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BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion
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Subject: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 16 May 02 - 12:03 PM Copied from a discussion we had in the Annexe yesterday, when the 'Cat was down... thought I'd continue it over here where more people can see it. Posted - 5/15/2002 6:38:55 PM Not sure whether to put this in the "Personal Wellbeing" section, or here... but as this question touches on culturral and folkloric ideas that have been addressed in numerous ballads, I figgered Mudcat would be as good a context as any. Twice a year, I participate in something called "The Art Garden" -- structured like a semi-annual literary magazine with theme-based issues... but instead of having the work printed and distributed, writers get up on stage and read their work before a live audience (The piece I did for November 2000 ["Child of the Spirits"] is on the Mudcat's storytellers' Page). Anyway, the next Art Garden is June 1, the deadline is the 27th, and the theme is "falling in love"... And that got me thinking of all the loving relationships I've been in, and I don't feel like I've "fallen" into any of them. I was there, the other person (or animal, or entity) was there, and the love was there as just part of the equation -- no sense of falling, or getting shot by an arrow, or hit by lightning, or anything. So I'm kinda stumped. I've never failed to come up with something for the Art Garden for fourteen years, so I doubt I'll let writer's block get me down this time... I just thought I'd "process" the question with the (generally) metaphorically-minded Mudcatters: So what does falling have to do with love? Amergin: Posted - 5/15/2002 6:46:57 PM not sure if this is any help...but what I would do is to write something based on your experiences...take the best part of them and write...and change a few things here and there...it does not have to be anything special...it could just be about sitting at a table...or watching a movie...or just talking.... JenEllen Posted - 5/15/2002 6:54:53 PM Perhaps that is your piece right there? *g* I agree with you totally. I always equate 'falling' with 'painful'--barked shins, skinned knees... Love isn't painful, not really. For myself, I see it as more of an amnesiac episode. My best friends and dearest loves all have come through usual channels, and then one day you realize just how much you care for them and wonder 'when did this happen?'. I've, to this point in my life, been unable to pinpoint an exact moment of 'falling' in all cases save one. Love doesn't fall, it blossoms. Keep us updated on your progress, eh? And best of luck, ~JE MMario Posted - 5/15/2002 7:08:20 PM So go with that -What *does* falling have to do with love? "Love doesn't fall - it blossoms" like it JE! Amergin Posted - 5/15/2002 7:13:29 PM the love may blossom...but the victim can fall....and see stars....i think it means that folks in love can do stupid things...like some one who has hit their noggin too hard... Alice Posted - 5/15/2002 8:30:35 PM You could take the difference between infatuation, which is what most people are talking about when they say "falling in love" and genuine love, which requires knowing the person well enough to have more realistic and concrete feelings about them. Infatuation happens between people who barely know each other, when people project a fantasy on their love object. Love is deeper, because it is connected to who the person really is, not just a fantasy image of them. Alice
Mary In Kentucky Posted - 5/15/2002 10:06:34 PM I agree with Alice. Waaaaaaay back when I "fell," we had a term that I thought was very appropriate. I knew immediately that I was "snowed." I resisted for almost a year before I got engaged, then another year before I got married! Pip Freeman Posted - 5/16/2002 12:02:17 AM When you "fall" for someone you go weak at the knees, your head spins, and you feel faint, and then you may quite literally fall, maybe thats what it's all about?! Why not do a discourse on all the songs with the theme of falling in love? Falling in love again--Marlene Dietrich What do you get when you fall in love---very funny words, particularly-"what do you get when you kiss a girl, you get enough germs to catch pneumonia, after that she'll never phone ya" Cant help falling in love--Elvis To mention just a few!! Pip Alice Posted - 5/16/2002 12:05:17 AM all together now... "Falling in love with love is falling for make believe...." Mary in Kentucky Posted - 5/16/2002 12:10:05 AM When I fall in love, it will be forever... Bat Goddess Posted - 5/16/2002 12:42:32 AM I don't think it's so much "falling" in love as being surprised by love. Linn Allie Kiwi Posted - 5/16/2002 2:30:02 AM I think we 'fall' for the fairytale sometimes. Love isn't always about the starbursts etc, but when you expect it to be, you can turn your back on something really special. Allie CapriUni: Posted - 5/16/2002 4:59:00 AM Amergin, you wrote: "but what I would do is to write something based on your experiences...take the best part of them and write..." That's just it -- I don't have any experience with the "falling" sort of love. I've yet to be in a loving romantic relationship. I have the love of friends, and family, and four-leggeds. But I've never had a "significant other" ... I had a couple crushes when I was in high school, but I was too shy to do anything more than admire from afar. I've had guys insist they were in love with me (when it was unrequited on my part) only to back out at the last minute when I decided that maybe I was being too picky. Other than that, all my relationships have been platonic. ::::Sigh:::: I was getting really down about that fact at the start of this last winter, too, when the topic was first announced. Now that it's spring/summer, I'm feeling a lot better, and rather than depression, all I have is a really big, frustrating case of writers' block!
