My school's library is very nice. They have a wide selection of cds and dvds. Students can rent three dvds and three cds for a week, each, and we can take out books for as long as we want to. I just rented The Village (gorgeous) and Paranormal Activity (insufficiently scary) and all of the Beatles cds they had. It's a glorious, glorious system. The inside of the library is painted a neutral color, but then it has splashes of red and purple, too. Sweet, sweet splashes.
Anyway, I'm listening to Dark Turn of Mind right now. I've spent the afternoon (after my figure drawing class) listening to Youtube videos of Jonathan Safran Foer giving talks. He is fascinating! Lovely! I haven't read any of his books yet, but I really want to now, after learning a bit about him.
I know that he is married to the writer Nicole Krauss, who I am a massive fan of. She wrote Great House and The History of Love. I would say that They History of Love is one of my favorite books ever.
My only tattoo references a part of that story, and I can quote lines of it from memory, such is the extent of my adoration:
"Part of me is made of glass."
"Nobody makes me happier and nobody makes me sadder than you."
The book reminds me of someone, too. My idea of someone. That's part of it. I love the closing lines, too, but I'll refrain from writing them all out, and potentially ruining the surprise for someone.
Anyway, I intended to write a post about an idea of Nietzsche's that Safran Foer alluded to in a New York Times article written about Foer.
Safran Foer says, "Am I haunted by the story? Of course. The most haunting detail for me is that we don't know the name of the baby that was killed -- my mother's half sister. Maybe it goes back to Nietzsche's idea that everything we have words for is dead in our hearts..."
It must be why we still name our pets, our children, inanimate objects, sometimes - because they exist and are special in themselves and are also part of our own stories. Names serve as identification, identification combined with affection and history and identity and choice. Of course that idea is a little ironic, because names our, after all, forced on us by our parents. We don't have much choice. Even then, they would probably arrive with a sense of good will. Then there are names which are forced on people for a different reason, like the people who arrived in Ellis Island and had their last names changed. Those names have a different weight, a different color, but even so, they are no less drenched in history and identity and story and hopefully some echo of affection, and a new sense of a new sort of...personhood.
Foer was saying that he can't forget the woman and her child, especially, maybe, the child...can't lay her to rest, because he doesn't have words for her, and sometimes when we name things, it is both a sign of affection, and proof that that thing belongs and exists. And once we know that something exists, once we can point to it and name it, it may then be easier to let go of, because we know exactly what is being left behind.
For example, say you fell in love with a man (or woman) named Charlie. Charlie likes cooking spaghetti for you and rubbing your back when it aches. Then one day Charlie sleeps with your sister and becomes a drug addict and an alcoholic and punches a baby all in the same day. So you think to yourself, after much crying, and attention to the baby, that you've gotta let Charlie go. You could call him (or her) on the telephone and say good bye, Charlie. Good riddance.
On the other hand, say you're walking home from work alone and a man (or woman) comes up to you and taps you on the shoulder and you see immediately that they're beautiful, glorious - they have the face that you immediately want to kiss and cradle like an angora rabbit. What if they said, "I just saw you, and excuse me for bothering you, but may I just tell you that you look wonderful tonight, right now." And then they turned and walked away, down the street, and you blushed but you didn't run after them.
That person would be at least as hard to forget as Charlie, because the imaginary person could be thought of as everything you want and will never have. They are infinite possibility, and their lack of personality and identifiable name allows you to project your own fantasies onto them (maybe you've always wanted to date a fisherman named Redford, or something) and so thusly that imaginary person is perfect, because they're your imaginary person, and there's no reason for them not to be perfect. Anything can happen.
A similar experience happened to me with a woman wearing green tights not too long ago...
Anyway.
Nietzsche's idea of things being "dead in our hearts" hit home with me, for reasons that I can't exactly explain.
It reminded me of this passage from ts eliot's East Coker:
"In order to arrive there,
to arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way go ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not."
So...Eliot and Nietzsche both suggest that when one can articulate their feelings, and make sense of them, and see them for what they are, then the source of those feelings must be, at that point, dead. In a sense, it sounds like people realize who they are and what they have too late.
Does that idea apply to love? I guess that is what I'm really wondering now - the question almost always comes back to love, for me. If I can say that I love someone or something, surely that does not mean that my feelings are dead for them, and only remembered? But maybe it is so, because relationships and people change every day...
Maybe Safran Foer, Eliot, and Nietzsche would say that my statement above is too broad. Maybe it would be more truthful to say that once someone can define something exactly, and find little magic in it, then that thing is dead in their hearts.
But that too sounds wrong - because my sister and I watched a documentary narrated by Stephen Hawking in which he described some of the mysteries of space, like black holes. He also spoke a bit about the division between religion and science - Hawking essentially said, at one point, that there is just as much magic in science, in knowing, as there is in "magic" and stories and ignorance. He didn't say that in so many words, but essentially he believed that pure facts and explanations behind the workings of things make them more beautiful to witness, instead of less.
That coincides with part of Mariko Tamaki's graphic novel Skim (illustrated by Jillian Tamaki). At one point Skim says that Romeo and Juliet is an okay story, but she thought it would have been a better and more interesting story if the lovers had gotten over "their shit", and figured it out, and figured out a way to love each other.
And I agree with her! There's dark beauty in tragedy but also a deep sense of...wholeness one can feel when something just...works out.
So, in a relationship that is working, if I were to know everything about someone, then I would only love them more. They would not become dead to me. It does seem that that happens, though, in many marriages...the "spark" or whatever fades...what was once extraordinary can feel commonplace.
But no! If I am being optimistic...the more I know about something I am meant to love, the more I will love it. The better we will be. The closer to life we will be. The more we learn about space and the workings of the universe the closer we will be to real, honest magic, magic that we still cannot explain or take credit for, but can trust in its honesty.
I'm currently listening to ts eliot read The Four Quartets aloud. I've never heard him read them before. My favorite poem is East Coker, but I haven't read or listened to the other three very closely, yet.
Also, I met a dog named June yesterday.
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