Strong as wild horses

"Love will make you strong
as a team of wild horses"

(from You're a Big Boy Now, by The Lovin' Spoonful

lyrics by John Sebastian I think)

Strongest Knight Loses Strength

Dap? I'm trembling with fear, and the strength has left my arms, and terrible feelings burn within me. Tell me. You're older than I. You know this earth better than I. I only fell upon it a few hours ago.

(Dap:) "What are you talking about?"

Guenevere.

So spake Lancelot in the musical Camelot. Someone wrote those words, and Franco Nero spoke them with real feeling on Lancelot's behalf. That doesn't make it binding, but it's more evidence. He felt it as a weakness in his arms (which would indicate a biochemical change). And he had the feeling of the world being all new to him.

"I just feel it in my guts."

On page 210 of About a Boy, by Nick Hornby, Nick is telling Marcus that he wants Rachel to be his girlfriend. Some is what he says, and some is what he thinks:

He wanted Rachel to be his wife, his lover, the centre of his whole world; a girlfriend implied that he would see her from time to time, that she would have some kind of independent existence away from him and he didn't want that at all.
. . . .
(Marcus:) "How do you know you want her to be your girlfriend?"

"I don't know. I just feel it in my guts." That was exactly where he felt it. He wasn't feeling it in his heart, or his head, or even his groin; it was in his guts. . . .

The whole chapter is about love, and how one knows, and what it feels like. Much of the rest of the book is, too.

A grown-up woman: Is love for kids?

I think people imprint and it might have something to do with biochemical love. I think some people imprint a culture when they first really fall in love, and for the rest of their lives the kinds of clothing, food, music, houses and furnishings that were around them at that time will seem right, virtuous, homey. Maybe this nesting urge involves more than the clingy capture of the mate of choice.

Today I'll post twice, because I had already planned to come and transcribe a book passage, and the book is here on my typing stand, but I needed to work on a photoshop project and so while I was doctoring the shadows off of scanner art, I wanted to listen to something I wouldn't have to listen to very hard, and stuck in Abba Gold, a greatest hits CD.

SO! Here are song lyrics sneaking into my morning:

It was like shooting a sitting duck
A little small talk, a smile and baby I was stuck
I still don't know what you've done with me
A grown-up woman should never fall so easily
I feel a kind of fear
When I don't have you near
Unsatisfied, I skip my pride
I beg you dear...

(From "Lay All your Love on Me," by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus)

Should grown-up women not fall so easily? Is it something people tend to outgrow, biochemically, or do they just become more logical and strong-minded and able to see it for the temporary state it is?

Beauty and the Beast

"Love can turn a man into a beast, but love can also make an ugly man handsome."

—the newly-transformed former-beast, to Belle, in Cocteau's 1946 Beauty and the Beast which is on DVD and has WONDERFUL extra features (in addition to being pretty impressive for a 60-year-old movie)

Amortentia

"Amortentia doesn't really create love, of course, it is impossible to manufacture or imitate love. No, this will simply cause a powerful infatuation or obsession. It is probably the most dangerous and powerful potion in this room—oh yes," he said, nodding gravely at Malfoy and Nott, both of whom were smirking skeptically. "When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love."

—Professor Slughorn,
in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

"always in honeymoon phase" ?? Not.

"Tom and I will always be in our honeymoon phase," Holmes says in W, on newsstands July 22. In the interview, a theme emerges with many similar comments, including "Tom is the most incredible man in the world."


That biochemical rush is SO STRONG in her (plus there's an overlay of attention and the charge of the focus of Tom Cruise and all HIS attention, direct and indirect) that it feels like it will never end.

It ends. But before it ends, lots of people promise "forever."

Education will hardly help, because people who aren't in love don't feel they need to know, and people who are drenched in the love-chemicals cannot be reasoned with nor dissuaded or distracted.

Fascinating.

The trouble with love is...