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Amergin Date: 16 May 02 - 01:20 PM like I asked in the Annexe...are the topics open for interpretation? if so...what about falling in love with a four legged member of the family? or write about what you would like... |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Amos Date: 16 May 02 - 01:32 PM Fiction can only take you so far -- push it beyond, and it kinda sucks you inside out. But that is only one part of the equation. The expression, "falling" in this instance, resonates with the tumble of misbehaving angels, the first condition that led to the establishment of Hell in Christian mythology. There is a similar abandonment of serenity -- the condition is usually described as highly energized -- and a similar sense, at least in the Puritan ethic, of abandoning a position of studied virtuosity, which I prefer to think of as an overwhelm of faith made real in human terms -- there is a sense of absolute trust and safety and uncriticality involved in what people usually describe as falling in love. The other, whether rightly or wrongly, is accepted with high trust. The other reason why the term has acheived such popularity is the sense of a higher set of forces at work, things one cannot strategize against; when you take a serious fall physically there is always a frozen instant where your impulse is to do something about gravity, which you then just as instantaneously realize is not subject to management action! And in love as in gravity's well, there is a certain feeling that you have been taken up by a stream that cannot be brooked. The fact that it is really a river of your own energies, unleashed, the governor uncoupled, usually escapes one's attention!:>) All around, growing in and into love is a much wiser approach, IMHO. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy Date: 16 May 02 - 01:38 PM a phrase that comes directly from the French into Norman English, tomber en amour, or tomber amoureux, 'fall in love'. Even our phrase 'in love' comes from the French 'n amour' which we also use as 'enamor', or to be 'enamored of' someone or something. The key here, and what would make the most interesting essay, is the contrast between 'being enamored of' and 'loving' someone or something. To love is not the same as to fall or be in love. And in Sanskrit there are different roots entirely for love that is affection, devotion or passion. (and I know the French goes back to earlier Latin usage and vocabulary, but English gets it through the French, I think. I can't remember, but would be interested in seeing how this concept is treated in Old Norse, or the Celtic languages. I think German uses a different construction to mean the same thing.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Kim C Date: 16 May 02 - 01:41 PM I dunno, I think love tends to fall on people, sometimes like a ton of bricks! |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Pseudolus Date: 16 May 02 - 01:55 PM When you fall (physically) there is a point at which you can't stop or save yourself from falling, you just fall. when the phrase is used in terms of falling in love, I think it means you've reached that point where you can't catch or stop yourself even if you wanted to.
