This post may sound like a paradox. Though, I am a romantic beyond repair, Mills and Boon is not my idea of romance, so is Valentine's day or the epic play Romeo and Juliet for that matter. Guess what did i do on the V-day? Absolutely nothing! I ducked Drama King's invitation for the fear of being compelled to meet and wallow in the deluge of love songs. I ignored Beach Boy's calls, for I could not cough up a good excuse to avoid meeting him.
In the afternoon, Demeter and I got talking about love and sex in B'bay. {The city is divided into the colorful evil and the colorless evil - B'bay and M'bai respectively. It remains evil though and I love this devil of a reclaimed land!) The B'bay part loves to party, make love, romance, fart with art, cry in the opera, eat smelly cheese, work as if they would get fired, and live like today was their last day on the planet. Though most of us shuttle between the two worlds, I largely grew up in the 'duh and dude land', so my sense of morality is convenient, confused and chaotic - almost like the usage of the word 'fuck' or 'whatever'.}
Demeter on the other hand has her world divided into 'I believe and I can't fathom'. Love for her should be penguin-like, so Byron's loves are not love at all. Chilmom was raised on the diet of 'one man, many wolves', so for her, 'her man' is the only man she'd every give any thought to. For Childmom, love is duty, a moral responsibility.
Demeter and I got on into a heated- 'love is not this - not this either' discussion and concluded that love has many faces. Each face is as true and honest as the other one.
I can't really define love anymore. For Demeter it is her unconditional trust in the penguin. She was lucky to find her soul mate at an early but I am unsure if I will settle for that 'soul mate' thing. (Though I definitely believe in it and desire one too.) I am wary of the magnitude of compromises that one has to make to sustain all this. She gave up her study scholarship to be with him.
The G-girl gave up her 'full bright' South Hampton scholarship for the donkey she is now married to. Does love demand all this? Is it worth it, in the end? G-girl was my biggest disappointment - I openly jilted her, when she broke the news. I only remember her sad helpless face, pleading me to 'understand'. I wish I had drowned her then. And later when I received her wedding invitation, I wished I had done it instantly. Surrender was her definition of love, she had risked it all, for a disheveled man she wanted to wake up with for the next 50 years of her sordid life.
Control is love for V, he believes that love is malleable and the person in love like a swaying blade of grass - Control the wind and the grass will bring you all the fragrance you seek. That is V's definition!
Adventure for Style Icon is what love is meant to be - he enjoys that edge, the tight rope, the second guessing, the mind game, the 'daily crises management' situation. 'Now, that's love' is how he often puts it -
For the Wise capitalist it is barter, equalization. Love is something that completes you, you must seek and be with a man that fills in all your blanks and vice-verse.
For Black Pearl it is madness - a violent madness that surpasses every emotion.
For Mushy it is solitude, he'd often say, ' You know you are in love when you share your silences in perfect nudity of emotion.' I have come to understand that, the skin and the barbs do not differ for most devotees of this form of love.
The Drama King's love is an acetic mix of horror and plight - he is a freak magnet to begin with and that defines his love. All his women are a little off the hook - be it the bald artist who is making an ice boat and will sail in it in the Arabian sea, or the cold, crazy Cat-woman or the pimple infested health expert, or the twangy ' i think i love you - but hang on, maybe i don't' woman (I can go on ...).
I can't point out a singular common aspect amongst their loves or lovers. They all are so different, so unique and its still 100% love.
Torch and I had our ways of loving and getting over. It doesn't take much for love to happen or fizzle; and it doesn't mean that the way we felt about 'the' person before that sublime moment was not genuine. The Metrosexual concurs with us. We three are as authentic as any human can be, just that we stop feeling the 'feeling' when we cross a certain threshold. We are yet to figure out why?! Our excuses often are ' I'm a whore, I'm a bitch, I'm a man' - respectively.
The V-day was a disaster for Torch, she was packing when I called to inquire if she needed some chores to be done. On her cuss word marathon, she was audibly upset and desiring to put up a garage sale - of the men who thought they loved her. "I can sell each one of them, and what is worse, they want to be sold by me! Almost begging. I hate this day, I feel I am so unfair, a heartless whore. I'm so F-ing harassed by this love business!”
In sync, we wanted to burst the heart-shaped balloons, feed fancy cakes to street urchins, rob every ones dinner and wine money, and save them the heart burn of 'fuck me - fuck you' aftermath that would follow months later. Love for Torch is in freedom, in the wind in her hair and no backpack on her back.
For me, as I am yet to figure - I often feel love is slipping under someones skin, more comfortable than yours and leaving a little of you that can never be claimed, rejected or pulled out. Like diving in a rising wave, at that 3-second magical moment, much before it caresses the shore and sucks itself back in, to dissovle into the sea.
