You don't find passion, it finds you

You don't find passion, it finds you.

You don't find passion, it finds you.

You don't find passion, it finds you.

I heard this phrase last night in the 'Bedford Diaries'

It was as I heard it that I realised its significance, its importance and its truth.

Passion...I wrote about it here and here

I asked for it, I longed for it but I never realised that even though I was looking for it I could not find it by searching. It is a sad or maybe a happy fact in life that passion will hit you when you least expect it. It will reveal its existence in the most trivial or insignificant way and yet...it will be there......growing with every minute until it is a large tide whose waters you can no longer contain.

Do you embrace passion when it comes, do you welcome it? Do you accept it when maybe you know that it will probably cause you so much pain?

I remember an affair I had some years ago.......I knew from the very start that it was going to end, I knew it would hurt as hell.......and I was so young that I neglected everything else and just went ahead and got my a...s kicked for love. And you know what?

I don't regret it for a second. I remember the pain of course but still while it lasted I felt so alive. God I felt so uniquely ALIVE I feel like screaming even thinking about it. There is a specific moment that I often recall....sitting in his car, under a winter starry night sky, and debating the meaning of life. It doesn't sound romantic does it? I tell you it was. It was so much for me.

When we met after some years, when he had moved on and I had too, we knew with absolute certainty that nothing could ever happen with us again. And still the memory of those days was so alive, a bond that we will always share, that cannot be taken or changed. A memory. And we smiled :)

So....when you grow older, and you have your share of pain and experience do you still go ahead and fall head over heels?

I don't really know. Its easy to say no if you are not experiencing it, and maybe even if you are, you can still say no, prefering a secure, easier life that the 'excruciating agony of love'.

What a tragedy, what a betrayal to Puccini and Verdi and Monet and Botticceli and all those artists and poets and everyone who ever sat down and tried to depict this force of nature, this unique life force that says to you

'Life is here, now. Life is worth living. Go ahead and live it now because its the only one you have'

As Barbra Streizant says in the 'Mirror has two faces' :

"We all want to fall in love. Why? Because it makes us feel completely alive, where every sense is heightened, every emotion is magnified. Our everyday reality is shattered and we are flying into the heavens. It may only last a moment, an hour, an afternoon, but that doesnt diminish its value because we are left with memories that we treasure for the rest of our lives.

Because...while it DOES LAST...it feels fucking great!"

(of course this movie, one of my favourites, closes with the uncomparable notes of Puccini's Nessun Dorma)

In that movie BStr (Rose Morgan) says something else too:

"I tell you what I envy about people in love - I'd love it if someone knew me, I mean really knew me. What I like, what I'm afraid of, what kind of toothpaste I use."

Passion.......I asked for it, I longed for it, I even prayed (to the Universe) for it. And I was deprived of it. Will I be still? Or maybe not?:)