Frank |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: SharonA Date: 16 May 02 - 02:07 PM "Falling in love" a.k.a. Runaway Hormones! |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: SharonA Date: 16 May 02 - 02:38 PM Interesting... in the dictionary I have (Webster's), "falling in love" is used as an example of the definition "to pass suddenly and passively into a state of body or mind or a new state or condition", but next to "falling in love" is another example: "falling asleep". It never occurred to me to equate the two! Also, the expression "fall for" is defined as "falling in love" but also as "to become a victim of" (as in "he fell for the trick"). I wish the dictionary said more about the origins of the various meanings of the word "fall", instead of one origin of the word itself (Middle English fallen from Old English feallan akin to Old High German fallan and perhaps to Lithuanian pulti [how did pulti get into this?]). Without some info, I don't know if it's proper to equate the "fall" of "falling in love" with being born (like lambs "fall"), or with issuing forth (like words that fall from the lips), or with entering unawares (like falling into error), or with suffering ruin (as in "the city fell"), or with complying (like falling into line). All of the above menings sound to me like some of the aspects of falling in love! |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy Date: 16 May 02 - 02:46 PM it's the entering unawares thing, that meaning of fall, Spenser uses it in an early poem, though it has a couple of earlier usages, I think King James Bible, for one. I think a lot of the English usage is related, but shades of meaning, like to fall in with someone, an idea of happenstance, chance, etc. 'it so befell them that...,' but I still think the piece for the literary reading could be about the difference between that state and 'Love'. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Amos Date: 16 May 02 - 02:50 PM OKay, gang: back to Plato 101; everyone has to bone up (ewww! poor choice of words!) on agape versus the other six or so forms described before next class. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 16 May 02 - 03:08 PM Yes, Amergin, I may write about falling in love with a non-human (the editor/organizer has let me know that she is writing about falling in love with her garden... But that's not how I would use the term) Earlier, Bat Goddess made the point that it's not so much "falling" in love as being surprised by love... Personally, I think that that may be where the idea of falling in love came from. You never expect to fall over, but all of a sudden, there is a split-second of zero gravity, and the ground beneath your feet isn't there any more (it's under your rear, or your nose, or your knees, instead ;-)). So I've always equated "Falling in love" with a sudden, unexpected feeling for some one or thing, accompanied by a change in perspective about your own world and assumptions. (same sort of associations with getting shot by an arrow... interesting that in Eros's/Cupid's case, he shot both arrows of love and hate -- a sudden, strong feeling for someone need not be warm fuzzies) Most love, I imagine, is "grown" rather than "fallen" into -- a gradual growing awareness of the value of this person or thing in your life. Turning this to a music thread -- there are lots of songs about "falling" into love... what about the "growing" into love? Off the top of my head, I can't think of any -- not intense enough? |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy Date: 16 May 02 - 03:15 PM how about 'You'll never know just how much, I miss you, you'll never know just how much I care, and if I tried, I still couldn't hide, my lov for you. You ought to know for haven't I told you so, a million or more times. you went away, and my heart went with you I breath your name in my every prayer. If there wre some other way to tell you I love you I'm sure I don't know how. You'll never know if you don't know now. then there's 'I love you more than yesterday, but darling, not as much as tomorrow..' |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 16 May 02 - 03:18 PM Bill, I'm vaguely familiar with the first song, but not the second. What's it from? |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy Date: 16 May 02 - 03:35 PM it was a song in the 70's by a group called Siral Staircase here's something from a web site Artist : Staircase Spiral Song : I Love You More Today Than Yesterday I don't remember what day it was I didn't notice what time it was All I know is that I fell in love with you And if all my dreams come true I'll be spending time with you Every day's a new day in love with you With each day comes a new way of loving you Every time I kiss your lips my mind starts to wander And if all my dreams come true I'll be spending time with you Oh, I love you more today than yesterday But not as much as tomorrow I love you more today than yesterday But, darling, not as much as tomorrow Tomorrow's date means springtime's just a day away Cupid, we don't need ya now, be on your way I thank the Lord for love like ours that grows ever stronger And I always will be true I know you feel the same way, too Oh, I love you more today than yesterday But not as much as tomorrow I love you more today than yesterday But only half as much as tomorrow Every day's a new day Every time I love ya Every way's a new way Every time I love ya Every day's a new day Every time I kiss ya Every day's a new day sadly, now I can't get the sily tune out of my head!
