this thing

I walked in, finding only a smattering of people in the theater, all sitting in pairs. Great. My solitary presence won't be as easy to hide. There is something about going to a movie alone that always invites pity. I was fine with it (I mean who really wants to go to a French documentary about philosophy anyway?) but I felt like daggers of pity were being shot my way. Oh look at that poor girl, she came to international cinema all by herself. She doesn't have a cool, artsy boy with her like I do. Trust me, I don't need your daggers of pity or your artsy boys thankyouverymuch.

I sat with my head tilted to one side resting on my hand, willing myself to make it through all 84 minutes. I looked at the clock: It's only been 32 minutes? No way. I checked the clock again. 37 minutes. Kill. Me. Now. The movie was about Jacques Derrida, a French philosopher. It was weird, intriguing, boring, nauseating (can you say shaky and awkward camera movements?), interesting, thought-provoking, and really lame all rolled into one, 84 "feels like 1,000" minute documentary.

At one point someone asks him what he thinks about love. He gets all bent out of shape because he cannot (ce n'est pas possible!) answer a general, open-ended question like that. She struggles to narrow the question and eventually drags a response out of him. He tells her that when one talks about love, one has to ask who or what. Do you love the "absolute singularity" of the person or do you love that they are this or that, that they do this or that? Are we in love with the person or what they are?

I think when we are learning to love someone (not just romantically, but that too) we love what the person does, what they like, what we see of ourselves in them. But when we truly love someone, we love what Derrida calls the "absolute singularity" of that person. We just love them. period.

It made me think about the thousands of bridal showers I've been to. "So tell us all why you love Tom." "Well, I love Tom because he's so kind, he's funny and smart, and he always does such nice things for me." When we talk of love, we usually talk of what we love about the person, not the person. But as we grow in love, we learn to say in our heart: "I love Tom because he's Tom." He's enough.