Fall is the season of love. Tempestuous, heart-wrenching; not the stuff of greeting cards but the stuff of sordid premium cable miniseries. I'm in the midst of it. I'm watching "The Tudors" and I'm reminded of my favorite quote: "She had fallen in love so many times that she began to suspect she was not falling in love at all, but doing something much more ordinary."
First there are classes. I dig deep - it seems to get deeper the older I get, because really, 20 feels so old - to expose my inner academic. All work seems fascinating, all readings seem to strike the perfect balance between appropriate and abstract when you first glance at the syllabus. Learning is what college is all about! I still have hope, at this point, that not only will my year be OK, it will be stunning. My eyes are the first things to realize the whispers of love. I tear up when I get excited. I teared up during one of my English classes when I realized that Joyce meant the world not only to me, but that he meant the universe to my erratic, brilliant professor. I teared up during my ethics class when I felt the thrill of exploring idealities, once dulled by college realities, course through me as it did when I debated for my high school debate team. I teared up on the phone with my mother when I explained to her that yes, my phone had been found but more importantly that I'm going to be reading "The Awakening" with my favorite professor! I am in love.
Then there are people. There are the people I've seen all summer, people I haven't seen since spring and several new people every day. I love all of them, in a purely objective way, because they all offer me something. Something to think about, to feel, to observe, to ignore. I love some of them because among the thousands that are there, they're always here. I love some of them when I realize that being an isolationist misanthrope is about as fun as it sounds. I'm surrounded and overwhelmed and happy.\nThen there's me. I love the Mary Scott that schedules work on weekday nights instead of taking naps after class. I love the Mary Scott that purposefully takes a 9:30 because she thinks it will do something crazy good for the state of her soul. I love the Mary Scott that watches TV shows instead of going out because it's her third year and she is just that responsible, content and comfortable with herself.
Then there's the truth. It's the second week of school and I already can feel a breakup coming on. In a matter of a few days I courted my various loves and decided that I couldn't be without them. In the matter of a weekend I'm starting to rethink the whole engagement.
I haven't read "Ulysses." I've tried. Three times. It's too long, not to mention too complex. How can I love Joyce if I haven't read "Ulysses?" What kind of relationship is that? I fell out of love with my English class, that same English class that meant the world to me, when I realized I literally could not read "Heart of Darkness" for the third time in college. I just couldn't.
And that thrill? Those perfectly crafted syllabi? Early morning classes? Learning is what college is all about until you have three papers due in one week and you can't remember the last time you weren't exhausted and 9:30s are a sick joke. And you stop scheduling work on weeknights because naps, you begin to feel, are your only true loves.\nThe hardest part about the season of love is not the breaking away from a once-loved subject or book or idea. It's the real, searing pain that is the consequence of not being that isolationist misanthrope. The result of loving so widely and so much is that you begin to think maybe this doesn't make you an emotionally astute person, but a person who makes emotions "something much more ordinary." The people I love, including Mary Scott, only get my love when everything is perfectly aligned. I don't want the sister who bickers or the mother who lectures or the friend who doesn't say the right thing. I don't want the Mary Scott who cries at a party for no reason or who skips readings or who eats nothing but pasta all day. Just when I had begun to think that this would be the easiest thing of all, I must admit to myself, those people are not easy to love.
Then there's now. I'm on the brink of several relationships: academic, personal, imagined. All fragile, all vulnerable. It is the season of love after all. Everything that is old is new again, and the newness has so much potential. I think my favorite quote is my favorite quote because I don't think that what I'm doing is ordinary at all. I don't know how often I've actually been in love with anyone or anything. Not too often. I love so much, the verb, but very rarely am I immersed in love, the noun. I do know that I am in love with this tempestuous, heart-wrenching, painful experience of gaining and losing on a daily basis. It's extraordinary, and it hurts like hell.
Mary Scott's column runs weekly Mondays. She can be reached at m.hardaway@cavalierdaily.com.
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