Love...

I am ready to be in love, but not love in the way I used to think of love. I used to think of love as butterflies in the stomach, cards, flowers, miniature Swarovski animals, lingering looks over candlelit dinners and watching the same music videos or made for TV movies during long phone conversations that end with that never-ending exchange lovers often engage in while putting on their baby-talk voices.

“You hang up first”
“No you”
“Nooo”
“I love you”
“But I love you more, Monkey Lips”
“Yooouuuu first”
“Ok, we hang up together on a count of three. One, two, three”
“You cheated, you didn’t hang up”
“You hang up first”

They would giggle and ping pong back and forth until someone would finally break the cycle and hang up, only to phone back in 2 minutes to say how much they missed each other in the interim. It’s enough to make one reach for the economy sized bottle of Pepto Bismal.

And then of course there is being in love like Cary Grant and Debra Kerr in “An Affair to Remember.” Two people in black and white meet on an ocean liner to New York where their separate destinies await. He is a rich playboy and she’s a wealthy socialite. Upon arriving in New York, they promise to meet atop the Empire State Building on a certain day and time if for some reason their current emotional obligations go sour. He is waiting and she never shows. He thinks she has stood him up. The clock ticks, the days turn into weeks and time marches on. He can’t stop thinking of her and paints her image, which stays in a gallery. Then suddenly and quite unexpectedly, he sees her seated in a theatre. She doesn’t even get up to greet or embrace him and all he says is “hello”, which then sets up his famous line “All I could say was hello”. He is bitter. One day a woman in a wheelchair buys the painting he made of his lost beloved. He finally goes to the penthouse of the woman who stood him up to apologize for not being there, so she will think she was the one stood up, not him. He tells her he painted her picture but that a crippled woman bought it. She begs him to leave. The light bulb flashes. He storms into her bedroom to see the painting on the wall and he realizes she is the woman in the wheelchair. He suddenly feels guilty for blaming and hating her, realizing she didn’t show because she was ruthlessly run over by a New York taxi driver. He embraces her. They cry and they live happily ever after.

But neither of those is real love.

I will tell you what love is, yet another sub-continental lesson I feel compelled to share with all of you. Love is standing on a rock at the bottom of a waterfall, preferably in white linen, the shirt falling off in a sexy yet tasteful way the whole family can enjoy. Suddenly the unseen sitar starts playing, causing the would be lovers to break into song before switching to more colorful attire in which they perform dance sequences against a backdrop of a mountain meadow complete with some romantic ruin they can chase each other around. As the butterflies flirt with the wildflowers, the lovers, seductively lit by the setting sun, make shy eyes at each other, giggle, blush, sing and dance in unison, never once touching the object of their affection and burning desire. She shows how flexible her hips are, he flexes his bronze biceps. They flash their spotlight smiles and their eyes twinkle. Suddenly they are on an overly decorated barge in the middle of a river. You know they are destined for each other as their outfits match. But there is always an evil villain with bad intentions and even worse hair that tries to keep them apart. Try as they might, they are no match for the dancing lovers with their back-up entourage and by the time the credits roll we all have warm fuzzies and a must-have soundtrack.

That, my friends is love.