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 16 May 02 - 03:59 PM Sorry about that, Bill! (why is it that so many songs with good lyrics have silly tunes?) |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 16 May 02 - 04:56 PM Surely the image implied is of falling into a river - no longer in control, swept away by the rushing water, held up by it, but possibly you might be drowned. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: katlaughing Date: 16 May 02 - 05:33 PM You could explore it as a gradual thing just as the leaves change their colour in the Fall, so you went "Falling" for your four-leggeds or whomever, you could get into describing the colours you felt with the gradual changing from friend to in love, etc...sort of make up an autumnal falling thing.:-) How about falling in love with life in an afternoon of lying on your back in the grass, looking up at the sky and experiencing that surreal feeling of falling, which can make one so aware of the earth beneath them, the different perspectives on life/Nature, etc....a falling in love with Being Here? |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 16 May 02 - 06:19 PM Gee, thanks, Gang! See? I knew Mudcatters were metaphorically-minded! I love your take on "falling" in love, Kat! Love may indeed be like a raging river (or an ocean QV The Water is Wide), McGrath, but I've yet to experience that {Thank goodness! Sounds awfully Soggy ;-)}. My first impulse, on hearing the topic back in November (Well, second, after the "Well, I'm stumped!" response) was to write about falling in love with language, as a very young child -- learning its rhythms and cadences, and the tricks it could play, and what it could do for me... But that was so long ago, that I don't remember when, or if, I first had the sudden recognition of it. Learning to use it well certainly changed my world, though. Right now, that is looking more and more like the best bet for me. BTW, the Art Garden is in Garrison, NY (across the Hudson from West Point Academy, more or less), at the Depot Theater -- if any 'Catters are around that way, and want to meet... |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Celtic Soul Date: 16 May 02 - 10:46 PM Shite! I just cleared my post accidentally. I hate it when that happens...this won't be near as good, but: I don't know what the actual history of the phrase is, but I have been through the experience, and it was definitely like "falling" to me. It's like jumping off a high cliff into water...you feel excited and exhilerated, and you think that you're probably safe...but there is a little fear and anxiety as well which only adds to the feeling of intoxication! I write a little, but unfortunately, it is the end of love that sparks the best stuff for me. But, perhaps a glimpse into the death of someone elses "fallen for love" might help to better understand it's beginnings. OK...here goes :::she said a little nervously::: Warmth bleeds from me like heat from the cracks in an old and tattered foundation in the dead, cold of winter... It seeps like lifesblood from a mortal wound, deep and ragged. My heart and mind grow numb. A snakes venom poisoning me slowly, inching it's way to my souls demise. His form is still here, but the light is gone. Lifeless automotons, we move about the task of daily routine, occasionally running into one another. Like blind fish, we bump, and then scurry away, nerves raw, wounds to lick. Trying hard not to remember when that which now poisons me was sweet as mulled opiate, blazing in my blood like fiery quirari, setting my mind, my heart, my soul afire. Cursed, wretched memory comes unbidden. Is it the doom of us that we forget? I think not. I think it is the doom of us that we remember. Sweet forgetfulness, if only in slumber. To forget the warmth, for now that is is gone, it is a torture. To dream of other worlds, of lives outside of the one dying in my grasp, slipping through my fingers like sand. To wake and live a day without the knowledge. To wake and have even the first thought be blissfully ignorant of the reality of yesterday. And yesterdays yesterday. And so, I wait. I wait for the cold to overtake me. It is the remnant of the warmth that taunts me so. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,John Gray @ work Date: 16 May 02 - 11:26 PM CapriUni, If you've never been in love don't even try writing about it. Pick another subject like - why have I never fallen in love? Who was it that said - men fall in love with women, but women fall in love with love. JG / FME
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,ozmacca Date: 16 May 02 - 11:41 PM And wasn't it Ambrose Bierce who said something along the lines of..."It would be better if, when you fell into the arms of a woman, you could avoid falling into her hands..." I think I'll run away now and hide. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 17 May 02 - 12:34 AM John Grey, you wrote: If you've never been in love don't even try writing about it. Well, I wasn't planning to... The thing is, I have been in many loving relationships (friends, parents, pets, et alia) but I haven't done that thing that's typically called "Falling in love"... I asked my dad what it was like when he and mother fell in love -- and he said "We didn't! We just sort of realized one day that we get along really well together, and we might as well get married." So it might be a family thing. I never grew up with the "falling in love" expectation, so when my hormones started kicking in as a teenager, I didn't go looking for it. I asked the organizer/editor if I could expand the subject to just "love", and she said I may if I absolutely must, but I didn't have to write about falling in love with a human. I do, however, have a lot of experience with falling (physically), so I might use that as a starting point: I know what it feels like to fall. I know what it feels like to love. But I've never experienced both together... Or something. