One More, from the Heart
Season finale. Anxiety, pity, and play.
Spoken aloud to yourself in the mirror, with a small smile:
You just wanna have fun That’s why you wanna be in love You just wanna have fun x3
I was feeling a familiar tightness in my chest, a reminder of a period in my life when I felt lost. This time I was about to go to a friend’s birthday party and was feeling intensely lonely. I was feeling that what I wanted out of life was too much, and too stupid. No one was paying that much attention to me and I felt ashamed that I wanted the attention. I sat at the kitchen island and ate a bowl of chicken, rice and baby broccoli I had reheated from the previous week. I opened my email to a running newsletter in which the author talked about the tricks your brain plays on you when it wants to get out of a long run. I looked at the word “brain” and burst into tears. I thought, mine is broken. I thought, thank god I don’t wear makeup anymore. I thought, should I put on some mascara for this party? I thought, thank god I can still cry spontaneously on my own, without the aid of a sad movie or an acute heartbreak or a loved one’s body in an open casket. I kept eating, and I started writing this.
Walking to the party, I thought about how, if I sent this in Mildly Yours, people I know who read the newsletter may express concern about me—and how that would, in a way, be nice and what I want, but also embarrassing. Because while I want my friends to baby me right now, I don’t want anyone to actually pity me.
Still walking to the party, I thought about the film I had just seen, I Married You for Fun or Ti ho sposato per allegria, starring Monica Vitti, from 1969. I’d been telling everyone I know about it, like I was in love. Adapted quite faithfully from a play of the same name by Natalia Ginzburg (the brilliant late Italian communist writer whose novel Family Lexicon is worth the NYRB classics purchase), the film reframes the notion of desperation. “So I married you, also for the money. Get it?” says the newlywed country girl Giuliana (Vitti) to her lawyer husband Pietro. “Yes,” says Pietro. “And you married me, also out of pity. Is it true […] ?” she asks through the grated elevator door. “True,” says Pietro, before descending.
And what’s wrong with that, with utility? With joining forces with a person who gives you what you need and what you could use? But of course, eponymously, Pietro married Giuliana not out of pity, but for fun. He married her because she is a fount of absurdities. She’s chatty, messy, bubbly, overly sure, a bit petty, overly generous, ignorant about money, anxious, restless, and hilarious. She can’t cook or clean. She is not respectful of his mother. Certainly, he’s not married her because she fits seamlessly into his life or helps him achieve his practical goals. He’s married her for precisely the ways she doesn’t fit in or make sense and for what a relief that is, to fulfill an unproductive need.
Giuliana, then, has married Pietro for relief from the loneliness and terror of being used and not valued, of being recognized for Modigliani-level beauty and thus not quite counted as fully human. Pietro plays Giuliana’s game and accepts her terms. He has money, and is not annoyed by her inefficiencies. He cares for her, so when she’s despondent or worried, he responds with curiosity, gentleness and humor—never contempt or fear. He is amused by her and so takes pleasure in her presence. There is no burden.
There is no burden. But there is sadness. It does feel like we are all walking around fearing that we want too much or will have to give up too much. That there is simply too much. That the people around us are not equipped to give—to approach us with curiosity and gentleness and humor and without contempt or fear. To simultaneously have fun with us and care for us. The irony of I Married You For Fun is that Pietro has married Giuliana during a time in Italy when divorce is outlawed. So marriage is not a leisurely pastime, it is not exactly romantic. If he wanted to only have fun and not care for her, she could’ve been his mistress. No commitment required. Put her up, send her money, have sex with her, no strings. The film and play present a kind of fantasy of marriage while also laughing at the institution. What if you could marry someone for the laugh? What if you could honor your commitment through jokes? You could take the money and the pity and transmute it into ecstasy.
I look at the gray sky. The air is dense. The barometric pressure is up. Maybe that’s why I keep feeling like shit. Something occurs to me about clownery. About the tomfoolery at the heart of love. I remember Whitney Houston on The Preacher’s Wife soundtrack: “Maybe I’m a fool/ to feel the way I do/ but I will play the fool forever/ just to be with you forever.”
Naturally, I am nearly an hour late to the party and yet one of the first handful of people at the bar. I’m always early, no matter the time. The birthday girl, whom I adore, has not arrived yet. In the bathroom mirror I speak aloud. I say it three times. And one more, to be sure. Then I open the door to my friends.
Author’s note (for accountability):
Mildly Yours will go on a little summer hiatus. It won’t be terribly long. But I’m getting serious about working on something else. Go outside. See you soon.
Acknowledgements (because life is short):
This one is dedicated to Lovia (the birthday girl) and Fi and Noah and McKenna and Sam and Naïma and Rachel and Zoe and all of my friends who have counseled me with incredible patience and wit and vivacity. And to my sisters, who did it all first. And to my parents, from whom I inherited an unusual concoction of anxiety and optimism. I love you.
Outro: