musingsonwomenshealth.com

Reflections on 40 years as a doctor in Women's Health

 ‘Oh, how this spring of love resembleth the uncertain glory of an April day which now shows all beauty of the Sun, and by and by a cloud takes all away’


Can we really speak from places where we are not; from times we have visited and then been forced to leave; pretend we still understand how it felt to be young? What truth can memories tell us of our lives…?

Do we only remember the sharp edges of things: the significant comings and goings of life, and forget that most of the time, we attended our days like shadows? If I’m honest with myself, I’m not sure anymore. Age can soften edges, dissolve them at times if we’re not careful. My longtime habit of writing essays, rather than chronicling my life in an ever-growing diary, is suspect I suppose, but it’s all I have. What I wrote colours what I remember; words are powerful creatures with lives of their own. Have some of them crayoned themselves outside of the lines provided? At my age, I suppose I’ll never know.

What got me thinking about this was the 1520 painting by Jan Gossaert (An Elderly Couple); I decided it should head my essay. It makes me think of so many of my elderly friends and their enduring love for their partners. To look at the painting however, one might be excused for thinking that the indifference each seems to show for the presence of the other would argue against an enduring love, but I suspect that love, too, requires tolerance to persist; familiarity with the foibles of the other allows inward smiles. Eyes do not always twinkle, faces do not always wrinkle with laughter.

I can’t help but remember some of the words of one of my favourite poets, Kahlil Gibran:  Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not, nor would it be possessed; for love is sufficient unto love. As for my memories of Love, there are another few lines in the same poem that perhaps better describe my experience with it: When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. But, sometimes the injuries are a signal; sometimes even friendships require distance.

Now that the hormones of youth have faded, and passion is just a blurred memory, I find I do not understand the purpose of Love; I do not know why we feel an attraction to others of whichever sex. Companionship? Loneliness? Mutual assistance…? Love is now an enduring mystery to me, although I am not entirely free of its attraction despite my age.

Curious, I found myself attracted to an online article[i] of the same Gossaert painting which I’d chosen for the frontispiece of my own essay. Its allure was intriguing; in some ways it reminds me of the 20ieth century painting American Gothic by Grant Wood, but, as an octogenarian, it could well be that I was simply innocently rabbit-holed.

Still, I fear I have digressed; I meant to focus on Love, and how, at best, it is not only mysterious, but, dare I say, tenuous. The author of the article (John Kaag, the Donohue Professor of Ethics and the Arts and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts) introduced me to a poem I had not read by Emily Dickinson: Why do I love You, Sir?  Although I find it profound, still, it is confusingly punctuated, so at the risk of foisting my own tastes on you, dear reader, I beg your indulgence and will quote it in full:


“Why do I love” You, Sir?
Because—
The Wind does not require the Grass
To answer—Wherefore when He pass
She cannot keep Her place.

Because He knows—and
Do not You—
And We know not—
Enough for Us
The Wisdom it be so—

The Lightning—never asked an Eye
Wherefore it shut—when He was by—
Because He knows it cannot speak—
And reasons not contained—
—Of Talk—
There be—preferred by Daintier Folk—

The Sunrise—Sire—compelleth Me—
Because He’s Sunrise—and I see—
Therefore—Then—
I love Thee—

The point, I think, is that the mystery of Love is similar to Zeno’s paradox of Achilles never being able to catch the tortoise: words are insufficient to describe something that superficially seems so obvious; so easily understandable, if not accurately describable. Why should such ecstasy be so fragile and, well, so time-limited for some of us?

I have not forgotten my former partner, although we have been apart now for many years. I still feel love for her, although admittedly of a different sort; there is certainly a much weaker bond between us than when we were together… So, is that still Love? Is Friendship love, or something else – perhaps less like the power an adjective has to describe its noun, and more like the bond an adverb has to a verb that has escaped its clutches and walked away?

I doubt that for most of us, falling into or out of love is a rational act unless we have come to see it as serving a purpose for each of us; it is not exactly a transactional agreement whose terms are laid out beforehand and the breech or acceptance of shared items are defined in the contract; it is more like an accident that occurs without a formal signing. Mine was like that, I think, although any expectations or stipulations are now gradually fading like the circuits of my aging memory. And maybe that ambiguity is a good thing to take with me into my twilight years.

I cast my mind back to the Prophet of Gibran’s poem: ‘And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself. But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night, to know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love.’

Mine never melted; it just changed to pain with time; perhaps I am still wounded…

[i] https://psyche.co/ideas/theres-no-good-reason-to-love-each-other-and-thats-a-relief

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