Romantic gestures are not transmitted for their own sake: no, they are a translation.I do not hand over a flower in order for its recipient to realise that she has been presented with a flower: I do so in order that it communicates non-verbally with her.
The characteristics of the gift associate with the characteristics of the female - you are as delicate (as the petals); I bleed (because of the thorns, and for you); you were chosen (I picked the flower, and I picked you). In an extension of the chain of reasoning, what do I seek from the flower's conversation with its recipient?
I seek to provoke an extreme reaction, for L to realise, in a single rush of emotion, the depth of feeling I hold in her name. I wish, no less, for her to be overwhelmed with the simple density of passion. Overwhelmed? To the extent that I wish to provoke tears - of love - in L? Yes, and what a paradox I set. What unsolved dissonance! I appointed myself as the protector of L, the valve which gives her regulation and consonance. Yet I abandon this post for the fleeting madness of a difficult and rare gesture, reducing her to wreckage.
It is obvious that this pair of imperatives cannot be reconciled. One time, the desire to protect takes precedence; one time the wish to present L with more affection than she can tolerate is the stronger of the two. This dichotomy, of feeling the wish to simultaneously protect and submerge, is a crisis point of a relationship which is repeatedly arrived at, withdrawn from in frustrated irresolution, and later arrived at again.
Why should the acme of love be a woman's tears? It could be any number of other sentiments, of varying strengths, but my mind refuses to accept that possibility. To love is to overload; to exhaust; to crush.
On this, Valentine's Day, I think of the pressure which shears L - I want it and I simultaneously reject it.