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Helen Date: 17 May 02 - 12:34 AM I'm finding this whole discussion of the use of the word "falling" really fascinating and if I were writing something - having now read this thread - I would consider doing just that: discussing the ideas/concepts behind "falling" in love. (Have a look at an etymological dictionary for a lovely surf through the interrelatedness of words and their origins. Mine is old, called Origins, published by Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966) Part of the discussion, like talking to myself in the mirror over a period of time, would be musing about why it had never "happened" to me (passive not active verb), why I had never experienced this thing which everyone talks about. And then, musing about what might happen if I did "fall", who it would be with, and how I would feel etc. I can see this whole thread as a story, with different takes on the idea, with different people rolling the idea around like a new (OR previously experienced) and interesting chunk of food in their mouth - tasting, testing, evaluating, trying to put this whole experience into words, trying to explain the relatively unexplainable, trying to help other people to experience a part of what they have experienced. It's a whole philosophical and emotional and scientific question: what does "falling in love" mean? In my experience, I had only ever had less satisfying experiences of "love" and its variations, until I met up again (we were friends, but not close friends, more like friendly acquaintances, 15 years before) with the man I later married and realised within minutes of our initial conversation that "this was it". Something significantly different happened to me on that day and although later I "fell" in the sense of having little control and of reaching the point of no return, it was that realisation on that day which was the start of something different from previous experiences. Kat's idea of "falling upwards" describes it well because many of my previous experiences seemed to start from the not-much-different-from-ordinary and seemed to go downhill from there. CapriUni, I hope we get to read this creation of yours when you finish it. Helen |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 17 May 02 - 12:38 AM Don't worry, Helen. I'll be sure to post it. It's the least I can do after all the help I'm getting here! |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: michaelr Date: 17 May 02 - 12:54 AM Bill Kennedy - isn't it "I love you more today than yesterday/I'll love you twice as much tomorrow"? That's how I remember it. I agree with Sharon A: "runaway hormones". After all, the events/perceptions we call "feelings" are nothing but minute chemical reactions inside our brains, no matter how huge and earth-shattering we think they are. Falling in love = OXYTOCIN OVERDOSE! Lovingly, Michael |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 17 May 02 - 01:04 AM Actually, Michael, if I remember the story dad has told, I think those were pretty close to the exact words my grandfather used to define love: Love is a chemical imbalance Of course a chemical imbalance isn't necessarily bad. If there were no shifts back and forth between the different brain chemicals, we wouldn't feel anything at all... I seem to remember walking being discribed as: losing your balance and catching it again befoere you fall. So maybe we need imbalance in our lives in order to move forward. And speaking of falling and love... I think it was Bucky Fuller who said that Gravity=Love. That may be the connection right there... |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: michaelr Date: 17 May 02 - 01:13 AM Good one, Capri - I'll have to mull that one a while! Ol' Bucky was a deep one. BTW, I just read that the only geodesic dome he ever lived in, on the campus od U. of Southern Illinois, has fallen into disrepair. Shame... |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Art Thieme Date: 17 May 02 - 01:22 AM Frank Warner sang...
"Love, it is akillin' fit ---------Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: hesperis Date: 17 May 02 - 01:49 AM Very interesting... I recently "fell" in love myself, with ideas, work, and a specific person... Regarding the person: I've had crushes before, of course, but this time the feeling wouldn't go away when I tried all my usual tricks on it. *g* When I finally gave in to the inevitable, it was like falling upwards and downwards at once, and widening outwards, too. We're friends, he lives too far away for it to be anything more, but all I know is that I am very glad that he is in my life. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Amos Date: 17 May 02 - 03:06 AM Michaelr, forgive me -- but I believe that the "all in the brain" version of existence is a distorted and untenable (and self-referential) argument. I urge you to review the actual evidence! :>) Especially the part where communication and understanding start occuring. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,The Jester Date: 17 May 02 - 08:14 AM I've paid the price of solitude but at least I'm out of debt. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Kim C Date: 17 May 02 - 10:08 AM Like I said... I don't know that I've fallen into it as much as it has fallen on me. :-) At least in the romantic sense, anyway. With friends it is a different thing, it just grows and it's there without you hardly realizing it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 17 May 02 - 10:34 AM Kim C wrote: . With friends it is a different thing, it just grows and it's there without you hardly realizing it. Yeah, that's been my experience, too -- either that, or, as with puppies, and babies, and parents, the love is just sort of there, like it's as much a part of the person as their nose, or their voice: the person is there, the love is there, and they've never been apart. So right (almost typed "write ;-)) now, I'm swinging between two options: 1) falling in love with language as a child, realizing how it could change my world. As some of you know, I cannot walk in the conventional sense, and never could(hence my rich and varied experience with falling :-)), so where other kids ran around and acted silly with their bodies, so I did with my language. It also "opened up" my world, and led me to new places (much as a relationship with a person expands your world)] or 2) how most of the love is our lives is not fallen into, and how that's probably for the best, or we'd all be pretty plum exausted. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 17 May 02 - 01:17 PM Just been thinking about this topic folk musically, and I've always been confused by something... To take "On Top of Old Smoky" lyrics as an example: I lost my true lover for courting so slow In this context, what does "true lover" mean? That this person is, him/herself "true" (honest, upstanding, trustworthy, etc.) or that this is the person "I" (the speaker of the song) love truly? "My (his/her) true love" is such a common phrase in old ballads, it can almost be grouped with "Fiddle-do-di-dee" -- "true" being an extra syllable tacked onto "love" to fill out the scansion of the line... But what was the information aboout the subjects of the song/s that contemporary listeners to the would have gotten from the use of that phrase? Does the above question make any sense? I think I need some lunch... |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 17 May 02 - 01:35 PM A true love implies a pledge of some kind, I'd think. Up until the time it gets broken, in which case it's a false love.
