Hi, Skipper! That's a really interesting question about whether relationships based on mental compatibility or gut-level physical attraction have more chance of lasting a long time. I think you need both to have a really successful romance! Taking either part away creates too much distance between the two people to reliably nurture the part that is working, and things start getting distant and polarized. Once the two of you are not psychically attuned to each other, there are nothing but problems. I would bet that in the most successful marriages, both of those--the sexual and intellectual--are working well and always did. It's the most wonderfully intense love I can imagine to build from an inital physical attraction and discover even more in common, on every level.
This is a poem I really like about the strong bonds in a healthy long relationship, the synergy that is the result of taking physical and mental compatibility and building a house of love and security from them. It also works well with the falling backwards which getting old can bring, when maybe neither the body or mind are as attractive as they were, or functioning very well. I think this is the main thing Heaney is saying--that the love needs to be strong to survive a long time, to get us through adversity and to the end of life.
Scaffolding
Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;
Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.
And yet all this comes down when the job's done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.
So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me
Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.
Seamus Heaney |
