We almost never recognize the most defining of moments. How many sorrows in our lives can we trace to a definite genesis? And the genealogy of what fraction of our joys could we produce? Ex nihilo nihil fit; everything is begotten. But faith is woven silently: we never know whether an ocean was just set in chaotic motion, whose onslaught may already, though in chrysalis, be our destiny. It is natural, then, that the day I met my wife went on like any other. After all, we were only twelve years old...
I find it curious to think that, in that very day, the writing of this entry was fixed; perhaps even the exact combination of its words. As Pascal observed, in infinite time and space, every point, and everyone, is at the center of the universe. When we light a match, fire appears as if instantly combusting before our eyes; in relative terms, however, the match underwent a process of extraordinary duration. A flower bossoms slowly to the eyes of men, but instantly to those of its season. Under the right perspective, any pair of events in life are infinitesimally close to each other, however distant they might seem—and so indeed the day I met my wife already was the day I wrote these words—already was the day I rested in our common grave. And if I make an effort, although still trapped in time and space, I feel already that which is the wisest form of peace: The death of one who died in love.
It would be immodest to delve too deeply in the conditions of my life before my wife and I started to be lovers. I should only say this: No witnesses exist of the anguish and dismality which reigned my life, because I was alone completely. No witnesses, that is, even if we were to count myself, for my sorrow was so deep, and the structures which used to support my life were so in ruins, and my identity so lost, that I have no memory of that time except for a stormy sway of vexing and confusing feelings. An almost total amnesia has consumed the whole year which this crisis lasted.
She did not precisely save me from this languid and despondent state, and I would be suspicious of the foundations of my love if I were to consider her a savior. She came to my life not during that time, but some months after I had started to regain my strength and live again; after a sense of purpose had been restored or manufactured. She is not the reason why I managed to survive the crisis—and I speak of survival in a very literal sense. More rightly, she is the sweet apotheosis of my coming back to life, the culmination of the vital spirit which somehow guided me to resurrection. It is as if she came to ensure, once I escaped the grip of death, that I should never die again.
My wife is an admirable individual. I have never known a more generous person, a soul more decidedly committed to giving. I avoid commenting too much on the lives of those I mention on this diary; suffices to say she lives and breathes for the betterment of human kind, and this in concrete and practical ways, and without getting nor expecting any profit whatsoever for herself. She is profoundly good—and this, like Antonio Machado said, en el buen sentido de la palabra. I would not say she inspires me: the word "inspiration" is imprecise. She kindles in me a love and solidarity which are evergreen and young, and I see in her liberated heart what no one should forget: That slavery and serfdom are the pities of this world.
Some time ago, I heard a man say there is no such thing like unconditional love. This is, undoubtedly, the prudent stance, the post-romantic vision, the expression of an ethos where affective independence is viewed as the supreme achievement, and love as nothing but a rational arrangement. Very few people, I think, would object to the man's claim. But, although in intellectual matters the appeal to our own experience is generally a mistake, with regards to this I dare to say the man was wrong. I recall now a story which my father told me many years ago. A crooked son accepts from a miserable man some weight in gold in exchange for his mother's life. To prove the deed is done, the son is to take his mother's heart to the miserable man. That night indeed he kills her and rips her heart out with the very knife that stole her life. But the night is dark and starless, and a violent rain has filled the ways with mud, and as he runs, his mother's heart in hand, he trips and falls. And then a voice is heard—and the voice comes from the heart—and it is the mother's voice that asks: My son, are you hurt? The moral of the story is not only clear, but true. I acknowledge unconditional love is not a universal fact, not even for motherly love, but it is a fact in any case. I had a dream some time ago: My wife, in a strange frenzy, killed me. I died with unspeakable sadness, but I was not sad for me. The thought which broke my dying heart was bound to her: I knew that she would suffer once she realized what she had done. I admit: This is a dream, that is a story; but almost always a tale is not a tale and a dream is not a dream; or this at least was Epicurus claim:
τά τε τῶν μαινομένων φαντάσματα καὶ <τὰ> κατ' ὄναρ ἀληθῆ, κινεῖ γάρ· τὸ δὲ μὴ ὂν οὐ κινεῖ
The imagery of delusion or of dreams is real inasmuch as it is stimulating: what does not exist, does not affect.
