BY Lux Alptraum
August 27, 2007
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The New York Times “Modern Love” column: 1/3 inspiring, 1/3 boring, and 1/3 aggravating. Every Monday, we review this week’s installment, and let you know how the current tale of love (lost, found, or otherwise) stacks up.

The two second description of this week’s “Modern Love” makes it sound easy to snark on: in the wake of Katrina, a divorcee is able to hide from the pity and condolences that would ordinarily be her due. Yet somehow, after actually reading the piece (written by Ellen Ann Fentress), we don’t feel capable of snarking on it (we’re shocked too.).

What could have easily been a trite, self absorbed piece about a failed relationship (and a giant natural disaster) turns out to be a thoughtful piece on the nature of grief and the difficulties of reintegrating into society as a single person after years and years as part of a couple:

The concern of others is easier to accept for turns of fate like illness or the death of loved ones. But there’s humiliation in divorce, an unshakable sense of fault and inadequacy, as if you failed to grasp some essential point in setting up your dominoes long ago. And for my part in this failure I did not want awkward hugs or baked goods or Hallmark cards.

Thanks to Katrina, I did not get them.

We found ourselves struck by memories of past break ups: the hardest pain coming, not so much from the break up itself, as from the task of having to tell everyone about the break up, having to reintroduce ourselves as a single person — so yes, we could feel Fentress’s pain, as it were.

But beyond that: Fentress weaves a beautiful tale of coming to terms with a destroyed home life at the same time as disaster has been wrought across one’s physical home, and of finding peace through an appreciation of the charity extended towards Katrina survivors.

It’s a good piece, and again, a reminder of how good “Modern Love” can be.

[Photo by greenmannowar]