Free Fall

I was doing research for a poem some time ago, reading a few articles on birds of prey, when I was reminded of the hawk's incredible mating behaviour. First it's interesting to know that male and female hawks tend to be monogamous, staying with the same partner their whole life. Then they'll build their nest before the mating season begins, occasionally improving it later on during the season. Once this is done, they will engage in the mating proper.

They will circle around one another, rise up in the air at the same time, higher and higher up until the male eventually flies much higher up and lunges at the female. Both will then fly back up to that same height, and then resume their courtship with the same pattern. They will repeat this circular dance until the male finally dives and latches onto the female to mate, free-falling down to the ground. It lasts just a handful of seconds.

Hawks like the red-tailed can dive after a prey to speeds of up to 120 miles per hour (193km/h), so even though they won't reach speeds like these when mating, and even though they will be so very high up that it's not a danger, they will nonetheless free-fall, quite fast at that. It's not too hard for us to imagine what it feels like to trust someone enough to let everything go. We will all profess that we have done this at least once in our lives. And oh, of course, hawks do not endanger themselves free-falling, so like us it's a measured danger we take every time we make love with our partner.

If only we were only talking about measured danger. It's very tempting to draw parallels between hawks and us: they tend to be monogamous and to have only one lifelong partner, to build their nest before having offspring, and making improvements to it during the course of raising their chicks. Somehow, somewhat like us in that idealised, old world version of our world.

Both hawks surrender their natural instinct to fly in order to mate. They cannot reproduce if they are not in free fall. What natural capacity do we surrender when we make love? It's not a question of spatiality for us, as we do not abandon our capacity to walk or move. It's more to do with being naked and defenceless. It's about closing our eyes, lying on or near that special someone. About sleeping soundly with them. It's about surrendering our faculty to think straight, to rationalise. That's our free fall.

Our measured danger, once we have chosen a partner with whom we've built a nest, is to put our trust in them by handing a part, or parts, of our judgement so we both appreciate the distance between the apex of the spiralling up and ground zero. We trust our guts in that free fall towards the unknown, latched onto someone who like us is hurtling down – who lets themselves hurtle down with us – with only the safe knowledge that we're in this together.

And perhaps, occasionally, that poetic feeling, when hugging someone this close to our heart of hearts, of a hauntingly real, timeless free fall.

 

Camus, Scott, Camus, Sales. Yet another misquote.

Today I read this quote:

"Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken."

Attributed to, among all, Albert Camus. I had to chuckle at this.

After a quick search, it appears this quote appeared in an episode of One Tree Hill, in this form:

"Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken. But I wonder if there’s no breaking then there’s no healing, and if there’s no healing then there’s no learning. And if there’s no learning then there’s no struggle. But the struggle is a part of life. So must all hearts be broken?"

I dug deeper and found the French version:

"Heureux les coeurs qui peuvent plier car ils ne seront jamais brisés. Sont-ils si heureux que ça. Un coeur qui ne se brise pas ne peut pas guérir si on ne connait ni l'épreuve ni la guérisson on n'apprend rien et si l'on n'apprend rien on ne change pas. Mais les épreuves et les changements font partie de la vie. Tous les coeurs devraient-ils être brisés ?" 

It's funny how the Goodreads website attributes the French version to Albert Camus, but the English version first to Camus, but also to One Tree Hill (in the tags). Alternatively, I found many French websites referencing the series and quote together, and not linking it to Camus. There's more to it, but let me digress for a minute.

I know how many of you just don't care about the provenance of quote as long as it inspires and uplifts you. I've had this debate repeatedly here on this blog, during my literature classes at university and just about everywhere where books are involved. I get the 'being inspired' part, I really do. Otherwise quotes wouldn't be my post frequently used tag on the blog. But come on, you have to be intellectually honest, and whenever possible check who actually wrote the quote. Imagine you are a writer, and you come up with such a beautiful text that you share it with people. Then someone extracts a passage which they find absolutely amazing and share it with more people. You're happy, right? Your text and its message spread out like so many beautiful dandelion seeds in the summer breeze. Yet over time your quote gets misattributed to somebody more famous, because you're not famous, you're not even known. You'd be mad, and I'd say rightly so.

Back to our murky business. The person who came up with this is actually known, so please stop attributing it to Camus. He never wrote this and -- I could debate with specialists -- he never would have. It strikes me as too overtly biblical in tone, the which Camus wouldn't have done. This website probably nailed the source -- and the reason for the confusion -- for the quote. You can click on the link, but here's the entry:

"Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken."

Saint Francis de Sales.

Source/Notes: Variant translation: "Blessed are the hearts which bend, they never break." - The Beauties of Saint Francis de Sales, selected and translated from the writings of John Peter Camus (1829), p. 49. This quote is sometimes misattributed to Albert Camus.

