A Higher Love
It had been a long day hosting a Community College Counselor Conference, but the afternoon saw a mild flurry of activity around out water cooler. The results from the various counselors’ profiles for the new website had been posted and staff members were excitedly reviewing the results (and trying to pin specific profiles to the various staff members in the office). While I don’t think that there was anything groundbreaking revealed I was surprised to find that one of my coworkers listed her favorite movie as “Moulin Rouge!”. After expressing my interest, I quickly explained that I didn’t think that there was anything wrong with the movie (I do appreciate the entire trilogy and in fact own a copy of said film) but I just didn’t think that it was this particular coworker’s favorite piece of cinema.
I thoroughly appreciate the concept of using covers of songs (I’m still listening to the Radio 1 covers!) and updating them to a new context and I’m willing to overlook anachronistic moments because the rules of the fabricated world make these sorts of things all right.
Back in high school, I was so naïve, and I whole-heartedly bought into the romantic aspect of the movie. After being dragged to see the film in the theater and listening to the soundtrack repeatedly thanks to an ex-girlfriend, how could I not? The movie was in my head to stay. Oh, it was fun to watch and the songs certainly were ones that I knew but there just seemed to be something so grand about it all. There was the familiar story about a boy not being able to get his love interest because of challenges that were imposed upon them both but you knew that he would end up with her in the end because it was True Love. So one of the characters died at the end-it was like Titanic in that you knew that the two characters shared a bond that not even death could break.
Yet, watching it now makes me reflect on how much I've grown since then (perhaps just grown more cynical, but grown nonetheless). I still get swept away by the idea that the perfect love can transport you to places unknown-all the while conscious of the dark side that never goes away. I think that the most important lesson that I took away from the film was that, after all is said and done, after the wild ride of passion is over, you realize that love doesn't-and can't-conquer all. The good guys don't always win and there is no such thing as happy ever after. Dreams do come true...but are just as easily broken. So powerful is this force called love that people are willing to fight for it; die for it; lie, cheat, and steal for it; sacrifice; and be their best for it. You see that the great poets have got it wrong: love can't move mountains, make rocks cry, or raise the dead. You realize that we are human after all and that love isn't always forever. Surely there’s pain and heartache along the way and it’s difficult for us to imagine that there is no firm resolution, but through all of this we find that we have it in ourselves, the invincibility that we ascribed to love, and that no matter how we are challenged, there's a part of ourselves that only we can give away. We realize how fragile and precious the feeling is-and how lucky we are to have it.
In the end, doesn't that make it all the more worthwhile? The ending gives the beginning meaning and the act of committing yourself to something knowing that it's imperfect, knowing full well that the magic might not last? To me, that makes it priceless. In a sense, I think that the greater idea of love encompasses a type of feeling that allows one to say, “I don’t know if you’re my one true love-or if there is even such a thing out there-but you are the one that I choose to spend my time with. I choose you over all of the other options out there and all of the other people who might come my way. I choose you, acknowledging your faults and not ignoring them, because there’s something that I see in you that nobody else can. When things are good, I will make an unconscious choice to stay with you and when things are not so good, I will make the choice out loud. There are times that I’m sure that I will fight with you, but I will always fight to be with you. I will fight for you, not because you can’t hold you own, but because you shouldn’t have to. I will fight your demons as I struggle to come to terms with mine and I promise that I will be there when all of the fighting is done.”
I think that this sort of thinking really shows (to me at least) how I’ve changed since my high school days. Perhaps it’s the result of just having lived a bit more and experiencing the world outside of my first high school romance. I can’t say that there’s anything wrong with the notion of being in love with being in love, but that mentality is simply gone for me. In its place, I’ve learned to come to a more mature understanding of love and what it means to love. I still watch movies like “Moulin Rouge!” and get entranced by the story and root for the underdog but I always temper that quixotic feeling with a sense of happiness that I’m moving like Socrates and Steve Winwood toward a higher love.