An interesting distinction to be made between loving, being in love and falling in love.
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 17 May 02 - 02:47 PM An interesting distinction to be made between loving, being in love and falling in love. Right... which is why I was a little dismayed when I heard the topic was going to be "Falling in Love" ... there's a whole universe of love to write about, and falling in love is just one specific, relatively tiny, corner of it... So, anyway, in the lines:
On top of Old Smoky, all covered with snow, The speaker had made a promise to wed (or set up an apartment together, if we're gonna be modern about it), but then took so long to follow through on that promise, that the other party gave up and looked somewhere else? If so, I think s/he made the made the right decision!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: MMario Date: 17 May 02 - 03:00 PM except the implication is that they are both miserable... |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Helen Date: 17 May 02 - 07:24 PM For me, the term "true love" always meant "the real thing", not some cheap imitation like infatuation or just plain lust. In the time of those songs I think there was a belief that there was one true love for every person on earth and the challenge was to find him/her. That in fact has put a lot of pressure on a lot of people to work out what true love is and to know whether the one they loved at the time was "the one" i.e. Mr or Ms Right. What if they just thought this was true love but they had made a mistake? And with "till death us do part" expectations on marriage then to make a mistake could lead to a lifetime of misery. Marry in haste, repent at leisure. And, if you were like me and didn't find true love until you were 42, then all those attempts before that were really taking potshots in the dark, because before actually experiencing it I could never figure out what the key to the mystery was in knowing what true love is. All those attempts to define it, articulate it, clarify it only really made sense when it actually happened to me. Ah, now I know what they meant when they said that! And Hollywood doesn't help at all. Hollywood - for the sake of an interesting plot - advocates quick resolution to a steamy bedroom scene within minutes or hours of meeting, and not the deep getting to know you times, getting to be friends and then falling in love. Helen |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 17 May 02 - 07:44 PM MMario -- as I interpret "Old Smoky", only the viewpoint character is miserable -- for having fallen for yet another false lover. Helen -- the thing that really annoys me about "Hollywood" is not just the quick resolution of finding true love, but the assumption (especially if you are a woman) that, no matter how successful you appear to be on the outside, if you're not in a romantic relationship, there's something wrong with you... |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: michaelr Date: 17 May 02 - 10:36 PM Amos - review the evidence? I'm not sure what you're referring to but I'd love to review it. Please clarify! Cheers, Michael |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Diva Date: 18 May 02 - 05:48 AM Tried that..just had my heart broken. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Helen Date: 18 May 02 - 08:33 AM CapriUni, I totally agree about *that* pressure - so then I tried for most of my adult life to pretend the pressure wasn't there, and look for satisfaction in work/career etc instead. But then I realised that it would be nice to find a real relationship based on solid foundations, so I shifted my priorities and decided to let career take a back seat to my personal life. Resigned from my stressful job and met up with future hubby within a week of resigning. Hmm! Where's Horatio?
