But he that dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose.
– Anne Bronte (1820 – 1849)
LOVE… The sound of the word conjures up a host of possibilities – a slew of connotations. Passion, desire, infatuation, courtly love, free love, maternal or paternal love, compassionate or spiritual love, sacrificial love, conditional or unconditional love, obsessive love, unrequited love, forbidden love, falling in love?
With love on the line, the stakes soar. In the romantic quests portrayed in such enduring tales as Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre the ante reaches its pinnacle – death by love, madness by love, haunting by love.
My initiation into matters of the heart began with the Be My Valentine ritual in 1st grade. A mandatory distribution of selected tiny red cards covered with cupids, kisses and a touch of lace, to all of my classmates whether I liked them or not! My first real encounter with romantic love began in 7th grade when D.M. presented me with a small heart shaped box of chocolates. Since then I have experienced a broader spectrum of the fine art. Indeed I have engaged in secret love, chosen love, committed love, uncommitted love, and all consuming Gothic romantic love.
We loved with a love that was more than love.
– Edgar Allen Poe
Such sensuous, tactile connections of the flesh and mind may one day be replaced by the emergence of cyber love. In the recent film Her, Joaquin Phoenix a lovelorn introvert becomes enchanted with his computer’s operating system i.e. the disembodied voice of Scarlett Johansson aka Samantha aka OS. Intuitive and insightful, Scarlett whispers positive, seductive, and understanding responses to Joaquin aka Theodore. They fall deeply in love fulfilling each other’s psychological/emotional needs and desires. She even supplies a human surrogate so they can be intimate. But the chilling part of this virtual love occurs when Theodore discovers Samantha connects to 8,316 other people simultaneously and she is in love with 641 of them! Darker than the murkiest of Gothic romance, this disembodied love eliminates the need for flesh and blood. Just carry your smartphone!
Whether yours is a chosen love, erotic love, disembodied love, committed love or romantic love, this Valentine’s Day you could text or tweet, email or put a stamp on it, Skype, log into your OS, or savor a tactile, sensory, real time, real life encounter.
Some claim love is simply love – uncomplicated – in the spirit of Gertrude Stein, a Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. For me, love whirls to its own choreographed rhythm – far more complex than just the beauty of the rose. Shrouded in mist, the stakes high, a haunting vision on a stormy night. Love remains seductive, thorny, and ineffable.
VALENTINE’S DAY TRIVIA
Mystery surrounds the origin of Valentine’s Day. No one knows which of 3 Saints it commemorates – only that each of these martyrs symbolizes a sympathetic, heroic or romantic figure. The first recorded Valentine was a poem sent in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. In 1700 Americans began exchanging handmade Valentines and today approximately 150 million Valentine’s Day cards find their way into the hands of a loved one annually!
LOVE. An all consuming state of mind. If you have it you love it, if you don't you seek it, we all want it in some form or another and persue it in many ways until the end of our lives.
Lovely to read. I like your example of Her which I found headache producing and as far from love as I can imagine
.Valentines Day in general has evolved from romantic love bot all types of friendship which now merit a card or other recognition. I think it's good as it makes all receivers feel good so why not. happy valentines day.
Thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog. Very provocative.
Wonderful reading and where would we all be without Love in all its guises ?
Getting to one's destination is a function of what we do today, tomorrow and the next day. Today we chart our course (plan) and begin preparing for the voyage (action). Tomorrow we modify our plan based on what we learned yesterday, and apply more preparations and/or get underway. The voyage may be short or long.but strangely it may turn out to be the best part of the whole adventure! Moral of the story: Don't just dream about how wonderful it would be to go to Paradise. Start today! For details on forming a plan, see Martha. I learned from her.
Dear Martha. You write so beautifully. I am envious. Not only of your ability to roll such sentences across a page, but by the courage to have lived by such truths. Does one choose or does life itself guide your wisdom? Surely it only comes to the receptive and if so, being a lover of life is the greatest love of all. Valentine's Day is the largest alarm clock with the sweetest and most gentle ring. May we all dance to it's music….forever.