“Ingénue, I just don’t know what to do.” (& the Lovers of Valdaro)
Lately I find myself in solitude, mulling over certain situations while shaking my head back and forth. Other times I’m on a crowded train, but still very much alone, as my body conveys this physical expression of disagreement. When I catch myself doing this, I wonder if anyone notices, and if so, what they think of the girl in silent dispute with herself.
One thing upsetting me is how not upset I am. The repeated heartbreaks I am forced to endure leave me passively disenchanted with love and cynically disappointed with humanity. There’s cruelty in a world that allows two people to gravitate towards one another, only to be torn apart by disinterest or infidelity. Oftentimes the bruised half of the equation aches and fantasizes, while the other appears unaffected.
I’ve seen it so many times that I fear I’m becoming indifferent.
Still, I refuse to surrender my naiveté when it comes to love. Meanwhile, I need to heed the signs so often ignored. For example, yesterday I was at the duck with Rona.
“One night,” I told her, “when xxxxxx really made me feel like shit – it was the night we were at the bar with friends, and when I went to hug him he told me not to ‘be weird’ – I went home and sat in my bathroom and cried. And the whole time I kept telling myself that I didn’t want to feel this way ever again. I kept asking myself why I let this happen.”
Even after that occurrence, I kept on with this boy. I let my innocence crush my defenses, and with my armor down he unmasked to show me his true face before hurling his flail into my chest.
Tragic, I know.
But don’t allow my melodramatic words fool you. Like I said, I’m upset about how not upset I am.
“You seem different this time,” Rona told me.
I thought for a moment. “I guess I’m not as sad, I’m more aggravated. It’s like when people tell you that you deserve better, but inside you never really believe it. Well this time, I believe it.”
The shift in self-perception is bittersweet. It’s a change.
Speaking of change, Mike and I were on our way to see sami.the.great last week. Somewhere around 14th Street and Avenue A, he stopped and pointed to the ground.
“Uh, Ashleigh, look,” he said.
There at the base of a tree were two dead birds. They appeared to be holding one another. It reminded me of a news story I read over three years ago in which archaeologists uncovered the bones of a man and woman locked in an eternal embrace. The couple was dubbed the Lovers of Valdaro. Their skeletons were over 5,000 years old.
One theory suggested that the man was killed and the woman then sacrificed so his soul would be accompanied in the afterlife. I wholeheartedly reject this theory, and instead propose that these Lovers were truly lovers, so devoted to one another that their breaths were in sync. They could not live without each other.
I do hope that people have the capability to love this much.
Dead birds, 14th Street & Avenue A (above), Lovers of Valdaro (below)
June 28th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
You’ll never be truly alone while I’m alive, Ash.