mainly to catch the cameo appearance of our sister in law, making her triumphant return,
which did not come until near the bitter end,
so we also watched Dr. Yang's earnest, teary, and utlimately, I thought, ridiculuous speach to Dr. Whateverhisnameis-her love interest.
The speech was about a previous love, in which she had been hoodwinked and bamboozled into giving up pieces and pieces of herself until she disappeared almost completely, because a person she didn't recognize or like.
And she was in tears talking about this dark period of her past, because now, when she had FINALLY regained her footing, had finanly become herself again
Here was Dr. Whatever
tking a piece of her.
For some reason, the silly speech got to me and stuck with me.
On the one hand, I understand the sentiment that the G's A writers were trying to express -
you never want to lose yourself so completely in someone else that you lose yourself,
forget who you are,
become diminished, rather than completed by someone else.
On the other hand, I couldn't help thinking, how stupid -
As if love were about the clashing and parallel striding of two titans of strength and self assurance
like characters out of an Ayn Rand novel
,who give up nothing ever, ever, ever,
but only gain as they mutually conquer each other and the world.
My lasting reflection, however,
was a new glimpse into what it means
and what it meant when we
promised to love and to cherish
until we are parted by death -
a subtext that never occured to me before,
about our pledge to honor with all that we are and all that we have -
Clearly, we are (and certainly James and Maya ARE)
who, and where, and on our way to God knows what
in many ways only because we are togeteher.
The romantic view may be that
any alternative path
anyway that we, star-crossed lovers,
meant for each other since the dawn of time,
had somehow missed each other,
would be nothing, nothing, nothing but emptiness and loneliness and too much darkness to bear.
(and I admit I am romantic enough to believe that in a way -
enought to have proposed marriage
in the snow
in the woods
in the Cascade Mountaings
on the Surprise Creek trail
in verse that carried some of these sentiments).
Yet, in reality, there are also, because we are together,
because we chose this path and not some other path,
things we will never do,
places we will never see,
people we will never become.
And this is not because of a Dr. Yang blunder of giving up too many little pieces.
It is the giving up of an everything
To get an everything.
The gift to each other of uncountable, unknowable, possible futures apart
To gain one together.
And I am humbled by the gift,
By all that was in and under
That promise.
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