My senior year of college, whenever I was depressed, I listened to Jim Croce's album Photographs and Memories. The other day I was watching television and I saw a program about his life, which showed some segments of him singing his songs. I was reminded of my former obsession with his "lover's cross". Jim sings:
"'Cause now it seems that you wanted a martyr/Just a regular guy wouldn't do/But baby I can't hang upon no lover's cross for you"
The quotation led me to thinking about my relationships, some still going strong, others now quietly on hiatus, and still others that have ended. I think in all my failed relationships (I'm using this term loosely, as it's all encompassing) there was always this misunderstanding of the other's character. And I don't mean that I misjudged a person's character or vice-versa, but that I misjudged my own understanding of that person. A frame within a frame within a frame. Simply put: I think in all relationships we are prone to eventually expect a fellow comrade to act in a specific manner, or become more aware of his/her shortcomings, and change. But we fail to realize that our attempts at making this person a "better" person, have not only isolated him/her, they've skewed our own perceptions. This causes us to try to make this comrade come to terms with his/her failings, but we in turn use these failings to justify the "faulty" decisions he/she makes. Where is the happy medium? If we are using their faults to justify other faults, how can we give others the benefit of the doubt? But that's not really it - how can we see that they are changing, or that they are reflecting on what we are saying, when are perceptions of them have stayed the same? Have we become preachers who forget to listen to the voices of their congregations? Even there, in that simile, a hierarchy emerges.
And still Jim sings:
"'Cause tables are meant for turnin'/And people are bound to change/And bridges are meant for burnin'/When the people and memories they join aren't the same"
And finally --
I've been haunted by Before Sunset since I watched it months ago. In the movie the two main characters, Jesse and Celine, share this interaction:
Jesse: Oh, God, why didn't we exchange phone numbers and stuff? Why didn't we do that?
Celine: Because we were young and stupid.
Jesse: Do you think we still are?
Celine: I guess when you're young, you just believe there'll be many people with whom you'll connect with. Later in life, you realize it only happens a few times.
Jesse: And you can screw it up, you know, misconnect.
I wonder: I constantly see emails and read articles that draw a line between my body and a stranger's, connecting me to one family tree and to another, or one country to another, or one phone network to another, placing tiny bobbing heads across a map of the united states (and beyond). Connections are painted as being innumerable. Of course I am connected (even with this medium) to those living in locations across the globe. But Celine is right - that tenuous line is so rare, that when it reverberates, one shouldn't ignore its sound.
best,
l.c.
3 comments:
I guess when you're young, you just believe there'll be many people with whom you'll connect with. Later in life, you realize it only happens a few times.
I find this annoyingly fatalistic. It's like a perversion of the already-annoying platitude "there's someone for everyone." It's cornball romance that relies on some magical idea of "connection" that no one bothers to define.
I'm not writing off the movie, because I haven't seen it; maybe it's great. But god, either that idea is so depressing it's untenable or so insubstantial it's nonexistent.
I disagree. I do believe there are certain people with whom you share a connection, but that isn't synonymous with the whole argument that every person has a "soulmate". I believe people gravitate towards others for specific reasons - they see in that person a trait that they wish to emulate and/or is missing from their own personality, etc. Whatever it is, the connection is there and allows for an immediate level of trust. Maybe I'm just frustratingly optimistic, but I believe that these connections are incredibly special, and incredibly rare.
Hm, I had commented on this before, but it doesn't say you deleted it, so... blogger ate it?
Anyway, I don't have a problem with assigning value to relationships or saying that they can be unique and special. But a meaningful relationship is something that is developed; it isn't caused by some cosmic insta-lock that is fated to occur with a tiny subset of the general population.
As quoted, that statement from the movie is basically saying, "There are very, very few people on this planet that you will ever truly connect with. And if you mess up, you missed your chance. Game over, sucks to be you." What's optimistic about that?
If anything, I think this attitude is just going to make people settle. "Hey, this situation is flawed, but I only have a few chances to ever meet anyone even at THIS level, so maybe this is the last one? Better seal the deal."
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