A typical contemporary person will detest these imaginations. How sick to claim that love could endure attempted murder! They may be right in claiming that it shouldn't; but to claim that it couldn't seems too audacious to me. It is said that we have overcome the romantic spirit; that we are saner, more prudent and astute. I am suspicious of these claims, although this is no place to speak of this. I will not make the case, not here, that a romantic ethos is superior to our contemporary obsession with contractual arrangements and our sober apathy. I should only wish to say my love for my girlfriend is, at least in its core, romantic—in the true sense of the word. I say in its core because merely romantic love almost always never lasts—or at least such is my experience. Like a series of concentric rings, whose center is the most incandescent passion, different realms of more mundane affective experience are arranged in such a way that heat is preserved in the system. An amicable daily life, for example, is an aspect of such arrangement. The tender universe of friendship, which is tranquile and warm, is another. Passion exists in these regions, of course, as if diffused from the core, in delightful affective irrigation; but it is certainly no protagonist. Love, as I experience it, is twofold: It may refer to the romantic passion which is at the center of a bond, or to the sundry amalgam of tender, though quieter affects which conforms around such center. Almost nothing in life can be sustained or grow if not embedded quietly in day-to-day life; and so, in love, passion is and is not the constant: It is, in the sense that it lays at the center of the zeal and impetus which moves our bond at every point; but it is not, in the sense that it cannot continuously be the principal actor in our life without rapidly disarranging it. Romantic passion is the background of a daily life where more serene sensations are protagonists—it is el fondo where the shining astrums of quieter affections gently flow and blaze—it is an atmosphere, an ambiance that only at times devours it all.
On another note, our memories of love are truly a singular curiosity. I have many times endeavored to predict that a particular moment I was living would not be forgotten. Almost always this prediction is wrong, and I am left only with the memory of my intention to remember. And if I suspend, at least as much as anybody can, the willing direction of my thoughts, and allow memories of my wife to appear before me in a somewhat random fashion, I find many that I would not have suspected would be preserved. Most of these are precious, some are maybe sad: no love can exist without a mixture of these two sentiments, which are complementary opposites. This is so true indeed that I cannot imagine a more beautiful sight than the face of my wife when, saddened by a minor or a serious event, tears are shedding from her eyes and through the blushing cheeks. The imagination is painful, yes, but it is also beautiful.
In general, those circumstances that ruin married life, whether endogenous or exogenous, are simply those that ruin life itself. The exogenous ones are universal and simple: Poverty, the fetters of debt, health conditions, etc. Some endogenous factors are unstable patterns of behavior on whichever end of the couple, dishonesty, and greed. All of these things make existence, in marriage or without it, bitter and rough. It is hard to imagine the perish of a loving marriage when two decent people meet and coexist with not too overwhelming existential hardship. And it is obvious that the existential threats which I have named are more easily dealt with in companionship than in solitude. For most people, the odds are set out against them, and I find it only natural that they should strive to partner up and better their chances against the numberless calamities which constantly assail them. The most significant dangers to marriage are the significant dangers to life; they are peculiar to marriage in no way whatsoever. If there is one peril specific to marriage, it is only this: Time. In this cruel dimension, almost everything is lost; and who is to say not only what they will become, but what their partner will become, in five or twenty years? This is the great gamble in love, its most extraordinary stake; we risk it all, our eyes closed, our inferences weak, to this: That those who will take the place of us, husband and wife, two lovers, two friends, in twenty years, will also be meant for each other. Absolutely nothing justifies any prediction on this matter; no personality is constant, every circumnstance is changing. This is the primary reason for divorce, of which no marriage is safe. And nothing can be done: True lovers close their eyes, cross their arms across their chest, and throw themselves into that river of which Heraclitus spoke. Ceteris paribus, it is time who rules them all. If anything at all can set the stakes in their favor, although I doubt anything can, is to keep the blindest of faiths, the most radical commitment; for it is true, as Virgil said, that
Possunt, quia posse videntur.
This is, for now, as much as I care to share. Love is, no doubt, the supreme force in life. Sincere commitment to another does not guarantee love, but it does act as a protective and fostering ring when love exists. I think of myself as a blessed and fortunate man. I have a wife I miss when left without her, one of remarkable tenacity and talent. I wish everybody knew what it is like to experience the wonder of such a love. Most people live a loveless life.