Love, Amor

I had a brief discussion about love at the library yesterday. At night, when I was leaving my Thursday milonga – which, by the way, sucked – I started thinking about this thing called love. I felt the urge to call a friend of mine, imbued of curiosity and a bit of despair, and ask him: what is love? Please, tell me. Just tell me.

Cole Porter also asked (in a song I love and hum often) himself: What is this thing called love? And who can forget Chet Baker’s voice singing a song by Gene De Paul? The song, whispered by Chet Baker, says:

You don’t know what love is/ until you’ve learned/ the meaning of the blues/ until you’ve loved a love/ you’ve had to lose/ you don’t know what love is

I am sure there are hundreds, even thousands of songs, poems, books, movies that refer or try to answer the question that has been a constant in my life as far as I can remember. My first poem, when I was six, was about love: my love for my bedroom and the view I had from my window.

There was a customer that I liked very much, who doesn’t come to the library anymore – he told me he was retiring in France – who once asked me, smiling like a child: what do you want from life? And I retorted: I don’t know, but I am on a quest. Funny thing is that, I had seen him in a local restaurant once. He looked very talkative and friendly.

Then, one day I met him officially at the library and he had lost a lot of weight and was walking with a newly acquired difficulty. We still had a good time talking about movies and literature and I could perceive in his eyes that he used to find my curiosity about anything amusing. A few months later, I saw him carrying an oxygen tank and was visibly physically challenged by his condition, which we never discussed. I never told him what my quest was about. I think that now it is too late. He never answered my au revoir e-mail and given the fact that his health was so fragile, I would not be surprised if he was not around anymore.

At any rate, last night, as I was driving home, that question almost made me cry. I felt this immense sadness and I wanted someone to tell me. I know it is my responsibility to find out on my own. This urge about love is not new; this urge to understand it as a concept, as a feeling, as a thing has always been present: nonetheless, last night it hit me hard. My mom used to find that humorous. How come a young girl is always asking about that, is talking about that? I didn’t have an answer for her either.

It is sad to be on this spot where love doesn’t sound appealing anymore. It’s sad to doubt people when they say they love you. It’s sad not to feel it. Isn’t love a decision, though? Don’t I decide when and where and whom to love? Isn’t love the art of discovery?

I’ve met an interesting person a few days ago and when he asked about my dad, based on my answer, we started discussing that kind of love that appears suddenly when people are about to die. He had a whole theory about that. He said that he doesn’t feel sorry for people anymore. He said: why do people think they can act like that? Why, when they’re dying, people hold your hand and regret the fact that they never expressed their feelings towards you? Is it because death scares the shit out of them?

I don’t know what love is. I know that indifference is worse than hate. I know what love is not. I know how I don’t like to be treated. I know what it feels like to be happy around certain people, but to some extent I’ve been hiding my feelings for so long to protect myself, that I just don’t know anymore how to feel anything, except pain.

I didn’t call my friend. After all, love means different things to different people. And he had, just the night before, spoken of a broken heart. I drove home, annoyed with a phone call I got and by the fact that the person who called just confused me even more. It seemed like it was his fault. It’s no one’s fault, but he was also disturbing my thoughts; he was showing some kind of care I am not ready for. Or maybe, the doubts I have about his intentions annoyed me. Doesn't he get it? Doesn't he understand I am not making myself available? Love, mi amor (as he calls me and probably all of his female friends) is not registered in my operational system.

It’s just that love seems like math to me: I can grasp the concepts of it – obviously, with a lot of effort. However, a simple equation can be extremely difficult and time consuming. It can easily disturb my status quo.

I got home and led myself to the bedroom, where some security and comfort can be found and before I went to sleep, my last thought was that at this point, I just hope not to run out of time.