I took the liberty to underline the names. We can see easily figure out why, after so many years, possible careless handling of names and a sloppy memory, the two people have been confused, as one fell into oblivion and the other remained up there in the pantheon of writers. And in our case it's even worse as John Peter Camus was only the translator, the real writer was Saint Francis de Sales (hence the biblical overtones). So it isn't just one person who fell into oblivion, but two.

I'll finish this rather long post (for what it's worth) by saying that of course Albert Camus isn't reaping any benefit from this. No pecuniary recompense is going to the Camus estate. My point is that more diversity in literature is always welcome, because people have a tendency to put literature into a small box in which only a handful of writers gave us a handful of memorable quotes and the rest is easily forgettable. As if, by the same token, a quote was more inspiring because Shakespeare or Camus had written than if it were a complete stranger. That's nonsense. There's power in all of us to say something true, timeless, unforgettable. Instagram and Reddit are rife with great, and as yet anonymous, talents. So look up, look around, and look sharp.

 

Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.”
―Saint Francis de Sales
Read more at https://izquotes.com/author/saint-francis-de-sales

Variant translation: "Blessed are the hearts which bend, they never break" - The beauties of st. Francis de Sales, selected and translated from the writings of John Peter Camus (1829), p. 49. This quote is sometimes misattributed to Albert Camus.
Read more at https://izquotes.com/author/saint-francis-de-sales

“Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.”
―Saint Francis de Sales

Source/Notes:
Variant translation: "Blessed are the hearts which bend, they never break" - The beauties of st. Francis de Sales, selected and translated from the writings of John Peter Camus (1829), p. 49. This quote is sometimes misattributed to Albert Camus.

Read more at https://izquotes.com/author/saint-francis-de-sales

“Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.”
―Saint Francis de Sales

Source/Notes:
Variant translation: "Blessed are the hearts which bend, they never break" - The beauties of st. Francis de Sales, selected and translated from the writings of John Peter Camus (1829), p. 49. This quote is sometimes misattributed to Albert Camus.

Read more at https://izquotes.com/author/saint-francis-de-sales

“Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.”
―Saint Francis de Sales

Source/Notes:
Variant translation: "Blessed are the hearts which bend, they never break" - The beauties of st. Francis de Sales, selected and translated from the writings of John Peter Camus (1829), p. 49. This quote is sometimes misattributed to Albert Camus.

Read more at https://izquotes.com/author/saint-francis-de-sales

Because things pass

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating."

Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, novelist, first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (1892-1973)

I couldn't trace the quote back to the original. The best I could find was Wikiquote (I believe whippersnappers these days would say "lel" to this), which has: "as quoted in The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters: Insiders Secrets from Hollywood's Top Writers (2001) by Karl Inglesias, p. 4. This has also appeared on the internet in several slightly paraphrased forms."

 

Nemesis Ex Machina

Its fiery, devilish eyes delved into mine. Not a flicker of fear, not even a frisson of war-frenzy. When out of the blue the beast landed on the window sill, time trembled on its talons and stood still. I was astonished out of my wits and beheld the behemoth, majestic, arrogant. It seemed impervious to the heat outside, caparisoned in feathers of steely pride. I was speared through by those yellow, beady eyes which decreed I was so insignificant I didn't exist. It lay there motionless, yet defiant.

The tension was so nerve-racking I could picture the howling of the wind, tumbleweeds rolling between us, and a dog barking in the distance. Time had been brought to a halt in an instant. And even though I didn't know for what purpose the colossal fiend had chosen my abode to reveal itself, but there was no doubt there was no way out of that confrontation. Warmongering was rustling its tenebrous plumage. I had to repulse the hordes of darkness.

I defied the stygian stench emanating from the demon and walked closer to the window, barring it entrance and affirming my determination to defend myself and my world it had come to destroy. Fuelled by willpower and survival instinct, I mustered a courage skaldic poets would have been proud to praise. I endeavoured to scare the brute off, executing ferocious dances of war, chanting imprecations and anathemas, cursing its offspring for generations upon generations. My arms and legs were as if possessed by the very god of war, but it seemed I only was in the grip of dread. The feral culver stood impassibly, gazing like a stoic stone idol of old.

I was left with no other choice. I had to take up arms. I quickly glanced around and there lay at my feet my camera's tripod. I raised it high above my head and with the loudest and most Viking scream I ever bellowed, and because the bugger didn't want to budge, I shoved the winged monstrosity off the edge. It nebulously flew across the street onto the opposite rooftop, and then turned around to face me, again. It had turned its appearance back to that of a normal pigeon but there, unfazed, it professed its archnemesisness. It told me in that ancient wordless language of warfare that the fight was only suspended, and that from now on I would have to watch the skies in fear.

But I have embraced my vikingness. I am ready.

