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Fountain of Sorrow, by Jackson Browne (subtitled Happy Anniversary to me)
2011-01-08, 1:41 p.m.

I thought that posting some attempt at my "Fountain of Sorrow" entry on my 8th wedding anniversary would be oddly appropriate for the purposes of review of the previous year. If it is a portent of the year to come... Well then, I so fucking can't wait. Then again, well, who knows? God closing a door so that He can open a window, and all that jazz...

The second verse of "Fountain of Sorrow" is what first really got my attention and hooks me every single time this song pops up on my blip.fm station.

Now that the things that I remember seem so distant and so small,
Though it hasn't really been that long a time.
What I was seeing wasn't what was happening at all
Although for a while, our path did seem to climb.
When you see through love's illusions, there lies the danger,
And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool.
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger
All the loneliness seems to spring from your life,
Like a fountain from a pool.

I guess the song just really struck me at a time that was totally appropriate. I was so disillusioned with my husband and my illusions were beginning to really fade about my other situation as well. "Love's illusions," indeed. You'll probably never hear me say that love isn't a real thing, but the further down the paths I get, the more I'm also going to say it's always, ALWAYS also an illusion. What a paradox, right?

I think the illusion of love is that reality, and the reality of this "perfect lover" and/or "perfect stranger" is always just that--reality. It doesn't change--it is what it is. He/She is who they are. They just are--they're not perfect; no one is perfect. Love is our brain's way of seeing them as such so that we aren't lonely. That we feel it so strongly--that it feels like it could last forever or that it is the most all-powerful thing we've ever known... Well, I think that's where we get confused between what comes from the head and what comes from the "heart." It's all your brain--the illusion that creates the emotions are all brain-based. Your heart pumps blood so that your limbs don't go necrotic and rot off. Your heart doesn't give a fuck who you're hanging out with, what they look like or how they act. Our brains are smart enough to know that it is part of the human condition to want companionship, and thus they provide us these illusions so that we can feel love and, if we're lucky it will be returned and we won't be lonely.

"When we see through love's illusions, there lies the danger,"

Yep. Turn the other side of the brain on and see the reality side of your lover and/or stranger. See what everyone else sees whose brains aren't telling them that this person is "perfect." Then what? When you see the person the way others probably do, when love falls away, when reality sets in--that's I think the part when everyone says that marriages/relationships are a lot of work. It's the muscling past the reality to keep the illusion alive so you don't go chasing new, fresher illusions elsewhere. Even that's because we build our lives around these perfect people and the detangling is so messy once the illusion, the love, is dissolved. Detangling from someone who your life isn't intermingled with--well that's not so messy, but for the sake of attempting to be a hopeless romantic--it's just sad. There's nothing stopping you from walking away if the illusion starts to get faint, but damn... You so wanted them to be perfect. You wanted the illusion so badly.

*wanders away to ponder*

last - next

Women... And stuff... - 2012-08-19
Sniffles - 2012-08-18
Time to kill while waiting for a late dinner... - 2012-08-11
0.0 - 2012-08-05
Locked and Isolated in BlogLand - 2012-08-03

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