Once upon a time, when life has been short on happily ever afters, they counted on love. But it is said that love is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.
There was an interesting humanity in their small, simple, love tale. They were not married, but in spite of the vow’s absence, a tale tiptoed on profound bond. You can ex- tract the elements of compassion, patience, regret, surprise, forgiveness and compound it to form — the chemistry of an atom called love, as Kahlil Gibran articulated.
By what level, what language would one use, to describe a romance that breaks all the rules and goes pretty far—exhausting the categories of the forbidden? A catastrophe in the landscapes of the heart was written on a masterpiece (a piercing irony) by the Nobel laureate Octavio Paz in The Labyrinth of Solitude: “to realize itself, love must violate the rules of our world.”
How could anyone forget an old flame?
Love does not appear with any warning, it is an inevitable event you can not control. No time to think if you’re heading for a soft landing or a rough ride. You fall into it is as if pushed from a high diving board, it is like getting hit by a huge truck, yet not mortally wounded.
Love is being sick to your stomach, high one minute, low the next. Starving hungry but no appetite, hot and cold from excitement, full of hope and enthusiasm with bouts of depression that wipes you out. As it pains and heals, comforts and restores, it brings the smile to your face and makes you excruciatingly cheeky and intolerably giddy.
She had crowned a beauty queen, assisted by the country’s most eligible bachelor. He was poisonously handsome, excruciatingly polite with impeccable breeding. His playboy exploits made him a tabloid piñata and God’s gift to women. His existence was hinged on the best schools and affluence and noblesse obliges.
She had fallen completely and madly in love with the playboy. Sometimes it is bewildering to her, but her joy was boundless. She cannot put words into the feeling and enchantment of it all. She had the stamina for all the ups and downs that passion delivered.
Sometimes she wondered if two people, and the rules of convention between them can sum up the energy that being in love requires. If you love each other so utterly, love will survive!
For years, she had interviewed, written about people that navigate the shoals of what was taboo in the affairs of the heart. She had seen friends hopes dashed in heartbreak, buried by the baggage of human bondage.
She had also seen couples march starry eyed to the altar, convinced that true love can conquer all. By what level, what language would she use to describe a romance that breaks all the rules and had gone pretty far—exhausting categories of the forbidden, when love is clouded over, or surrounded by moral mists?
It is a shift in perception, a return to love with deeper depth going back into the world we knew when we were still connected to our softness and innocence. It is the deepest level of our being, informed by love, but interpreted gently with hope and faith, and sense of wonder.
That is easily retrieved because perception is a choice. Have a truly romantic weekend gentle readers.
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