I watched the DVD of Twilight over the weekend.

The weekend was and wasn't easy.

I liked the books for what they were - escapist. Emotive. Interesting.

I didn't like the movie for the same reason, and not just because I look at Pattinson's hair and suspect that it doesn't smell so good.

I hear him growl to her "You are my whole world now," and know that she falls for it, because we fall for things like that, we do.

Because that's the thing about love, isn't it? We idealize it. It takes on proportions in our head that equate it with curing the ills and righting the wrongs. We see a love like those crazy Twilight kids and we think that is the benchmark. That's what it should look like. It should consume it should burn it should ache it should be the color of your eyes and the intake of your breath and it should be every moment of every day of every...

I used to think that.

I did.

The maternal side of my family all read those bodice ripping novels, the ones where the woman is weak and the man is strong. You can play drinking games to the words "ravaged" and "smoldering" and be drunk by chapter 4. They take you away into a world where you are cared for beyond the basic needs of sustenance and survival, where every sin can be forgiven with a fuck, where gentleness is earned and women's honor fought for to the death.

I don't even know where to begin on how wrong all of that actually is.

I think of love - like I think of people - like an onion. It's layer after layer and each layer gets under the thin wedge of your fingernail as you start to strip it down. Someone seems happy. Peel back a layer. Someone isn't actually happy. Peel again. Someone tells you that you're important to them. Peel again. Someone tells you they're actually in love with you. Peel. Someone tells you that that love, it smarts like a wound in rubbing alcohol. Get to the middle of the onion and all you find is onion.

Every person and every love is imperfect. To envision a life where someone says something like "You are my whole world now" is impractical. Someone may make you their whole life, but that life includes laundry left beside the bed. They may not tell you that they are temperamental. You don't know ahead of time that they like Tang. You've no idea that they are riddled with secrets and held together with some ropey duct tape.

Love is like that, I think. It's the onion peel under your nail. It's the way you sigh and pick up the laundry by the bed and know that everyone that came before is under your skin, too. They are all there, and have helped build in you an understanding of how this shit is supposed to work.

It's not someone leaning in to a car and whispering that you are their whole world.

It's you knowing that love comes in fits and bursts and it hurts sometimes, it hurts so much that you may rip apart, but when it works it's brilliant. But it's not the stuff you think you know - your honor is yours to fight for because you've fallen in love with a coward. Or your basic needs aren't cared for because the person you chose doesn't even know what your needs are. Or you're pushed into paranoia because that man you love has driven you to running, just to escape him and the couple that you were. Love bends around the edges of all of these things, and the onion smell gets too strong to keep the tear ducts dry.

I watched the film and thought: I don't want Nora to grow up and think that love is like that. Not least because a relationship with a vampire is maybe not a great idea (no leaning across the table to sample his dinner then) but because love isn't like that. I want her to know that love is like an onion. There are layers to get through, some of which leave a bad taste in your mouth.

But find the right onion, and in the middle you find that getting through all of those layers - no matter how they impacted you or changed you or made you cry - was worth it.

-S.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 08:57 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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1 Great insightful post. I do like the onion metaphor.

Posted by: Charles at April 14, 2009 10:14 AM (maQJG)

2 Yes, very much like that. Great analogy.

Posted by: Lisa at April 14, 2009 01:42 PM (YEsan)

3 Best review of this movie...EVER The only part you left out (for me) was how many times you would have liked to smack Kristen Stewart upside the head for purposefully playing Bella as an aloof little twit! (which is funny because I would NOT have said the same thing about the book-Bella)

Posted by: wn at April 14, 2009 02:19 PM (MNV8U)

4 I refuse to get sucked into the Twilight vortex. Refuse. Having said that, I love this post. Besides - imagine sweaty from gym, lying on the floor doing hamstring stretches and hearing, "You're so pretty. I always thought you were so pretty." No one was "smouldering" or "turgid", but I'll take it! ;o)

Posted by: Margi at April 14, 2009 04:08 PM (TEmUg)

5 Oh, yeah... you said it exactly the way it is. Great post. Personally, I kept getting distracted in the movie by his lipstick being a bit too much.

Posted by: sue at April 14, 2009 05:25 PM (0K+AI)

6 you have an amazing ability to put into words intangible ideas and emotions. thank you for sharing that ability with the interwebs. i agree w/your review of the movie, also. patterson's edward is way too intense (and i'm not just talking about his hair).

Posted by: Meghan at April 14, 2009 08:30 PM (FGbqX)

7 Book was good. Movie was awful. Love is good and awful.

Posted by: Jen R. (aaron-n-jen.com) at April 14, 2009 09:32 PM (q5XUG)

8 You need to watch, if you've not done so already, "L'Auberge Espagnol" and the sequel, "Les Poupees Russes." Not one or the other, but both. The writer must have been pretty experienced at this love thing, because there's one line in the sequel that makes you realize, "holy shit, I can be a romantic and a realist at once!" I've yet to fall in the romantic sort of love, but I felt "love" once and about died of it. Hurt more than falling off a roof, which I've done. I think if my mom had warned me, I might have benefitted. So maybe when you have "the talk" with N&N, pull Nora aside and explain that when she meets Prince Charming, she might want to step back and take a look at the big picture and then run his criminal record on Google.

Posted by: D at April 14, 2009 10:01 PM (2Q9WD)

9 Do remember to tell her it needs to be more good than bad though. I've seen too many friends waste their lives on relationships that were disfunctional becuase "no--one's perfect". I agree, no-one is BUT if your significant other isn't even trying 50% of the time - get out!

Posted by: Flikka at April 15, 2009 02:30 AM (GdxOM)

10 it should burn it should ache it should be the color of your eyes and the intake of your breath and it should be every moment of every day of every... I used to think that. I did. How do you feel about the twins? Early infatuation still there? Or has it changed? And Alastair; remember the early infatuation? That was real too. At the time. But we all change. And grow. And love changes and grows. Doesn't mean it's a lie, doesn't mean you need to warn Nora it's unreal. Oh it's real, all right. There is just more than that.

Posted by: Amber at April 15, 2009 03:55 AM (zQE5D)

11 haven't read or seen Twilight and probably won't but this speaks to me and my life at this moment in a way that is almost eerie. like you know what's happening to me...your words comfort me and give me some solace even if i still just want to feel numb to this pain i am feeling.

Posted by: Liz at April 16, 2009 03:40 AM (37vYf)

12 haven't read or seen Twilight and probably won't but this speaks to me and my life at this moment in a way that is almost eerie. like you know what's happening to me...your words comfort me and give me some solace even if i still just want to feel numb to this feeling.

Posted by: Liz at April 16, 2009 03:45 AM (37vYf)

13 Liking the onion metaphor. I also found the love premise in Twilight repellent - I have not seen the film.

Posted by: Betty M at April 18, 2009 07:24 PM (r9Ypx)

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