Matters of the heart

Today being Valentine’s Day, I know you’re awash with pressure to produce demonstrations of undying passion for your significant (or even your somewhat-interesting) other. Flowers (better have a damned good explanation for that bouquet not being a fistful of red roses, at five times the going rate for other times of the year), chocolates (possibly more leeway there) and/or jewelry.

You do know that every kiss begins with Kay, right?

Well, forget about all that. Because I have something so much better than industrially-extruded conspicuous consumption that has the same ephemeral effect on the economy that it does on your social life.

It’s a great story in the New York Times, about photographer Lauren Fleishman, who was inspired by love letters between her maternal grandparents to embark on a project to photograph couples who’ve been together for at least 50 years.

Her grandparents married in 1944, and were together for 59 years.

Fleishman spent six years discovering and photographing the couples; her resulting book The Lovers was published last month.

The Lovers presents the intimate ties, of course. But the couples talk also about the much more problematic issues of long relationships—getting through rough patches, and overcoming those times when s/he just pisses you off beyond belief, without storming out for good.

That’s one of the characteristics of love that lasts beyond passion. Anyone can be in love, especially when you’re in your 20s or 30s (ish). It’s like one extended adrenaline rush, so you just power through the little hitches because you’ve got the incentive of the next romp to entice you. Fleishman focuses her lens and her interviews on how these couples managed to transcend the rush and turn it into a bond that has lasted for decades.

 Eric Marcoux and Eugene Woodworth. Portland, Ore. 

Fred and Fran Futterman, Brooklyn

 Yevgeniy and Lyubov Kissin , Brooklyn

I love the comment by Karam Chand, married since 11 December 1925 to Kartari in an arranged marriage. “My trick is to make. Kartari laugh... Being funny is my way of being romantic. I have been told laughing makes you live longer—my wife is still alive, so it must have worked. I love her, and I want to spend another 80 years by her side.”

Well—if that ain’t romance then I’m Maria of Romania.