The Human Marriage

Art Stars in Love

Kofi Fosu Forson

I don't think I can survive a human marriage. Some how I am content with living alone. But then again that is my greatest fear to grow old alone. It is fair to say people get married for comfort and security's sake. I have never been good at having the normal relationship with a woman. Dating is not something I did. Even the functional aspect of having an ordinary and healthy sex life was not something that was regular in my life. The one very true reason why I would want to marry is to become a father. I certainly can achieve this outside of a marriage. In other words the only reason why I would want to marry is to have some one near me as I grow older. What would be more probable is a life partner. Marriage then becomes a business proposal. The politics of it is what keeps me away.

The main objective of any marriage is that of two people in love who want to spend the rest of their lives together. I'd imagine the most important aspect of this would be the two partners falling in love. I don't think I'm normal with respects to how I deal with women. First of all the most adventurous times I have with women are during our participation in art projects. Otherwise I befriend them and I am a good friend. I've had two crucial relationships with women as lover. They were very involved in terms of the intensity. Other wise most of my relationships with women are with art girls who given time spent together I hoped and wished that I get lucky one day.

My problem with marriage is that I'm not used to the typical women. I find dating to be a waste of time. I enjoy more so the frivolity of going out with a woman not knowing what to expect. Also in conversation with a typical woman conversations tend to be difficult in the modern age. I tend to attract neurotic women or those in distance from the city. Women on a given day expect a certain kind of man. A man adventurous in thinking or perhaps more sophisticated challenges the woman. Most women prefer a safer man.

Through out history there have been couples who may have suggested something contrary to what people normally would expect. Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller. Or any number of art couples who exhibited an artistic disposition. There have been men who peculiarly seemed unlikely to marry. Some of these men were artists, film directors or musicians.

Quinten Tarantino and George Clooney are two men who live such passionate lives. It can be said that the modern day bachelor finds it opportune to sleep with as many women as possible. Since the discovery of the Barely Legal many men have left their marriages and are sleeping with younger women. There's also something to be said about the divorce rate and why people marry to begin with. Some where in the 80's it was cool for a woman to be single and have a child. This was normal at the time. The yuppie woman had a child out of wedlock. There's a stress now for women to meet men or what would be supposed as the right man.

I fantasize about having an art star relationship or what is known as the Hollywood couple. I like the idea of being a hot and consciously aware man with a foot in the art world who attracts a stylish woman with intelligence also creative. The 1980's were full of couples like this. The East Village of New York spurned such a creative burst that many artists found it easy to date other artists. Most of these art couples were fashionably dressed. They looked good together. This in a way was a priority. People don't marry because they look good together. But in a way I dream of a woman who has the same style and notion of accomplishment as I do. This seems like a fantasy but I do think given the way I present myself it would be wonderful to meet a woman who is from the same hypothetical world as me.

Emotional Incest

Tie Your Mother Down

Kofi Fosu Forson

Earliest memory of my mother and me is that of my 4th birthday party where my younger brother and me both of us sharing our birthday in the month of May were surrounded by a cast of people including distant family members and friends.

My mother's name Eva is somehow derivative of the Biblical Eve. At least I see it as so. She is stark in her beauty. Somewhat of a threat juxtaposed her brilliance and intellect.

Much of these memories also include time spent alone with her whether going to church or driving to market in her red Datsun. She was always mother. I felt her as nurturing and available to my emotional needs and that of shelter.

Having moved from Ghana to America to be with my father our relationship took on different proportions whereby she was torn between finding a career, rekindling her role as mother of four sons and being a wife to my father.

Soon enough complications began concerning peer pressure from those I went to school and that of societal pressures emerging from pop culture and cable television. My father was frail in assuming a leading role. He was a demonic figure in the eyes of my friends. My mother was the one who embraced most of my classmates.

Sex on cable television during the early 80's was very visible. I slipped into the living room when my parents went to bed to watch shows like Interludes After Midnight and Ugly George. My mother serendipitously walked in on me one evening. That moment and catching me with an adult magazine and chastising me affected my sexual growth.

Independent of the rest of the family my mother and I had a torturous relationship where we fought. Our dueling egos usually ended in conflict and argument where we fought or she scolded me. Ironically I was always turned on sexually after we fought. In order to relieve this stress I would have to go to her and faun on her where I would apologize and accept blame.

Soon enough I gained an important role in her church as a regular reader and participant in functions. The church members embraced me as her son. They were used to seeing me at church every Sunday.

During my last year in high-school I had an emotional breakdown. I was diagnosed with depression. After weeks of not knowing what was happening to me and knowing I was loosing my mind I went to my mother for help. She said they didn't believe in psychiatrists and left me with no hope. I wanted to and could have killed myself that night but I didn't. I bravely went to school the next day and a teacher brought me to his office and started me on a life long series of therapy sessions. I look back now on it in pain and indeed realize my mother was a savior.

During these moments when my mother and me would sit and commiserate I gained a friendship but at the same time I became a sponge for her emotional dissatisfaction with my father. Our relationship became almost romantic as some people thought we were a married couple. I woke up in the morning to drink tea with my mother. The conversations we had were legendary. They have encouraged a sense of talk and conversation in me as professional.

In retrospect the circumstances surrounding my relationship with my mother was certainly that of love. There was a sense of neurosis perhaps oedipal. In a way our egos clashed as a form of attraction, empathy and strange lust.