Romance

In Here & Beyond There

Romance. I think we’re starved for it…need it like bread and water, like rain, like air. It doesn’t matter if it comes from a commercial holiday like Valentine’s Day or from an event like an anniversary or birthday. Wherever or whatever its source, romance springs from a deeply human impulse: the need to heighten experience, to wake up our slumbering sensibilities, and to perceive the moment in all its fresh, glistening glory.

Most of the day, living out the dream called reality, rushing from one place to the next, our minds are a jumble of mish-mash, a cacophony of restless and often contrary thoughts. If I’m doing this, I should be doing that. If I’m here, I should be there.

But sometimes, something happens, and romance intervenes. A little black cat jumps on our lap, and we put the cell phone down; the wind picks up, drifting lilacs and wood smoke; the light suddenly changes and thunder makes the windows shudder; we bite into the season’s first strawberry or asparagus spear or tomato or ear of corn; our husband looks at us like a lover; our lover looks at us like a husband; the red geranium pushes up through the lampshade; the candles dance in a frenzied dervish; we open a trunk and grandmother’s ghost escapes into the hallway; there is a love note in the crisper.

No doubt, it would be a great challenge to live every day mostly awake and aware of the moment, though poets and children make a valiant effort. But the fact remains that romance is in here, over there, behind this, under that. It isn’t always happy; sometimes it’s wistful, sometimes a bit melancholy, and if it is beautiful, it’s not in a perfect, retouched, magazine way. It’s the beauty of laugh lines around the eyes; the beauty of a dog with three legs; the beauty of a souffle whooshing down; the beauty of a child’s handwriting; the beauty of your old car suggesting one long last road trip.

There is romance in here. There is romance out there. In this very moment, all we have to do is wake up.