Moulin Rouge- an ode to passion.

Upon waking yet again to Moulin Rouge on HBO I took it as a sign that my passion is indeed still alive not only for love but for life, creativity, humanity and a list of endless things. I was curious how passion is defined in the dictionary because I certainly know what it means to me. Here is what I found. Passion is any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate and also a strong amorous feeling or desire; love; ardor and a strong sexual desire; lust but alas the one I identified with the most- a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything: a passion for music.

As I watched Moulin Rouge for like the fourth time this week, and as I type this its on again so make that fifth, I was taken into a world full of my favorite thing- a passion for love expressed through creativity. It is such a creative film!! It's interesting to hear people say they either love it or don't get it. I remember like it was yesterday, although it was not and I was 24 so that was nine years ago, that I walked out of the Century City theater thinking, what did I just see? I didn't get it. It took falling passionately for someone whose like Satine's character years later to completely get it because after all people see the world as THEY are not as it is. Yes you read correctly Satine. I therefore am Christian the penniless writer with a passion for love and art. Not that he didn't have a passion for love and art because he did but like Satine he lived in the reality society created for him not his own so I "lost" out to a more conventional love that came with the known security of a steady paycheck. I guess in his world two of us can't be passionate about art. Watching the movie is just a little bit torturous because love wins out in the film and this was my reality where the highest bidder won out. I guess passion and unconditional love sometimes aren't enough...for some. ;-)


However I love to be reminded through art how magical life is and how much we can feel. I have experienced first hand that passion can make extraordinary magical experiences our reality. In the beginning of the film they ask Christian about LOVE to which he replies, "Love? Above all I believe in Love. Love is like oxygen." I couldn't agree more. I've known many kinds of love. Young love which you want to be true love because you want to be in love. Then there's the love I experienced for a man the way you would love a father. Something I assumed since I have not really known my father. So with the only man I almost married I concluded that it was more like fatherly love not the love needed to sustain a marriage. A love of gratitude for his protection of me, something he still does fourteen years after we met. I love to watch him boast, as I can only imagine my father would, of my accomplishments. Lately he's had to step in and defend one of my passions since it is taking place somewhere he is part owner. He has truly been there for me and I still love him...the way I would love my dad. He is my protector. Last but not least in my late twenties I discovered a love that I long to know again with the man I call my husband someday. Love derived from passion for your bestfriend. The kind you see here.

And here even if I can't recall if their eyes are green or blue. I really can't. ;-)


As the magical sitar who only speaks the truth says, "the greatest thing you will ever learn is to love and be loved." And may I add to love unconditionally. I have quite a few married friends and I have heard an array of opinions on what love is but the beauty of life is that we get to define what love means to us. I choose to believe that love is respect and admiration for someone so strong that you passionately want to hold their hand wherever you go, to the highs and to the lows of life, because who they are is what you love. Not who you think they could be or who you wish they were. Simply who they are is more than enough to make you want to be their bestfriend and that is how I know I have finally known love. For a while I was his ally and he was mine. The world didn't seem like a perfect place with him in life but there was something magical about it something very Moulin Rouge. Something very kismet about our paths crossing. Our friendship made me happy. Knowing that there was someone in this vast universe who was proud to stand by me just as proud as I was to stand by him taught me to never forget what love derived from passion is.

Some may think me foolish to hold out for that feeling as the clock is ticking and l am only getting older so what will happen with my dream of becoming a mother and wife? To them I say life is short and I have no guarantees of waking tomorrow so why would I want to close my eyes and lay next to someone just for the sake of being next to someone? I would rather marry older and love passionately than marry on anyone's elses time and terms so I can live wondering what passionate love is. I like Christian will someday know a love again that makes me want to sing under an umbrella while twirling my way to the eiffel tower just like he does. Why? Because I know I deserve to be loved just as I am and he, whoever he is, deserves to be loved just as he is.

Seeing this wonderful film repeatedly in one week has made me grateful I have known a love like Christian and Satines and hopeful that it will exist again someday when the planets align and God through the universe sends me a sign whispering oh so gently it's him, it's time, and your patience has paid off. I believe in a passionate love like the one Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about in a letter to Sophia Hawthorne, "I never, till now, had a friend who could give me repose; all have disturbed me, and, whether for pleasure or pain, it was still disturbance. But peace overflows from your heart into mine." I long to know that feeling not because we are perfect or complete when we are together but because we are passionate friends who long to see the other succeed proud to stand BY eachother. So I will wait armed with faith and with every part of my being open to the day you arrive come what may. ;-)