May 26, 2002

losing myself in you

The way Cixous describes the physical, the sexual morsels of love are exquisite. She speaks of the physical offering and acceptance of love, the deposit of the self, with what I think is a profound and deserving reverence. The physical union of two who would remain foreign from one another inextricably links them for eternity, even when the end result is death/abandonment. The organic part of all of this, the crux, is that in love, we receive ourselves back from the other. Cixous reveals it this way:

"Because in love -- if not there is no love -- you give yourself, you trust, you entrust yourself to the other. And, contrary to what one might think, this is not at all abstract. It is true that one deposits oneself. There is a deposit, and one is deposited in the other person. And if the other goes off with the deposit, one truly cannot recuperate the deposit. What was given can never be taken back. Even if we do not know it at the moment we give; even if we do not imagine that what we have given cannot be taken back -- while most things one gives can be taken back. So in reality, virtually, when we love we are already half dead. We have already deposited our life in the hands that hold our death: and this is what is worth the trouble of love. This is when we feel our life; otherwise we do not feel it.

"It is an extraordinary round: what you give, that is to say yourself, your life, what you deposit in the other, is returned to you immediately by the other. The other constitutes a source. You are not your own source in this case. And as a result, you receive your life, which you do not receive from yourself."