and above all things, love

Ever seen Moulin Rouge?

It’s an awesome work of art, which happens to be expressed as a movie. It would be difficult to have a complete discussion or essay about everything I like about the movie. It is an exquisite fusion of historical and modern, and recursive in the way that it is depicting within its story a fusion of historical and ( to it’s timeline ) modern.

I love things like that. Elegance is rare.

And this movie has more of that elegance-crap then you can shake a stick at. But for the cognitively lazy, it also has lots of music, and boobs.

My favorite part of the movie is described by the music of El Tango de Roxanne, a masterwork of juxtaposition and metaphor.

The main male character, Christian, likes this woman Satine, who happens to be a courtesan. Christian works his way into her life by becoming the writer of the musical she will star in, to save her venue with the money and notoriety it will being in. The sticking point is that Satine is, well, a courtesan. She’s a companion for money, and at the time she is falling in love with Christian, she’s also supposed to be in cahoots with this one Big Money man, in order to seal the deal of saving her precious venue, the Moulin Rouge.

Still with me? Lovers who can’t be with each other, made more stressful by the fact that the woman has to be with someone else not only because of who she is ( a courtesan ) but also to save the place she loves, and consequently all her friends at the Moulin Rouge.

So, we have conflict. Jealousy. Satine tells Christian that She will always love him, in a very real way, and not to worry. Christian tells Satine that, come what may, he will love her til his dying day.

But then push comes to shove; Satine has to go to work, so to speak.

So, Christian is left hanging out with the players or the Moulin Rouge…a bawdy, saucy band of prostiutes and malcontents who happen to be performers in the musical Christina is writing. It is an open secret that Satin and Christian are together, and it is well known that Satine and the Big Money are togther, at the moment I’m speaking of.

“We have a dance,” The Argentinean begins, to break the dour silence. He strides out onto the main floor of the Moulin Rouge, and begins:

“We have a dance
In the brothels of Buenos Aires,
That tells the story of the prostitute
And the man who falls in love with her.”

Here he draws the most alluring, arguably the bitchiest prostitute in the place to him, and begins the first steps of de tango, still speaking to the players and of course to Christian.

”First there is desire,
Then passion,
Then suspicion.
Jealousy, anger, betrayal...!”

His movements with the girl become more and more pronounced, their dance telling not only his story, the story of a whore and her love, but also of Christian and Satine. Again, with the elegance. The dance continues, and the music is quite good, here.

”When love is for the highest bidder,
There is no trust.
Without trust, there is no love.”

He passes the girl around to men who seem to have materialized from nothing, and she seems to go with them all willingly, indifferent to any feelings the Argentinean might have in the character he is dancing as.

”Jealousy, yes, jealousy,
Will drive you...mad!”

Here begins El Tango de Roxanne… a tango-ized verson of the song “Roxanne”, by the Police. Amazingly well done, just as a dance. But as this is a movie, we get to see more; as the words and music progress, build up to a sort of bubble that needs to burst , a bubble describing how jealousy tears one apart from the inside, we see cut aways to what Satine is going through at this moment. We see the dance and what it represents, the story it tells, and we see Christian, suffering Jealousy because he is bound by Love, knowing that the two are entwined almost hopelessly.

As it happens, tonight, I spent a long while talking to a woman I’ll call Satine, chatting with her in IM.

She’d like that, I think. That name.

Anyway, Satine and I used to date, for almost 3 years. Lots of history and emotion there. So much so that now the relationshp between Satine and I exists totally in the virtual; email, chat, and threaded discussion. We also do side work together. But we never talk on the phone, never text, and we certainly never spend time in person together. The reasons for this are –many- and complex, not the least of which ( ironically ) happens to be jealousy. Mine, not hers.

I’d like to be close to her again, but he’s happy with someone else. So we’re in this weird kind of place. It works, after a fashion, and seems to be healthy enough.

But when Satine and I were together, we had a huge issue between us ( we had a few, but one in particular )… my ex.

