Psych-Out

“Dear Ms. Calle, I have recently been released from a long term relationship… I would like to spend the remainder of my mourning grieving in your bed…”(1)

Upon receiving this request, artist Sophie Calle packed up her bed and shipped it across the Atlantic with a note wishing the then stranger, Josh Greene, a quick recovery.

How do we mend a broken heart?  (See my previous blog.) Heartbreak has forever defied the counsel of philosophers and physicians.  (2)  Virgil wrote, “It is an easy passage down to hell. But to come back, once there, you cannot well.” Homer’s warrior Euryalus bid “I can as soon leave love, as the Sun leave his course.” The agony can be excruciating. It can lead us to contemplate jumping from the highest of bridges(3) or, at other times, seeking comfort in the bed of a stranger.

Are we left to wandering Eternity in everlasting sorrow?

“The crutch of Time can do more than the steely club of Hercules,” wrote Balthasar Gracian, the 17th c. Jesuit scholar.(4) Robert Burton, in his 16th c. work, The Anatomy of Melancholy, suggested exercise, diet, keeping busy, traveling, and the counsel of good friends — no different from what any good therapist would recommend today. (He also suggested fasting, sweating, bathing, and avoiding wine. Not bad ideas in themselves.)

These remedies aren’t a cure. They may only distract and soothe enough to help father Time work his magic. What if Romeo or Juliet had taken a few trips abroad, watched their diets, and took up jogging?

The best advice I read came from “Faith H” in response to a blog from a heart broken woman. “Spoil yourself, indulge, grab at all the good small things that come your way. Get away, somewhere different, preferably with a good friend who will listen to whatever mind numbing drivel you want to talk about HIM or whatever. Someone who will eat popcorn and drink bad wine and watch a few silly movies with you… Start making new memories. It never goes away completely but plans, girl, make big plans.” Robert Burton be proud.

As for Sophie Calle? After being dumped herself, and by e-mail no less, she distributed the text to 107 women professionals, photographed them reading it, and invited them to analyze the break-up e-mail according to their job. The ex’s grammar was torn apart by a copy editor, his lines used as target practice by a markswoman, second-guessed by a chess player, analyzed by a psychiatrist, and performed by an actress. “After a month I felt better…The project replaced the man.” She entitled the piece, Take Care of Yourself.

sophie

Another piece, Exquisite Pain, came at the end of another love affair. “Upon returning to France, I chose to recount my suffering rather than my trip.” She told everyone she met her story and then asked them to tell her their own stories of some event worthy of their suffering. Sophie wrote out their stories with accompanying photographs. In three months, she proclaimed herself cured due to the endless recounting of her story alongside its relativity to the excruciating suffering that others told to her.(5)

As for Sophie Calle’s bed? After several months, Josh Greene sent it back, his mourning over.(6) Perhaps the best way to ease that broken heart?

Turn it into art. Sophie’s counsel? “The worse the heartbreak, the better the art.”

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1) Calle, Sophie. Sophie Calle: M’as-Tu Vue. New York: Prestel, 2003.
2) Thomas Sydenham wrote in 1680: “Among the remedies which it has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.” It seems that Sydenham may have been right. If interested see Lewis, Thomas, M.D., Amini, Fari, M.D.; Lannon, Richard, M.D. A General Theory of Love. New York: Vintage, 2001. pgs.94-96
3) There have been over 1200 suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge since it opened in 1937.
4) See Gracian, Baltasar. The Art of Worldly Wisdom. Trans. Christopher Maurer. New York: Doubleday, 1992. If you have the budget for only one self-help book to carry for you the rest of your life, this gem is the one!
5) She exhibited the piece almost 20 years later at the Pompidou Centre exhibition in 2003. See Guardian article.
6) Calle, Sophie. Sophie Calle: M’as-Tu Vue. New York: Prestel, 2003. The rest of the letter finishes: “Your bed has offered me comfort in so many ways, it will be difficult to replace Thank you again for your compassion. Warmest regards, Josh.”