Heights Which Wuther

For various reasons, I've started re-reading Wuthering Heights. The first time I read it, I found myself focusing on Heathcliff's situation, though in retrospect that may have been because his dominates the latter half of it. I'm currently about halfway through it, and have come to realize that my initial impression of the flawed nature of Heathcliff's love might owe more to Catherine and her perception of it.

The true realization is this: Catherine's love is not a mature love. It is, in fact, a child's perception of love. This is not to say that it is good or bad, nor pure or calculating - perhaps more on that later. All I mean is that she envisions and conceives of love in the same way that younger people do. She says that "Whatever souls are made of, [Heathcliff's] and mine are the same," (81) - the sort of oneness which people experiencing love for the first time seek, not realizing that such closeness is ultimately confining and destructive. She displays a child-like assumption of primacy: "I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me" (122), and, in an interesting touch by Bronte, the form her ghost takes is not that of her at the end of her life, but her as a child, begging to be let back into the home where she lived with Heathcliff.

It is childlike to love in this manner because it's how you perceive love before dealing with failed relationships; it's the way you love before reality forces you to deal with people who don't love you, who fall out of love with you, before people tell you they've fallen out of love with you. Perhaps, then, this form of love is truer, is better, is more real. It's certainly simpler, and perhaps less satisfying in some ways, but moreso in others.

This being said, my enjoyment of Wuthering Heights is no less than it was the first time around. For while the love shared by Catherine and Heathcliff may or may not not be desirable, it is true. Would that we could all say such a thing.

Some Things'll Never...

I was recently informed of two things: that I dote on the women I become attached to, and that I'm far less entertaining when I'm sappy.

The person who said the former went on to say that it made me "safe," as far as women were concerned; that it was neither good, nor bad in and of itself; that it simply was.

Personally, I find that thought repulsive, all the more so because it's true.

One of the things in Sandman that speaks to me is the theme of change that runs through it, a theme which necessarily is found in any good story that spans several years in its telling. Morpheus changes throughout the series (indeed, throughout his "lifetime", as the series depicts him at many different points in his existence), but in the end is forced (or, perhaps, chooses) to face his limitations. And so, tiring of the struggle, he moves on.

I do not know if it is possible for people to change.

That reeks of such self-indulgence. "People can't change, so why bother trying?" I don't mean it to that extreme; as I've said in this space before, just because there might not be the possibility of wholesale change or amelioration, it does not follow that we should not strive to be better than we are.

In some ways, I suppose I do not want to change; perhaps that is the true problem. I've never wanted to be the cloying, annoying person draped all over a significant other in public, but when I care for someone I see nothing wrong with letting them know. I love fiercely and I love passionately, and I don't think those are bad things. They are somewhat nonsensical (I shudder at the use of adverbs, and hear acting teachers saying, "Show me 'fiercely,' you silly bastard."), but not categorically bad.

Still, it seems to be undesireable to project so much onto someone else, both for one's own identity and because it's unfair (not to mention annoying) to that person. I'm sure in my case it comes from my own specific circumstances and background; I could spend all sorts of time wallowing in a pathetic Psych 101 exploration of my neuroses.

I think I'll avoid that. For now.

Suffice to say I am aware of this shortcoming in myself, and am seeking a middle ground.

Contrite Illumination

Regarding the quote which masqueraded as a post yesterday:

It is not really physically difficult to tell someone you love them. What is difficult, and what becomes increasingly difficult as I get older, is saying it to someone and really meaning it.

When I was younger, I believed in love. I was so eager to feel it that I told myself I was in love with people I hardly knew, people who were as ill-formed and confused as I was, if not more (though I find that difficult to conceive of). When I finally had the opportunity to express those feelings, I threw myself into it wholeheartedly. I think, like many people, I was in love with the idea of being in love; ideas are, after all, much neater and tidier than people are. This makes ideas necessarily less interesting and rewarding, but much more convenient.

Now, I don't really know what I believe. What I thought was love I do not recognize as love today; aspects remain, but the past love I felt was fundamentally flawed. I don't believe in love at first sight; I do believe in lust at first sight. I think it's possible to meet people and instantly know they will factor into your life somehow, that meeting and knowing them will change your and their lives, just as it is sometimes possible to feel the course of your life changing, to feel, in your bones, the divergent paths that lay before you.

Part of the problem, I think, (well, it's not really a problem, but whatever) is that love is not a static thing, nor should it be. Love is not a component that you take around with you and plug into each person you fall in love with. Each love is unique, as unique as the person whom you feel it towards. And, as people are always growing and changing, so must your love for them, or you risk waking up one day and saying I love you to someone you don't know, to a ghost who they used to be but aren't any more.

In some ways, I suppose this is saddening; who among us has not wished things could stay frozen in time in one perfect moment? Yet things can never stay the same; events conspire to pull us apart and push us together, people come into contact with new ideas and individuals. Perhaps the concept of love as constant is what is most damaging about it; perhaps it people accepted the inevitability of its change they would feel freer to love and be loved as they lived their lives, rediscovering their love for each other with every new day.

I want to say I love you again to someone, someday. But I want it to mean something, something more than movie-of-the-week bullshit. That is what makes me hesitate; not because I find it difficult, but because I don't want to devalue it in any way. And yet, is it really devaluing to say it, if it is truly felt and honestly expressed? Is love supposed to be a blanket term, is it supposed to mean respect and honor and cherish and lust for and am amused by and so forth?

Man, where's Forrest Gump when I need him.

Oh, and in a completely unrelated note, I'm sort of thinking of getting this t-shirt. Bunnies!