PAUSE.
Let’s take a look here at this scene: Candle-lit dinner? Check. Corny music? Check. Cliché ambiance from a fire? Check. The couple sitting closely together and smiling at one another like school children? Check. Yep, sounds like the movies got a hold of this one. Every single cliché thing for a “love scene” is sitting right in front of you people!!! Quite a few tricks are being played here…the whole “romantic atmosphere” is just a show. Yes, love may actually start out like this…but it doesn’t always stay that way. What you have to understand is that “Love is not all roses.” It is terrifying actually. Full of hurt, frustration, heartache, testing of loyalty and trustworthiness, pain, and potential loss; along with the happiness, excitement, giddiness, and those little butterflies floating around in your stomachs. Yes, love can be grand and wonderful and every other positive adjective you may think of, but at the same time, it can be the exact opposite. I believe that love is a much more complex emotion that people think. They all say how great it is and whatnot, but you rarely see people talk about the love if it was lost. I mean, they say “it’s better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.” Right? I believe there is great truth in this statement because love is all about giving everything to that other person; and being okay with it. Being okay with allowing yourself complete vulnerability, because you put your trust in them. Giving that other person the good, the bad; the ugly, the beautiful; the happy, the sad; the frustration, the excitement; the nervousness the serenity; the crazy, the sane. Everything. You allow that person to be your rock, and you are the same for them. No matter what is thrown at you, or no matter what hurdles you have to jump, or mountains you have to climb, its alright because you have each other.
It is for this reason that it, well, …sucks (for lack of a better word), when that love goes away for whatever explanation. That person that was your everything is now gone, and you are left with [what feels like] nothing. It is beyond difficult to come back from this state of mind. And that is because love is an ever-changing emotion. It is consistently inconsistent. But to me, that’s what makes it so beautiful. In all of the mess and jumbled up crap, there was (for at least a while) a great thing that you had hold of. It was in your grasp for some time and you held it closely with all your might. Dave Matthews put it beautifully in his song “Baby Blue” on his latest album Big Whiskey and the Groo Grux King: the idea of love and loss. It is so clear in this song how much he loved this woman that his is singing about and you can hear the hurt in his voice as he sings to her. “Confess not quite / Ready to be left / Still I know I / Did my level best / You give you give / To this I can attest / You made me / You made me / You and me forever.” I believe he is saying that though the love was lost, it was great while it lasted. And even though they aren’t together anymore, he will love her. “Forever.”
The first video is just the album song (so you can hear the lyrics better).
The second video is live feed from September 23, 2009.
Both videos came from youtube.
Great visuals, Hannah!
ReplyDeleteYou've got some very powerful and personal ideas here. Obviously you've thought carefully about this topic. Maybe you could focus on the cultural aspect of love...cultural expectations?
Let's chat before you start drafting. :)