Sparkling 2021

[Originally published Dec, 21)

 What a time to be alive! I just got home from watching West Side Story in the theater. Because my going is so rare, the theater itself is a magical place. The musically-perfect marriage of Bern-Heim! and the Dancing! on the large screen? It's nothing short of a transcendent experience. And like all transcendent experiences, that means I cried. A lot. A perfectly hit high note with a perfectly Bernstein almost dissonant harmony-I could literally feel a knob turn, a door in my heart open, welcoming the light of heaven flooding in. This is a hint of what Glory feels like. And the expression of beautiful, powerful dancing, is a tangible, real life example of freedom! You might gather, I had a great time at the movies.

I also thought ending 2021 on West Side Story was most appropriate. I just wrapped up a semester teaching Romeo and Juliet to a group of teenage homeschoolers. Barely teens who are very judgmental and refuse to admit to even having a crush, let alone forgive these two dumb kids who fall in love who barely know each other. But it's all gospel truth. We're all strangers who fall in love with strangers.  We balk at the wisdom(?) of elders. Elders cannot see what we see. We jump into love blindly and blindly might just be the best way to do it, or no one ever could. 

 West Side Story was not just a reflection of my class but a providential completion summing up my 2021 love life. Last post you saw me struggling to make sense of a breakup. But Glory to God and glory to Time, the struggle is over. We were Romeo and Juliet. Truthfully, more like Rosaline, and truthfully maybe I should "get myself to a nunnery," but at the time if felt much more Juliet so we'll go with that. How wonderful that a 40-something and a 38-something, thank you very much, can still experience the bubbly champagne high of a new crush, new love, fun and infatuation-- total effervescence! Who gets that? Not many, and not often. 

And also like Romeo and Juliet, that kind of high-as-a-kite love has to die. Only, in my case, it's no tragedy. On account of no one getting stabbed, poisoned, or shot. Praise God for Whom all blessings flow! But at some point, real life must be lived, children with real needs, needs that don't include an intruder, need raised. And real love must replace the champagne. And while real love may be a deep, transformative, and truly rich effort, it is an Effort. It is sacrifice. And more sacrifice and more sacrifice. So maybe it's okay to not rush in. Maybe that's what fools do. Maybe I'm no fool. Or at least a different kind of fool. That feels more honest.

An aside: Speaking of ice cream infatuation vs real love, I should mention that I also read Anna Karenina this year. Friends, The JUXTOPOSTION! WOW! The consequences of living for ice cream, yourself, and personal validation versus living "for God and your soul," could not be told more Truthfully and beautifully told. Tolstoy is more Gospel. Amen, verily.

Back to Shakespeare. Some of my favorite lines from Romeo and Juliet: I do spy a kind of hope.  There is always hope, and I'm determined to spy it!

And: Compare her face to some that I shall show...and I will make thee think thy swan a crow. This clever couplet gets harder to swallow the more my swan-ness degenerates into crow. But I will embrace another Shakespearean gem: With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come! (Only that's Merchant of Venice)

And of course, for my truly romantic heart: Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night, Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.

I saw this comet in July '20!