with chocolate and roses. As much as I'd prefer sweet and romantic expressions of attachment, they've never struck me as authentic. Even the film, with its focus on the youthful flowering of a young man's eros, stressed that what he lived with ever after was a kind of self-induced trauma, based more on his own complex sensibilities and less on those of his idealized beloved. And yet, and yet . . . feelings emerged out of that which enabled him to express care that was real and far more powerful than his initial desire.

I think love emerges as actions through time. It is the manifestation of our choice to be connected, despite the pain that may bring.