Love patterns

While I tidy up things in my home or cook, I like to listen to the radio. In my case this is often not listening to a radio but to podcasts. For a long time, there were Polish political podcasts, but they became less and less interesting as the time went by. What is happening in Poland now is so tragic that in self-defense I do not listen to it much. The country is being more and more destroyed with each new “good change” introduced by the government. The people are not interested in their future but happy with little perks they get from time to time. Just like lemmings or the proverbial frog that is getting cooked not noticing gradual increase of the water temperature.  The journalists who I liked to listen to in the past irritate me more and more. They must be feeling powerless as they just complain, interrupt the people they interview and repeat themselves. They really don’t have much power to change the situation, but in my opinion, they make it worse. OK, I feel a little better getting my complains out of the system.

So, yesterday as I was washing up, I was listening to a podcast from the Sydney Writers Festival instead. Aciman, one of my favourite writers, was talking about his book Enigma Variation. This time I am not going to write about any book, but about love patterns, books and writing. Seems there is no escape from books for me. And now I know why.

Aciman said that our first crush determines how we will be in love for the rest of our lives. We will desire the same way as it was the first time and there is no escape from it. He says such a life sentence is beautiful but I wonder?

When I heard it, I started to think if this was true for me and I had serious doubts about it. I could not remember anything interesting about boys at school. Then my thoughts went into my preadolescent times and to my surprise, I found my first fascination with another person. Was it a crush? Maybe, but I was too innocent for realizing that at the time. I still would not call it a crush. I was maybe seven or maybe younger when it all started? She was older. And again, I do not remember how old she was but she was old enough to read serious books and she was good at telling the stories to me. I was in owe with her and I wanted very much to be her friend and to be taught by her about life and perhaps about love most of all. We met at a summer holidays I spent at my grandparents. She was a girl from Warsaw and that was very impressive. Tenia, this was her name, stayed during school holidays with the neighbours of my grandparents. She was much older than me but I do not think she was older than fifteen when we first met. She was a keen reader and her choice of books was rather advanced. I particularly remember her telling me the whole story of An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser. I never read the book myself but I still remember the plot as she told me. It was about a couple of young people. The man was weak and manipulative and the girl naïve and trusting. She got pregnant but the young man did not have any plans to marry her. During seemingly romantic rowing escapade the boat turned over, the girl could not swim, the man did not help her so she drowned and the court case followed. What I find amazing is that I still remember the story, the title and the author. Maybe we were older than I recall? I know that I did not understand much of what it meant being pregnant, so I was putting the story together over time as my knowledge gradually increased. I remember that she told me other stories that were love stories with actions I did not understand. We met during a number of summer holidays and I was always wondering if she is going to come the following year. Of course, I was hoping we will meet again and she will be telling me more stories during our long walks among the wheat fields or in the pine woods that were not that far from our respective homes. The wheat fields started just behind the fence of my grandparents' garden. Those were idyllic times and idyllic walks. I never thought about myself as having a crush on Tenia, but perhaps it was just that. When I recollect the times now the sweet feeling of nostalgia overwhelms me.

                              

So, if I use this relationship as the pattern for my future loves they would need to follow the pattern of me looking up to the men I loved and I needing to learn from them. And that is how it always was for me except for my first boyfriend. This is a subject which I would like to explore later. Maybe I will post it or maybe it will become too close and personal.

My conclusion is that in my case Aciman’s claim that our first crush determines how we will be in love for the rest of our lives and how we will desire the first time will determine all our future desires has been  very true.