Life On the Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

Vili and Mary K., of course

399

I think we may have judged these cute kids wrongly, and she spent 7.5 years in jail for having initiated one of the greatest love affairs of the century? (Which century? Okay, two centuries.)

Picture this: a high-school English teacher who is introducing her class to Romeo and Juliet, let us say, and is striving to reach boys and girls ten or twenty years younger than herself. So she argues the concepts of Romantic Love, namely, that it must be impossible because of some tragic condition. Usually age will do it. And the lovers must violate the conventions of the time, which traditionally are marriage and children, church and state, dignity and honor.

To Romantic Lovers love is ALL. Nothing else matters: in M.K. LaT's case, not her job, not her husband, not her earlier children, not even her freedom, which will be sacrificed when she goes to jail for a long period of time. This will appease the anger of society. Why, in Puritan times, it would have meant death.

And foremost in Romantic Love is sex. Love's expression is sex, and lots of it. Sex in a parked car--remember? Or are you too old not to forget? And the ensuing court orders, trials, divorce. They will be damned, along with herself. She will see her lover, regardless. Who cannot respect such determination, such, boldness, such disregard, such . . . LOVE?

Well, most of moralistic America, that's who. Society wants to see such people punished. Forbidden to see each other and perhaps even the two children she bore him, this child lover. How they managed to find each other and to couple!

It is the stuff of pornography. And we who sometimes look at porn, must pretend we don't, and deny the archetypal themes that run through the genre--mother/son sex, father/daughter sex, brother/sister, etc., throughout the family tree. FORBIDDEN. And if forbidden (lower case this time), most delicious. Imagine Vili and Mary K. making love in a van, or behind a hedge, or at school.

Simply awful. All of us lawfully married drones must condemn them, and what lies at the heart of great literature--a love that must not be.

But IS. And how wonderful it is, for us creatures of tedium.

They have convinced me, time and again. This what great love is. It is tragic and damning. I for one do not want it in my life. But I can only admire and respect the classic figures who embody it. Tristan and Isolde, Paris and Helen of Troy, Romeo and Juliet. And now Vili and Mary K.

It is soon to end, however. They have applied for a marriage license. He is 22 now, she 43. They have two months in which to get hitched.

Then they will be like the rest of us. DULL, DULL, DULL. Now, that is a truly tragic fate for young lovers. To grow old and . . . married.

398

How fleeting the seasons! But of course--otherwise they would be something else, occurrences with a large degree of permanence or sustainability.

The old Buddhist monks got it right. The long, long trek to view the cherry blossoms each year is much more than an another endurance hike. It is a reminder (so hard for Western eyes to appreciate, in this form) of the fragile and impermanent nature of life. "Here today, gone tomorrow" is as close as we can come.

It is not close enough. All the blooming and fading blossoms are another reminder, beautiful and poignant in their short living.

For today, though, the sight of the red poppy blooming again will do. It will  have to do so.

Thanks for the visit,
Robert C. Arnold, Editor