Love songs make me wanna hollah (and scrap)

So, what's the deal with love songs? I'm not afraid to disclose that, from time to time, I tune into our lousy radio stations here and catch myself (okay, I'm fully conscious of what I'm doing) singing along (more like busting a lung) to Phil Collins. And, lately, since I'm singing, I'm paying more attention to what is actually being said. Maybe you already know this but most "love song" lyrics essentially tell the same story which goes something like this: "Baby, I need you. I'm going to die without you. Since you've left me I'm nothing. I might as well go kill myself because my life without you is absolutely and completely meaningless." So, I ask again, what's the deal, folks? Why do we listen to this garbage and, better yet, why do we believe it?! And, for those of you who don't believe this crap, good for you, but the fact that there are millions of songs out there that spout this nonsense means that someone's listening (and not just a select few.)

I'm bringing all this up now because yesterday I watched an old Roman Polanski film called "Bitter Moon" with Peter Coyote and a hot French woman. For those of you who haven't seen the film, here's a quick synopsis:

Peter, whose name is Oscar in the film, meets hot French woman and they have this passionate sex and love affair until he gets bored and loses interest because, as Common says so eloquently, "good sex ain't gonna keep you." So, he kicks her out - numerous times except she keeps coming back and, eventually, begs on her hands and knees that she can't live without him. "You can do anything you want," she says. "You can have other women, you can hit me," blah, blah blah. (Yes, she actually says these things.) And so, he does just that. He sleeps around. She cooks him dinner. He says it tastes like crap. She cuts her hair and dyes it blond. He says, "Oh, I didn't know it was Halloween." And on and on. Eventually, she gets really sick and he softens for a moment and offers to take her on a trip to Martinique except, when they're on the plane, he fakes having a heart attack and the plane takes off without him. For two years, he goes on a sex spree until he gets hit by a car and hot French woman returns to France (after being in Martinique for those 2 years), finds out about his accident, visits him at the hospital and yanks him out of hospital bed, causing him to break his back (he already had a broken femur from the accident). He becomes paralyzed from the waste down, ending his sexual adventures and she becomes his nurse. You can imagine what kind of nurse she is. They eventually get married because, as he says at one point in the film, "It was like we were two survivors of a major catastrophe and we couldn't be without one another."

I read the comments at the end of the film (it was posted on Youtube) and most people really didn't like it and yet I found myself fascinated. I think the film did an amazing job of exaggerating the notion of co-dependency to the point where the actual mechanism of it and how it's played out becomes so obvious to the outside viewer, one can't help but see how destructive this pattern is. Unfortunately, I think there's a lot of this going on in modern relationships; maybe not to the same extent but it's there in varying degrees. Why is this? Why do we feel like we need another person to be in our lives in a romantic way so that we have meaning? Why not create meaning first? And what is love?

M. Scott Peck in his book, "The Road Less Traveled," defines love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." He continues to say, "Love is as love does. Love is an act of will - namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose love." Following this definition, then, love and domination cannot co-exist. Love and abuse cannot co-exist. Loving one another becomes an act of mutual symbiosis where both organisms are mutually benefiting one another and mutually thriving. In order for this to happen, we first need to know who we are and love ourselves. To love well means to have a healthy ego and a healthy amount of self-respect which results in healthy boundaries. No self-loving woman would have stuck around with Oscar. The second he even hinted at abuse, she would have been gone and wouldn't have looked back. (This can be the case for a man who's with an unhealthy woman or in an unhealthy relationship.)

The problem is that most of us have a distorted view of love. We confuse lust with love, "deep connection" with love, good sex with love, and emotionally bonding with someone as love (just to name a few. I'm sure you have your own list.) But the truth is that love is selfless. Love supports growth and personal freedom. Love supports our highest purpose on this planet. Love is boundless. Love doesn't covet or get jealous. Love isn't stingy.

I be-friended a woman recently who used to be a third grade teacher. One of her many acts was developing a curriculum to teach the meaning of love to children. One may scoff at this. Teaching love? But, we inherently know how to love...right? That may be true. I think children do inherently know how to love. The problem is that what they inherently know is oftentimes taught right out of them. We all do know deep down what it means to love and, more importantly, how it feels to love. But, how often to we act on this knowledge? How long does it take for a child to become cynical and jaded? My younger brother is 11 and he's got a pretty good dose of this. Sure, there's a place for good constructive criticism of the world and one's surroundings but, in my opinion, this thinking should not replace the strength of love and the act of love.

I think maybe we have some re-schooling, folks. It's never too late to go back for some re-education, right? Next book on my list is bell hooks, "All About Love." I know I could use some re-training and re-wiring of my neurons when it comes to love. Once, not so long ago, I was in bed with a man doing the make out thing. Earlier in the day I had a conversation with a loved one and it didn't go so well. It had to do with our relationship and how, to me, it felt like a sinking ship full of beautiful treasures. So, later, in bed with someone else (I wasn't breaking any agreements, or, in other words, cheating, just so you know), I felt miserable. I was going through the motions and not at all present. I finally said to who I was with, "You know, I had a really rough day and a very difficult conversation with someone. Can we just cuddle?" I think I maybe told him some of the details. (This is the point where those terrible magazines we read with titles like "What NOT to do in bed with a lover" would have something very harsh to say to me.) But, you know, I have this bad habit of being brutally honest. I can't help it. My heart waves around in the air like those flags on fishing boats that notify everyone how many fish were caught that day and what kind. Well, that night, my boat was empty. And so I was honest. And this man's response to me was, "I'll give you all the cuddle power I have." And he did. He wrapped himself around me like a thick, fuzzy blanket and though my heart still ached, I felt understood and heard. In this moment, a profound act of love (and grace)was bestowed upon me. Cuddle power - it's what we can all do for one another - metaphorically and physically. Remember the care bears? Yeah, well, they're for real.