By the way, for a new and interesting take on love, finding love, courtship etc try this book called http://www.athenainstitute.com/sfc.html Usual disclaimers, no connection with company, etc, but this book really turned around my way of thinking about the whole falling in love thing. Helen |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 18 May 02 - 12:36 PM Interesting, Helen -- I'll keep an eye out for it. Regarding the biology aspect of it: universally, in sexually reproducing animals, the partner that has the most to risk is the one who gets to choose who to take that risk with (only fair). That's why, in most species, it's the males who compete with each other for female attention -- 'cause it's the females who have to expend the energy laying and tending the eggs, or carrying the fetus to term. But in (relatively) modern human history -- especially in Indo-European cultures, with most of power and property and legal given to the men, it's the women who have to compete with each other, so there is all that pressure to be thinner, taller, bigger-boobed than the next woman, which realy messes up our biology, since our brains want to deal with stress by making social connects rather than fighting or fleeing... Part of my problem, I think, is that I went through puberty at a time when our culture assumed that disabled people are asexual (I even had someone tell me to my face that handicapped folks make good psychics because we are spiritually purer than others!). Even though I knew, consciously, that that isn't true, I internalized that idea subconsciously... also, I lived in a very rural area -- a 45 minute drive from my high school, so I didn't get to "hang out" with classmates in a purely social setting. When I was ready, emotionally, to persue romance, I was out of college, and not in the workforce, so I had/have almost no chance to meet with people face to face... I'll probably put more energy into meeting someone through this Internet thang... but after the deadline. Otherwise, it will feel like I'm doing research! ;-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 23 May 02 - 04:16 PM Okay, I promised that when I came up with something for the Art Garden, I'd share it with all of you... I just finished this draft, so here it is (note: Irene is Irene O'Garden, the founder and 'editor' of the event) AN APOLOGY by Ann Magill I'm sorry. For the first time in twelve and a half years, Irene has put forth a topic that has me completely stumped, and I have nothing at all to say on the topic of "Falling in Love". Fortunately, she was gracious enough to allow me this time to apologize to you all, and to explain myself. Now, I've heard it said that love is like falling: a sudden, unexpected loss of equilibrium and control. You meet someone new, and, as if falling into a river, or sliding down a slippery slope, you are at the mercy of a force greater than yourself. For a split second, all your internal organs experience zero gravity, and the next thing you know, your perspective has radically changed. The ground that was under your feet a moment ago isn't - it's beside you or behind you. And the big, important things that were the center of your attention have suddenly been replaced (depending on your downward trajectory) by cracks in the sidewalk, the dust bunnies under the bed, or that funny little cloud that looks like a fish riding a bicycle. …Or, at least, that's the theory. But art doesn't come from theory. It comes from experience. That's not to say that I am completely naive. I know a lot about falling. I have been professionally trained in the art of doing it well - before I ever got my first pair of crutches and crossed that great divide into vertical existence, my therapists made sure I knew the correct ways of rolling with gravity and catching myself on the way down, because the truth is, a vertical existence is a very a precarious one. Now, just to reassure you: I can go for days, weeks, even months without actually hitting the ground. But I don't ever go a single day without thinking about it. Every morning when I get out of bed, I must be aware of exactly how much weight is being supported by one foot before I move the other, and of the relative angles between my legs, my torso, and the floor. Otherwise, it could be a very long time before I get to that first cup of coffee. And getting out of the shower is always an adventure. The good news is, that so far, whatever goes down must (eventually) get up. I know a lot about love, too. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for love. First, came the love that Angela Pomeroy Frary had for Lincoln Clark Magill. This love was so strong that it transformed them into something called "parents". Then came the professional love from doctors and nurses when I arrived nine weeks ahead of schedule. And love has just been there ever since, existing between me, and those parents, and friends, and teachers, and cats, and dogs, and horses, and goats, and chickens, and trees, and… (well, you get the idea). Last, but definitely not least, is the love I have for language. Irene recognized that love, and invited me to express it at the twelfth [?] Art Garden, back in 1989. Each expression of love has been brilliantly unique, with greater diversity and complexity than a blizzard of snowflakes. Just as the changing seasons affects a tree's growth, each loving relationship I've experienced has affected mine. And if some metaphysical biologist could somehow take a core sample of my soul, she'd be able to see and count its growth rings, going back in time, and would be able to reconstruct the changing climate of my emotional life. But here's the rub: after all my experiences with falling, and all of my experiences with love, I can say with confidence that, most of the time, the two have nothing at all in common, regardless of theories to the contrary. Falling happens when I stop paying attention. Loving someone is paying attention. Love is that heightened attention that sharpens my senses, and enables me glimpse the secret corners of another being - to hear the rhythm of the heartbeat within the chest wall, and somehow, seems make my heartbeat audible to another. Falling is an event, something that happens to me - all other things in my life, I participate in. But after that initial lapse of attention, all I can do after the fall begins is to react, and sometimes, I don't even get the chance to do that. Love, on the other hand, is a part of me, like my hair, or my voice. … Or maybe it's a part of the other whom I love. It's hard to tell. All I know is that the loved one exists, I exist, and the love exists. I can't separate the three (maybe it's a bit like an umbilical chord and placenta. Is that part of the mother, or the child?). And while falling makes me passive, love drives me to action. It gives me the desire to act, to create, to express, and to share. And, more than the desire, it gives me the strength to do all these things. Finally, falling, despite all appearances, is basically static. It only goes in one direction, and is over as quickly as it began. But love is organic, it grows and lives and changes. Sometimes it starts so small, I hardly notice it until later, but whenever I look back to try and pinpoint when it "suddenly" appeared, I can't, and I have to acknowledge that it was always there, but in a different form. When an acorn grows into a tree, did the tree suddenly appear? Did the acorn disappear? And it certainly flows in more than one direction -- it flows in more directions than can be plotted on a graph. It even flows into the past and the future, and if there is a "sideways" in time, I'm sure it flows there, too. So, I hope you understand why I have nothing to say on the topic of "Falling in Love". Thank you for your patience.