Before Satine and I had been involved, I had been married to a wonderful woman ( whom I'll call Giselle, here ) for what someone my age would consider a long time. Although the marriage ended ( amicably, mind you ) it was still –very- important to me that she and I remain friends.

Satine had –extreme- issues with this, and with the very idea of Giselle.

In her experience, people who got divorced did so for reasons that would never allow much future contact, let alone friendship. Also, this was at a point in Satine’s life where she ahd just come from a long long term emotionally abusive relationship, where she now needed to be the Only important thing in her man’s ( that would be me ) life.

This at a time when I definitely needed to be my own person; one of the reasons my marriage had ended was my feeling of having to be what my ex wanted me to be. So I was just a bit sensitive to the idea of having to give up a friend, because Satine was upset about it.

Jealousy. Raw and uncut. And an age old question. And, as it happens, the point of this blog post:

Maybe she’s your ex, or maybe she’s just a good friend. The girl your with has a problem with that, and wants you to drop contact with her. What do you do?

The situation can work just as well with whatever gender you please; the idea is jealousy. “You should not have strange gods before me”, or something along those lines. It is seated ( I believe ) in the idea that “you had feelings for this person, or you are close to them. I should now be –that- personin your life, and if you go to this other person, I am afraid you will leave me alone and go to them for good”.

Okay, now the questions:

• You’re dating someone, and they’re tight with their ex. Besides of course “don’t cheat on me,” do you put limitations on their contact? Would you, if you “could”?
• Is there ever a workable situation that you’re tight with your ex, yet fabulously in love with your current sweetie?
• Can your current sweetie morally ask you to back off your friendship with you ex? What about you friendship with a same-sex best friend, then?

I'm just curious. For me, the next deep relationship I’m involved in, I will have to have a resolution for this, somehow. Satine and I are friends, and that friendship is very important to me. I also have more then a few female friends who are close enough to confidantes, potentially making my new ( and at the moment fictional ) sweetie kind of irate. I am now and have always been –exceedingly- resentful of someone’s dictation of who can and cannot be my friend.

But saying this, I am not without the knowledge that it would be my job to do everything in my power to settle the feelings of jealousy in my sweetie, and let her know of her absolute place in my heart.

As a side note here, if you have never been involved in a sweetie-style relationship with me, please understand that I don’t generally talk like that, when I’m discussing problems with the women I’ve been with. “Honey, I know it is my job to do everything in my power to settle these feelings of jealousy in you, and let you know of the absolute place you have in my heart”

~laughs~

Anyway… so I’ve got that to look forward to. Here’s Satine, and there’s also the woman Giselle, here. She’s my ex wife, and the current state of things between us is remote, to put it mildly. We don’t talk, email, meet, text, or do much of anything. But I still have a very well defined place for her in my heart, and because of who I am, I will always hold out in foolish optimism that maybe one day things will be to the point of friendship between she and I. Come what may; storm clouds may gather, and stars may collide...

...and if this is the case, then I’ll have to deal with that, too.

In the talk we had tonight, Satine cautioned me repeatedly against letting our friendship be a barrier to any new relationship I might form with someone. This was sweet, and made me smile because I also know that Satine would not want me to "go away" and leave her, friendship wise, new sweetie, or for any other reason. I'll cross those bridges when they come; it seems a bit silly to worry about such things while me and the fictional sweetie don't even know each other yet. But I suspect I will not let go of the place I have in my heart and memory for Satine and Giselle too easily. The light of other days can shine brightly, sometimes.

Come what may.

Come What May - from Moulin Rogue

Never knew I could feel like this
Like I've never seen the sky before
I want to vanish inside your kiss
Every day I'm loving you more and more

Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing
Come back to me, and forgive everything
Seasons may change, winter to spring
But I love you until the end of time

Come what may
Come what may
I will love you until my dying day

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place
Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace
Suddenly my life doesn't seem such a waste
It all revolves around you

And there's no mountain too high
No river too wide
Sing out this song I'll be there by your side
Storm clouds may gather
And stars may collide

But I love you until the end of time

Oh, come what may, come what may
I will love you. Yes, I will love you
Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place