Last week I finished reading Heloise and Abelard by James Burge. I had started the book annoyed. Annoyed by the topic of romantic tragedy, annoyed by Burge's strange compliment to his wife in the introduction, and annoyed by Burge's paranoid academic footnotes. Fortunately the footnotes manage to drown the paranoia by number three (either that or the editors drowned the remaining footnotes), and the topic has the strange attraction of being central to the history of the time. There is so much to be known of that era of thought and mores just by knowing Heloise and Abelard, and this book is a very good read.
My mind remains unsettled by Heloise's insistence on her tragedy. She has lived her life as a lie, she declares in her later letters, the rational and Godly prioress while inside she never let go of her tragedy. If it was a lie, it seems that it had to be a rationalization of an entire nation: who can believe that a wife and a mother is actually "nun"? She took her vocation sobbing, and the priests looked away.
I recently had opportunity to take a walk on the San Francisco shore. I had come to San Francisco expecting to be able to enjoy one of my happy places, which was surely expecting way too much. As I stepped off the plane bitter tentacles of romance tore at me, and the drive into the city started and ended with tears. On that walk, I wanted the blowing sand to scrape them from my skin. The ghost needs to be pulverized in the spirit before I am forced to face it in the flesh next month.
As a very young woman I imagined the pain and bitterness I had experienced by twenty to be a kind of paint on the skin. By painting over and over it with a lover's touch and other new things I expected the paint to at least be covered up. They tried that on that Golden Bridge for many years as well, and eventually they brought out the sand and started over with the plain structure. As if that would make the bridge forget it's history.
I arrived back at my hotel to the story that the governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, had been outed as stupid. We like to write off the stupidity of men as about sex rather than love. But Sanford's emails, quite stupid in the plain light of day, aren't that different from the strange words Prince Charles used in his affair with Camilla. Even John Edwards, supposedly blinded by power and and a leader's sex drive like so many American politicians, surely uttered words of romantic attraction to that strange woman he chose. While we know that no one quite that stupid can be permitted in power, it nonetheless safely seats the root of stupidity far from the crown of reason.
The stupidity of love is much closer to the mind, far more dangerous, and consequently is only accepted when far more domesticated. No one doubts that Barack loves Michelle, but we feel deeply reassured that he would never be stupid over her. On the T.V. show 24, the responsible female President wipes the influence of her husbands love out of her mind. Partly a mistake in her leadership-- she chose him as a partner because he is not irrational-- but ultimately as a matter of strength and not done with much difficulty and she is applauded. A thousand years later we still look away.
Comments