 

Rawer

Not sure what I'm doing here,

in between sweaty legs,

a heavy head on my chest.

Not sure what's happening here,

hands still clung to my hips,

a breathing I don't recognise.

Not sure what I've done here.

First time I sleep with someone

since you broke up with me.

Not sure what's happened here.

I feel caught in a bear trap

the hunter's breath on my neck.

Not sure what'll happen now.

Maybe waiting to be skinned,

more naked than I already am.

Not sure what I'll do now.

All I loved once is gone.

You are gone, never to return.

I should probably get up now,

get dressed and take my leave.

I should certainly flee the shame

and run away as fast as possible

to avoid seeing your eyes now,

your shaking head and tutting mouth.

I should go home and shower off

all these tears and emotions

and wait for the night to smother me.

I just wanted to taste

what it felt like to love,

to taste the freedom

off somebody else's lips.

I will carry you inside me forever

and watch your eyes as I do now

questioning my guilty conscience.

Not sure what could have happened

if you had stayed with me

but I know for certain

that I'd still love you.

Not sure where you are now

with whom you're sharing a bed

but I want to be this person

and efface what you think of me.

Not sure how I could do this now

but I think about it every day

every, single, day...certain now

that I can't find again the grain

of your skin on that of others

nor the shade of your green eyes

nor the sound of your smile

it's as if you were dead only to me

and not for the rest of the world

some thoughts are rawer

than a naked body

sharper than headlights

on a fox's face

more bitter than the salt

off your long-lost faded lips.

FOMO

I recently developed a condition

whereby I have a violent,

borderline jealous reaction

with practically everyone.

I gape, I stare, I fall silent.

Let me put before you a case I imagined.

Picture a seven year old skydiving

for the first time and becoming a legend.

My whole existence felt so much threatened

I was stabbed by the most excruciating pang

of jealousy at the pit of the stomach.

Now a ninety year old with Parkinson?

Stab to the heart. A sneer. Enough to choke.

Father of two, in a wheelchair? A mock.

Agony of the soul drilled by a tommy gun.

I think my fear of missing out

has gone to the next level

My soul wants to go all-out,

I want to make it all out,

I want to feel how they feel.

I want to feel every possible human emotion:

from the sharpest love to the dullest pain,

from dejected tenderness to tender rejection.

I would like to be everything and everyone.

I would like to die and to live and to die again.

 

The responsibility to be oneself

"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does."

Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher, playwrigtht, novelist, essayist, political activist and literary critic (1905-1980) He refused the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964.

I do believe this quote needs some contextualisation, especially to put the use of "condemned" into perspective. Here is the passage (first in French, English following right after):

"Dostoïevski avait écrit : " Si Dieu n'existait pas, tout serait permis ". C'est là le point de départ de l'existentialisme. En effet, tout est permis si Dieu n'existe pas, et par conséquent l'homme est délaissé, parce qu'il ne trouve ni en lui, ni hors de lui une possibilité de s'accrocher. Il ne trouve d'abord pas d'excuses. Si, en effet, l'existence précède l'essence, on ne pourra jamais expliquer par référence à une nature humaine donnée et figée ; autrement dit, il n'y a pas de déterminisme, l'homme est libre, l'homme est liberté. Si, d'autre part, Dieu n'existe pas, nous ne trouvons pas en face de nous des valeurs ou des ordres qui légitimeront notre conduite. Ainsi, nous n'avons ni derrière nous, ni devant nous, dans le domaine lumineux des valeurs, des justifications ou des excuses. Nous sommes seuls, sans excuses. C'est ce que j'exprimerai en disant que l'homme est condamné à être libre. Condamné, parce qu'il ne s'est pas créé lui-même, et par ailleurs cependant libre, parce qu'une fois jeté dans le monde il est responsable de tout ce qu'il fait. L'existentialiste ne croit pas à la puissance de la passion. Il ne pensera jamais qu'une belle passion est un torrent dévastateur qui conduit fatalement l'homme à certains actes, et qui, par conséquent, est une excuse. Il pense que l'homme est responsable de sa passion. L'existentialiste ne pensera pas non plus que l'homme peut trouver un secours dans un signe donné, sur terre, qui l'orientera ; car il pense que l'homme déchiffre lui- même le signe comme il lui plaît. Il pense donc que l'homme, sans aucun appui et sans aucun secours, est condamné à chaque instant à inventer l'homme." L'existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946.

"Dostoevsky once wrote "If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse. For if indeed existence precedes essence, one will never be able to explain one’s action by reference to a given and specific human nature; in other words, there is no determinism — man is free, man is freedom. Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimise our behaviour. Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. — We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never regard a grand passion as a destructive torrent upon which a man is swept into certain actions as by fate, and which, therefore, is an excuse for them. He thinks that man is responsible for his passion. Neither will an existentialist think that a man can find help through some sign being vouchsafed upon earth for his orientation: for he thinks that the man himself interprets the sign as he chooses. He thinks that every man, without any support or help whatsoever, is condemned at every instant to invent man." Existentialism is a Humanism, 1946.

