History is now...
Jun. 18th, 2004 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
artyartieIt's interesting how a book can completely throw your mood. One minute I'm laughing at poor Wiggins, fallen prey to an electrocuted bowl of water (don't ask) and then I'm plunged into a fit of London-induced melancholy along with poor Melrose. Part I attest to Martha Grimes incredible skill as a writer (if you're looking for a good read, I highly recommend her Richard Jury series - don't say I didn't warn you, however), part I attest to my rather fickle emotions. But if you care to read more about my dreary afternoon...
Indeed, for a city of several million people, London can be an incredibly lonely place.
Reading of a fictional character's lonely walk on a dreary winter night I'm thrown back four years in time. Never mind the fact I'm on a bus speeding through a sprawling Front Range suburb, never mind that despite the fact it's only 45 degrees and drizzly it's only a few days from summer, my memory is in control and according to my memory it's a cold January night in Covent Garden.
We had just come back from Oxford that afternoon - Heather wanted a night in the hotel, writing to Mark, no doubt, and I wanted to try and see Copenhagen again. It was sold out, however, and as I began the trip back from the West End to our hotel just off Hyde Park, I was struck by a loneliness so intense I wanted to curl besides the austere columns next to the old flower market and cry.
For a good portion of the London trip, I was aware of my singleness in the way that's especially biting to a young, naive girl of 20. The couples on the Underground, Heather and her faithful recording of the places she would return with Mark, whom she would marry in two and a half years (unbeknownst to her at the time), men and women, hands interlocked, strolling through Cambridge, the mysteries of the Mathematical Bridge. It was a foreign language of which I had the dimmest grasp. That I was young and very foolish and a good deal more melodramatic? That is for certain. But even now, much less young and not quite so foolish and only melodramatic when truly necessary, romantic love is still babble that can scarcely be understood and my most recent attempt at speaking it was something of a disaster - just not for me.
Singular. An entity unique, yes, but also an entity unto herself. My name has two possible meanings, one from the Latin, the other from the Greek. Latin, derived from moneo, to advise, to counsel. I have always liked this interpretation, and indeed, I try to live up to the promise of my name. But it is the Greek that haunts me, pointing to loneliness in every dimension. Monos. Solitary. Alone.
I shouldn't be so dour, given my close circle of family and dear friends. I do not lack for philos, for the kind of love given freely and purely and if anything is harder to attain than eros. It is, perhaps, even a reason to boast, having such insights and command in the tricky, intricate world of platonic love. It is the rough, uncouth vernacular that slips through my fingers even as it clings to so many others. Give me love in the abstract, give me the odes of Cicero and Aristotle made tangible in those souls I care for so fiercely, give me the love which so many others cast aside when eros blinds their hearts to all else, and this will somehow sustain me.
It is still raining outside, the puddles shimmering in lamplight, and four years ago, a young woman is making her way down through the Underground, her heart sinking along with the escalator. I wish I had some more comfort to offer her, but every burden cannot be lifted, She is wandering in a city far from home and even now that she has found a temporary home, a skyline she hearkens to see upon return, she is still wandering. Whether she is lost or not remains to be seen.
Indeed, for a city of several million people, London can be an incredibly lonely place.
Reading of a fictional character's lonely walk on a dreary winter night I'm thrown back four years in time. Never mind the fact I'm on a bus speeding through a sprawling Front Range suburb, never mind that despite the fact it's only 45 degrees and drizzly it's only a few days from summer, my memory is in control and according to my memory it's a cold January night in Covent Garden.
We had just come back from Oxford that afternoon - Heather wanted a night in the hotel, writing to Mark, no doubt, and I wanted to try and see Copenhagen again. It was sold out, however, and as I began the trip back from the West End to our hotel just off Hyde Park, I was struck by a loneliness so intense I wanted to curl besides the austere columns next to the old flower market and cry.
For a good portion of the London trip, I was aware of my singleness in the way that's especially biting to a young, naive girl of 20. The couples on the Underground, Heather and her faithful recording of the places she would return with Mark, whom she would marry in two and a half years (unbeknownst to her at the time), men and women, hands interlocked, strolling through Cambridge, the mysteries of the Mathematical Bridge. It was a foreign language of which I had the dimmest grasp. That I was young and very foolish and a good deal more melodramatic? That is for certain. But even now, much less young and not quite so foolish and only melodramatic when truly necessary, romantic love is still babble that can scarcely be understood and my most recent attempt at speaking it was something of a disaster - just not for me.
Singular. An entity unique, yes, but also an entity unto herself. My name has two possible meanings, one from the Latin, the other from the Greek. Latin, derived from moneo, to advise, to counsel. I have always liked this interpretation, and indeed, I try to live up to the promise of my name. But it is the Greek that haunts me, pointing to loneliness in every dimension. Monos. Solitary. Alone.
I shouldn't be so dour, given my close circle of family and dear friends. I do not lack for philos, for the kind of love given freely and purely and if anything is harder to attain than eros. It is, perhaps, even a reason to boast, having such insights and command in the tricky, intricate world of platonic love. It is the rough, uncouth vernacular that slips through my fingers even as it clings to so many others. Give me love in the abstract, give me the odes of Cicero and Aristotle made tangible in those souls I care for so fiercely, give me the love which so many others cast aside when eros blinds their hearts to all else, and this will somehow sustain me.
It is still raining outside, the puddles shimmering in lamplight, and four years ago, a young woman is making her way down through the Underground, her heart sinking along with the escalator. I wish I had some more comfort to offer her, but every burden cannot be lifted, She is wandering in a city far from home and even now that she has found a temporary home, a skyline she hearkens to see upon return, she is still wandering. Whether she is lost or not remains to be seen.
