Too Much Jane Eyre

Chick flicks?  Why are they so popular? Why are we such dyed in the wool romantics that we continually gravitate toward fairy tales, novels, movies, anything that stirs our hearts and reminds us we were young once and were viable candidates for the starring role in our own once upon a time?

Our bodies may be old but our hearts are still beating. Is it possible to turn off the romantic spigot that still churns out the desire for palpitations caused by a sideward glance, a too-long gaze, a daydream, a song lyric, a love note?

Must our fairy tale only happen once, then fade away and turn to something predictable and careworn? Is this why marriages are set aside and families abandoned?  Is this why people walk away, searching for a renewal of the dream? This screams travesty and yet the pining seems strong and real enough that sense often is pushed aside in favor of chasing those long lost palpitations.

What is the answer then? Are movies a good idea to replace the longing? Or are they part of the problem?  Are novels an escape, or a too-potent reminder of feelings, delights, drama that are never to play in one's heart again?

Maybe books and movies paint an unrealistic picture of the dream of true love.  Did music really swell in the soundtrack of my own great romance? It seemed to. Did my prince charming really spring onto the scene with heart stopping, breathtaking heroics? That is how the memories play out in my head.

Then why could I ever hope to have them replaced with something new? How could anything new be better than the reality that was?

The problem is my heart still thinks it is young.....

The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me

The world needs dreamers.  We have all the efficient, capable, make-things-work kind of people that we need.  We have all the nuts-and-bolts, carry-on, foundation-layers necessary to make the world continue to go around and around and around as it always has and always will.

Where we lack are the frosting-on-the-cake kind of people.  These are they that infuse the beauty and the life and the new ideas into the mundane, prosaic, pedestrian, day-to-day, get-er-done world.

My husband and I watched a movie about one of these dreamers a few nights ago.  This dreamer struggled to fit in.  He was frustrated that others didn't see things the way he did.  He couldn't understand why his efforts and contributions were astonishing to baffled, frightened, bewildered "regular" folk.  Those regular folk didn't seem to see life on the same grand scale that he did, full of vibrancy and beauty. Where they seemed content with the status quo, in carrying on within the bounds set by staid and safe society, he desired to serve and give and share the passion he had for life.

He was Vincent van Gogh.

During his life he managed to give us a body of work that broke free of the formulaic and the expected. The world that he saw, full of dynamic color and energy, has been preserved in some of the greatest works of art treasured by the world today.  At the time, his boldness was misunderstood.  His "Lust for Life," as the movie was called, made others uncomfortable.  They didn't know what to do with this anomaly that couldn't function on their "normal" level.

There are in our midst those capable of offering to the world something extraordinary.  There are those that see possibilities in the impossible; those that carry within them genius and brilliance; they think deeper, feel stronger, love truer. 

And yet.

Maybe they struggle to be understood.  Maybe they don't hear the cadence of the masses, the driving beat of normalcy.  Perhaps they have their own sense of timing.  Tried and true isn't good enough. Why must things be done the way they always have?

Perhaps these unique individuals run on a different time table, often starting well after the masses have already taken off. Perhaps they run best alone, allowing time for introspection and solitude and creativity.

Whose to say that outside of humanity's rat race, a special set aren't enjoying the scenery and serenity of a creative life, while the doers are struggling to keep pace with the real madness of a chaotic world?

The greatest travesty would be to try and chisel off their corners to make them fit in the round hole of normalcy. Let us rejoice in the dreamers in our lives, celebrating them for the sweetness they add to life.  There is a place for the doers.  Let's also make a place for the dreamers.

                                                                                Sunflowers

                                                       Starry Night

"I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you."