I think the notion underlined in the quote I initially posted (and highlighted with Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov quote in which Ivan Karamazov claims that "if God does not exist, then everything is permitted") is that of accountability. We alone are responsible for our actions. We cannot make excuses other than that which we can connect directly to our thoughts, beliefs, values, actions. Condemned we are because we haven't made a conscious decision to be here on Earth, but as we do indeed live on it now we do have the freedome, the luxury, the luck, the moral obligation -- whatever you want to call it, and there's many more phrases which could be added -- to choose with our own conscience to vouch for our actions.

 

On Summer Nights

The fallen sky was full of a humming song

fracturing into crimson shards on the horizon

a murmuration of starlings heaved

as if the night was now a surging sea,

now a whale, now a billowing cloud,

now a crouching dancer now suddenly

bursting high up like a head unbowed,

now a jellyfish, swelling, slumping,

now stretching like the thinnest of shrouds

and then ball up into the fist of a titan

dusk was a cooling, clement spectacle

made us forget the day's sizzling heat

and the intense emotional debacle

blanketing our heart like an iron sheet

the flesh regardless had that sort of urgency

whipping our pulse on like marching drums

the mind laden with memories of ardency

boiling in the womb like winged thrums

the brutal insistence of the summer blaze

warded off for the night being

next morning coating emotions like a glaze

made us wish for nights less fleeting

 

Underbelly of the Night

Click to enlarge

Oh honey

Oh honey, you wreaked so much havoc.

None of this made any sense to me.

What sort of love was this? What sort?

Was it even love that we felt?

I worked three jobs, tore down walls on weekends

built them back up the next, painted them, planted hooks

for you to hang your favourite pictures.

I saw my ideas for our home slowly being scratched off

and I didn't care because I thought this was how love

was supposed to work. You were all I had.

I just wanted to see that smile upon your face

when you mouthed “I love you” across the dinner table.

Oh honey, sure I faltered on occasions

withdrew into my world because

I felt pulverised by your love

I didn't feel up to the task you had set

I didn't feel like I was good enough for you

yet I carried on for you, just for you

because you said you loved me still.

Oh honey, when I fell asleep at the wheel

lugging back from the hardware shop

you suggested a nap would do me good

then you said you'd love to see the bathroom done

because your parents were visiting next week.

I sure had to plough through this.

Who on earth loves like this?

Oh honey, I told you not to give up

that I had enough strength for the both of us.

I saw you drifting. You became silent.

You were coming home later and later.

You barely looked at my daily evening work

you no longer cared about the decoration

but still you said your love was intact.

Oh honey, I tried to save us from the wreck

but you wanted to collide against the rocks.

You steered our home full sail in the storm

and when it crashed you blamed me

and the rage you flew in I'd never seen.

But you raged in the name of love, you said.

Oh honey, what sort of woman are you?

You stabbed, shot and trampled my heart

and with one twist of your heel I was gone.

Oh honey, you carried my corpse down

the stairs, my limp head banging on each step

and you skidded off the trail of blood and laughed

rolled me up in that old carpet you hated

ditched me in the boot of my car.

And you texted me that you were doing this

and that was an undeniable proof of your love.

What sort of sick lover does this?

I wasn't ready to make any sacrifice

for I had done them all already.

Oh honey, you stripped me of my rights

you let the lawyers strip me of our house

which I had built from the ground up

and then you made sure I had no money left

so I couldn't sue you but I wouldn't have

I still loved you too much for that

for you said you never loved anyone

like you loved me.

Oh honey, I wonder if you ever loved me.

Perhaps I was all wrong and never knew true love

for when you drove through the night

to the seaside where we first dated

stopped right off the cliff

geared the car up, revved the engine

so it shot down and crashed on the rocks below.

Oh honey, you didn't even look back.

What sort of love drove you to do this?

Oh honey, you said you had your reasons

that I didn't look like I cared enough

that you didn't think I loved you enough.

So when I had no job, no money and no house

you saw fit to stab me again, and again,

you spun me around and slit my throat

and nonchalantly shoved me in the bathtub.

Oh honey, what sort of lover are you to let

my feet dangle at such an odd angle?

Where's the decency a dead body deserves?

As if everything we'd lived was forgotten

wiped out the instant you grabbed the knife.

As if I'd lost my humanity altogether.

You got away with all of these murders

only lovers of your kind can achieve this

and oh honey walk away in broad daylight

their hands, like the white bathroom tiles

spattered with blood, carefully cleaning them

waiting for the next prey because you feel

the need to love boiling in your veins.