From Infatuation to Contempt: The Roland Barthes Valentine
Nothing works out, but it keeps going on.
I am reduced to endurance … I suffer without adjustment, I persist without intensity, always bewildered, never discouraged. I am a Daruma doll, a legless toy endlessly poked and pushed, but finally regaining its balance, assured by an inner balancing pin.
But WHAT is my balancing pin? The force of love?
…Such is life, falling over seven times and getting up eight.
—Roland Barthes, Lover’s Discourse
I was fortunate in the depths of my greatest erotic humiliation, (some years ago), to seek solace in a cavernous bookstore. I spied a book, spine out, with a price sticker that said: “Lover’s Disco, $9.99.”
I snorted, and pulled the book out of its hidey-hole. The real title was Lover’s Discourse, by Roland Barthes, the greatest book ever written on love’s labors, and love lost.
I muttered whole chapters of “Lover’s Disco” to myself like prayers for months on end, my heartbreak bringing me to my knees.
I barely made it out alive and Barthes gets all the credit.
In homage to Barthes, I’ve composed a playlist for the stages of love, from infatuation to contempt— and finally, to picking yourself up.
Stage 1:
Infatuation
“I Only Have Eyes for You,” The Flamingos
Someone scooped the starstruck right out of the sky and placed it in the cradle of these opening notes. Cupid’s arrow goes right through you. When my heart beats hard at the sight of my beloved, it’s these piano notes that get faster and faster. The first time I ever heard a fairy tale read to me in my mommy’s lap, this is what I knew true love was supposed to feel like.
Stage 2:
Declaration
“Not Fade Away,” Trout Fishing in America
I’m gonna tell you how it’s gonna be . . .
Pheromones don’t lie. We are destined to twine like a lover’s knot; we’re going to go splat in the middle of the night. We might fight and pout, but nothing can come between us. This. Is. Certainty. Now pass the tequila.
Stage 3:
Delirium
“Crosseyed and Painless,” Talking Heads
I feel like an accident.
People speak of orgasm as la petite mort, but that’s too easy. Falling in love, by comparison, is like a car wreck in which you never lose consciousness.
We vamped, didn’t we? We never got off the dance floor with this one.
Stage 4:
So Fine
“You Make My Day Pretty,” Sweet Honey in the Rock
I love the part where I wake up in the morning, and turn to see that adorable face on the pillow next to me. Everything about my beloved is… perfect. It doesn’t matter what happens today, or tomorrow, or any day — because my smile is incandescent. A joy fills my heart, and this time it’s content.
Stage 5:
Do I Need To Remind You?
“Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line,” John Doe
I’ve given my all to you. People look at us and say you’re the luckiest bastard alive. You say you love me, but whoa — one morning I looked over at your pillow and you weren’t there. Traffic, right? Long night on the killing floor? One drink too many and you stayed over at Ole’ So ‘n’ So’s house?
What kind of fool do you take me for? — Don’t answer that.
Stage 6:
Suspicion
“Who Is He and What Is He To You?”, Me’Shell Ndegeocello
I remember the night I couldn’t sleep, and there were no more “sleeping aids” in the cupboard. I drove over to her house on Jones St. in the middle of the night and pounded on the door. She came out in the foyer in a nightgown, you behind her. You looked like you expected it, like you’d been in this position before.
Stage 7:
Do-Over
“Littlest Things,” Lily Allen
I didn’t want to believe it. I’m not ready to grieve, there’s no schedule for “moving on.” Can’t we just pretend that it was an errant radio signal, a little static that came and went? I can’t wash a dish or put on my clothes without every memory of you touching me.
Stage 8:
Tore Down
“Why Am I Treated So Bad?,” Pops Staples
I used to hear this song as a political anthem, a gospel haunt, the last song Martin Luther King asked Pops Staple to sing for him before he was assassinated.
That was before my beloved put the screws in. It was difficult to find a shred of dignity, even after I threw all your clothes out the window.
Stage 9:
What Happened?
“Notturno,“ composed by Ottorino Respighi.
Nocturne: n. A pensive lyrical piece of music (especially for the piano).
I first heard this piece played by the son of a dear friend, and tears poured down my face. How could young Danny Goldsmith know this sadness, had he crept into my diary?
The piece segues from grief to “How could I be so stupid?” The young certainly know how to be furious.
But how can they know the resignation one feels, when there are no more tears to squeeze out?
They do.
Stage 10:
Contempt
“Why’d Ya Do It?,” Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Faithfull was a flaxen-haired aristocrat-turned-convent-girl who became Mick Jagger’s girlfriend in the 60s and scored a couple of hits that sounded like pretty paper doilies. Then she disappeared for most of a decade.
When she re-emerged with “Broken English” (1979), the track “Why’d Ya Do It?” was the most obscene and vicious accusation ever cut on vinyl. All hell broke loose; women like me came out on our front porches and unleashed the furies.
Yes, now the betrayal is absolute. The Polaroids are in my hands, your e-mail trail smells like a litter of cats.
Stage 11:
Sometimes, I Wonder
“The Cuckoo,” Holy Modal Rounders
Sometimes I wonder what makes women love men
And I look back, and I wonder what makes men love them
I have to turn back to my Barthes for his last advice, the words that soothe even though I don’t want to admit it:
The sentiment of amorous suffering explodes in this cry: ‘I can’t go on…’
But you do.
Falling over seven times and getting up eight.
From Infatuation to Contempt...what a journey...what a title!
Broken English!