The Quest for Romance –
Romancing the Notion
Women newsmagazine Feb. 2000
Is it real or are we merely chasing windmills on our quest for love? Entire industries have been built on the notion of human love… romance being the key, but is it a figment of our imagination or something tangible?
I marked the dawn of the new millennium on the streets of Whistler: white lights twinkled in the trees, music drifted on snowflakes falling from an onyx sky – it was magical. My husband and I, warmly bundled, soaked in the ambiance. A couple standing nearby blew translucent bubbles into the night which drifted above the crowd and hung in hopeful spheres over our heads. In a gentle, fluid motion the man of my dreams reached up and caught a bubble on the tip of his gloved hand and maneuvered it down, in front of my face. With a silent ‘pop’ the bubble was gone, and for a moment we were the only two people in the Village. ‘Romance’ was as real as the beating of my heart.
Behind us a group of young teenaged girls twittered, the high pitched ‘tee hee’ of adolescent femininity, their attention focused on an ensemble of boys nearby who grunted a reply. It seemed rather less romantic than the bubble, but was garnering a similar response nonetheless; faces blushed, eyes sparkled and a subliminal connection was made. And it occurred to me that our sense of ‘romance’ must evolve.
The pre-historic view of ‘romance’ is captured in the image of a fur clad primate clobbering the object of his affection with a club and dragging her off to a cave by her hair. Women today would be less likely to swoon over such advances, we need a gentler approach. Yet, I wonder if ‘romance’ can be orchestrated or if it is a spontaneous gift that occurs when the magic is right.
I was reduced to mush one evening while walking the dog with my husband. He scaled a fence, and presented me with a single pilfered daffodil. On the other hand, I have watched my daughter discard a single red rose with the nonchalance of ad mail on the kitchen table, stating, ‘some schmuck left this on the windshield of my car!’
This leads me to believe that ‘romance’ is not necessarily the prelude to love, but the result.
My son seems to have inherited his father’s romantic flare. Unemployed and penniless last Valentine’s Day, he presented the heavens full of stars as a gift to his girlfriend and she melted. It seems ‘romance’ has no monetary value.
The recipes for ‘romance’ are as numerous as the stars in the sky, the ingredients as varied as the individuals involved. ‘Romance’ is a moment – a split second in which a gift is given and received. It is a gift unto itself. It is the unique connection between two people, when for a moment the rest of the world disappears. It is as old as time, and free for the asking.