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,DW at work Date: 23 May 02 - 05:55 PM Sometimes you fall so gently that you don't even notice until you have to get up. And then it usually hurts like bejesus and you can't figure out howinhell you got into that state or how to get out of it. DW |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: katlaughing Date: 23 May 02 - 06:06 PM Well done and beautifully put, CapriUni! Thanks so much for sharing with us. I love your explanation of the disassociation of "falling" and "love." And, learning how to fall. I tripped on a cable, yesterday. My feet were rooted like a tree and would not move forward enough for me to catch myself on the kitchen counter. Felled like a tree, I hit with both shins, then knees, pulling a bunch of muscles all over. Not sure there was anything else I could have done, except be more careful about where I step. Fortunately, I am not too sore thanks to arnica and a Chinese medicine topical spray.:-) But, you've given me a lot to think about, not just about the "static" of falling, either. Thanks! kat |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 23 May 02 - 08:53 PM Kat -- I usually fall from a four point (two feet, two crutch tips, or two hands on a grab bar) stance, rather than a two point stance, so I don't know if my advice would've been helpful to you or not, but my general response to falling is to roll -- turn my torso as soon as I start loosing my balance, that way, there isn't so much direct impact between me and the floor. Problem is, if I do it wrong, I can really twist a back muscle... So never mind.... As for the dissasociation between "falling" and "love": I really think that was my problem. My associations of falling were formed so early and so strongly that I can't just see the phrase "falling in love" as a quirky idiom. I really do reserve it for that specific situation I described in the opening: the unexpected loss of emotional balance. I suspect that most people who will be writing for the Art Garden this time 'round will simply write about the process of becoming aware of love (Irene, for example, confided in me that she is writing about "falling in love" with her garden... which isn't what I would classify as falling in love). Oh, and be careful out there. I worry about all you untrained folks! ;-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: michaelr Date: 24 May 02 - 02:18 AM Been following this thread with interest, particularly your perspective, CapriUni. I am sorry that, as you stated, you have yet to experience romantic love... I hope and wish that it will come into your life soon! A loving relationship with a compatible person is a wonderful thing, but it comes with (potentialy severe) drawbacks, one of which is exactly what you said: "the unexpected loss of emotional balance". This is due to changes in the body's hormone production; as I said above, minute chemical reactions that feel like earth-shattering upheavals. It would be interesting to explore the influence of our sense of smell, through pheromones, on whether or not we are attracteed to someone. BTW, Amos invited me to review evidence that purports to prove wrong this point of view, but he didn't elaborate. Amos? All the best, Michael |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: michaelr Date: 24 May 02 - 02:23 AM oops - I got a message saying "transmission failed" so I posted again...
Extra posting deleted by a |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 24 May 02 - 11:00 AM Michael R -- Personally, I don't believe that that "loss of emothional balance" is absolutely necessary for romantic love. Hormone shifts are but one (perhaps common, but nonetheless only one) key that unlocks that door. While I was thinking about writing this piece (about the same time I started this thread) I asked my dad what it was like when he and mother "fell in love", and he responded: "We didn't, really. We just realized one day that we got along really well and decided to make it permanant." (and it was permanent -- a true "Till death do us part" marriage that lasted thirty years... And it was a romantic union, too. I remember several occasions when I would come into a room and find them kissing or dancing together to the radio). Maybe that's one reason why I haven't experienced that "head over heels" (though, actually, that should be "heels over head") sensation... it wasn't an emotional model that was demonstrated for me when I was young. |