I took a marine biology class in college and became fascinated by interstitial creatures. These are the creatures that exist in the spaces between, microscopic creatures that make up a whole world in between two grains of sand. So too do lovers invent a whole world and a mythology for themselves, stories we like to tell ourselves and others, and in the case of an affair this illusion of a separate and perfect world is only heightened.
Affairs are interstitial creatures too. They necessarily exist in the spaces between: between the events of your other life, the real one, on the fringes of a completed world.
Some rules to remember: (see here for my post Geometry on the axioms of an affair)
Rule one: The lover will always win over the spouse. The game is rigged from the start. The limited amount of time together means that every encounter is erotically charged, emotionally significant, in a way that would wear off in another relationship, a normal one. You always see each other at your best, and you're always making that effort to present yourself at your best. You don't have to fight over bill paying or look at them bleary eyed the next morning after taking care of a sick child all night. So hands down, it's a contest that the lover wins, effortlessly. It's very easy to think that someone is perfect when you've only spent four weekends together in a hotel, shagging with abandon, not thinking for once about anything in your 'normal' life.
Rule two: The spouse will always win over the lover. This isn't a contradiction. Sometimes marriages will end over an affair, but not often, and not often in order to be with the lover. The very mundane bonds mentioned above that ensure that the lover will always win the romance/erotic contest hands down are what hold the marriage--and every lasting relationship-- together. The comfortable routines of cooking together, falling asleep together. Holiday routines. The entwining of your families, friends, your finances, your lives.
Anne Sexton wrote it best, in a poem saying farewell to her lover, fellow poet WD Snodgrass:
Let's face it, I have been momentary.
A luxury. A bright red sloop in the harbor.
My hair rising like smoke from the car window.
Littleneck clams out of season.
She is more than that. She is your have to have,
has grown you your practical your tropical growth.
This is not an experiment. She is all harmony.
She sees to oars and oarlocks for the dinghy,
has placed wild flowers at the window at breakfast,
sat by the potter's wheel at midday,
set forth three children under the moon,
three cherubs drawn by Michelangelo,
done this with her legs spread out
in the terrible months in the chapel.
.....I am tired of existing in the spaces between a life.
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake, Auguries of InnocenceLabels: exhaustion, geometry, sand, sexton |
Closed/on Hiatus
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