Remember this game? Perfection? I think my parents got me one of these when I was five or so, it had a wind-up timer on it. Put all the shapes in their respective spots and you can consider yourself a winner, or cheat and just affix them all to their proper places while the timer's off. Like anything, with some practice I got pretty good.Yes, it's a metaphor.
Today's Valentine's Day and like most of our American holidays it's more an excuse to spend money you don't have than it is a day to truly express your love for your "other." Of course, we can reject all of the commercialism and save our hard-earned cash - but then we're considered cheapskates for doing so (at best....at worst you could earn the titles "cold" or "numb" etc, etc). Cards and flowers will be purchased. Sexy outfits. Dinners eaten at nicer restaurants.....the list is endless, really.
But I think what we're sold (by the media, by others around us) is that we can achieve romantic perfection in the process of purchasing "things" that will endear us to another person. That attraction and love are somehow related to the gifting of baubles or plants that will die within days.
Yesterday, my church celebrated World Marriage Day - a celebration that was perhaps motivated here in Maryland by our Legislature's deliberations on a gay marriage bill (the Catholic church is against the idea). Anyway, in the midst of Mass there was an opportunity for couples to stand up and renew their vows. If any couple needed such a chance, it was my wife and I. So, we stand up. The priest has us hold hands and face each other and - whilst gazing into each others' eyes- renew the marriage vows. While I'm trying to concentrate on repeating the promises to my wife and trying to look at her while I do so, our 4-year old son is punching me in the butt because he's angry that I'm not holding him up. And then he starts kicking me. Finally, he head-butts me behind my knees, causing me to lose balance and nearly wipe out in the pew. To top it all of, our other son rips a fart that smelled like a dead man's last rotted breath.
She, of course, had no troubles at all. Pulled it off without a hitch. Well, I guess that's how these things go. I was highly irritated at both of my sons.
Later on in the day, thinking about it, it was exactly the kind of vow renewal I should've expected from my little family. Nothing's ever perfect around here, yet it somehow fits us perfectly. So it goes.
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Love is one of those amorphous and impossible to understand concepts. It's been written about in our earliest recorded writings, the Bible and the Greek poets all the way to good ole- 2011 and Katie Perry (who sucked at the Grammys, incidentally - that's tomorrow's blog....the tale of watching the Grammys with an 11-year old daughter). Love is equal parts joy and suffering. I've experienced both sides of that, but I hope most of you avoided the latter. Like everything, it's complicated.
One of the more beautiful love songs I ever heard was by Hank Williams. I'm not a country aficionado but I heard this one on an album of Hank covers by a band called "The The" back in '95, called Hanky Panky. The song's titled "I Can't Escape from You," and it wallows a bit in the less-happy aspects of love.
My recitation below doesn't do the song justice, go listen to it's sad melodies yourself, but I'm reprinting it in its' entirety, both because I'm lazy and because it's just that good:
I've tried and tried to run and hide
To find a life that's new
But where I'd go, I'd always know
I can't escape from you
A jug of wine, to numb my mind
But what good does it do?
The jug runs dry and still I cry
I can't escape from you
These wasted tears are souvenirs
Of a love I thought was true
Your memory is chained to me
I can't escape from you
There is no end, I can't pretend
That dreams will soon come true
A slave too long to a heart of stone
I can't escape from you
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