The trouble with love is 
      it can tear you up inside,
          make your heart believe a lie;
                it's stronger than your pride.
The trouble with love is
      It doesn't care how fast you fall,
           and you can't refuse the call;
                see, you've got no say at all.

Composed by Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken
Performed by Kelly Clarkson

"Unidentifiable Malaise"

A quote, from somewhere (everywhere, recently):

On ABC's Primetime Live, Pitt told Diane Sawyer that tabloid stories saying that his 4-1/2-year marriage to Aniston ended because he wanted children and she did not are, "Ridiculous bull---t ... completely fabricated."

As for what happened, Pitt told W magazine that couples often experience an "unidentifiable malaise." "You don't know what's wrong because the marriage is everything you signed up for."

The end of the wildly biochemical in-love probably feels like "unidentifiable malaise." There are songs about that too, I'm sure ("the thrill is gone" kinds of things) but collecting those would be depressing, so...

ALSO, I thought lately that probably the reason this has been on my mind so much is that I have three teenagers and it might be nice to prepare them somewhat for the in-loves that might come, though I've seen them be very picky about who they'll be interested in. I suspect perhaps it has to do with unschooling, at least insofar as they have been around people of all ages all these years, and they don't have a clique at school expecting them to report all the details of their "dates" or declare who they like.

Petula Clark says...

My love is warmer than the warmest sunshine,
Softer than a sigh;
My love is deeper than the deepest ocean,
Wider than the sky.
My love is brighter than the brightest star
That shines every night above
And there is nothing in this world
That can ever change my love.

Something happened to my heart
The day that I met you
Something that I never felt before;
You are always on my mind
No matter what I do,
And every day it seems I want you more.

I am so into you...

. . .I can't think of nothin' else...

I am so into you
I can't get to nothing else
I am so into you
I can't get to nothing else

Atlanta Rhythm Section

Found this commentary in a journal here:

"This is one of those songs that has a strange, complicated story as to why I love it. It's not a song for everyone, and it's definitely not a song for those who are well-adjusted or sane. It is, however, the most romantic song about being compulsively obsessed with someone ever written. In this day and age, it's called stalking. In the 70's, it was called romance." (There's more there.)

My kids have a song they call "That Stalker Song." It's not this one, but it's another one that might be illustrative (or might just be a stalker song):

Every move you make
Every step you take
I’ll be watching you

(and you might as well not call the police,
because it WAS The Police)

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes...

Of songs that offer clues to how it feels to be "in love" (the big uncontrollable first love), I think nothing says it better than The Troggs' Love is All Around Me.

And nothing shows the oblivion of the lover better than their line

You know I love you, I always will
My mind's made up by the way that I feel.

Yeah. Right.

But it DOES feel that way. And that brings to mind a quote from a recent movie, "Maybe feelings are feelings because we can't control them." A fine movie, partly about love. Not much. And while most feelings can be controlled, "in love" is the least controllable of all.

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes
Your love is all around me, and so the feeling grows;
It's written on the wind, it's everywhere I go,
So if you really love me, come on and let it show.

You know I love you, I always will
My mind's made up by the way that I feel;
There's no beginning, there'll be no end,
'Cause on my love you can depend.

I see your face before me as I lay on my bed;
I kinda get to thinkin' of all the things you've said;
You gave your promise to me, and I gave mine to you;
I need someone beside me in everything I do.

And if you like that, be sure and see the movie Love Actually, starring that song and many other British stars (and a few Americans).

Call for Ideas

I'm interested in "what love is," biochemically speaking. I read about a very cool study a few years back and can't remember it all, but one aspect was evidence from song lyrics (and poetry and other literature? Don't remember.)

These aren't the study I'm thinking of, but when I find that I'll link it too. Someone said there's a part of your brain (a physical part, not just a biochemical flush) that grows when you're "in-love"/mating, and then recedes after a while. He was collecting song lyrics, too, I heard. Can't remember where I read it. Here's some stuff to read in the meantime.

LOVE: BIOCHEMICAL ASPECTS

What love does to your brain