"Enchantment is a mutually chosen state...

...that is to be nurtured and cherished..a spell cast upon each other by consent and desire...a gift not lightly given...a gift not wisely tossed away."

I will not go into details about how this quote came about. But this was said to me once by a gentleman during the course of my conversation with him.

Have you ever had someone say something to you at one time in your life that has stayed with you for as long as you could remember? Maybe it even haunts you a bit? I wouldn't go as far as to say that what he had said haunts me, but I do think about it every so often.


I do like this quote a great deal. At the end of the day enchantment is a mutually chosen state...by the parties involved. But what happens when one party chooses to withdraw from this state? Does that mean he/she is tossing it away? Or perserving it by leaving it in tact, thus always holding a perfect image of that state?

Sometimes in life we are faced to make decisions that are not always the easiest, but I'm a firm believer that people make the best decisions possible with the resources that they have for the time that they're given. No one deliberately makes a decision that they feel is bad, that would be silly. A person other than the one making the decision may think it's foolish, but not the persong making it.

I will also agree that if the parties involved were to decide to stay the course that the state would need to be cherished and nurtured, otherwise, like a flame on a candle....it burns out. My parents use to always say that the things worth having in life are worth waiting and working for. I truly believe in this. All a person can do in life is be open to the possibilities of what is to come. Sometimes the person may be pleasantly surprised. As I often am in my life. I feel that the more the person opens her/himself up to the possibilities, the more he/she will attract.

I'm a romantic and I often hold the notion that if a relationship isn't pursued, then one is perserving it. Now granted, I believe this only hold true if the relationship did not have anything horrendeously bad happen during the course of its life. Enchantment is a mutually chosen state, however if one party were to cheat, steal, lie or...commit some heinous acts against humanity then it goes without saying that the mutually chosen state of enchantment will no longer be so! Duh?!

Two of my favorite novels of all time are "Cyrano de Bergerac" by Edmond Rostand and "Lady Of The Camellias" by Alexandre Dumas,fils. In both of these stories, the reader can see how profoundly connected two people can be without really professing their love for each other directly. For those who aren't familiar with the premise of either story, the best description I can give is that both are about love. Or rather...unconditional love. Maybe loving someone unconditionally? You read it and tell me what you think! ;-)

Even though Cyrano writes poetry and love letters to Roxane, it isn't he who would deliver those words to her. Because he knew that she has given her heart to Christian, and in loving Roxane, Cyrano wanted to see her happy. Even if it's not with him. So Cyrano continues to write her letters but gives them to Christian so that Christian can go woe her and make her happy. I remember having read this novel for the first time when I was a sophomore in high school and immediately fell in love with it. There were some things that I had missed, but later caught when I came back to read it again. But the message came across very clear for me the first time I had read it. And that is when you love someone, you want them to be happy..not only that, but to love someone unconditionally means that their happiness and what is best for them comes above yours, even if that happiness does not include you. THAT, I believe, is the essence of unconditional love. The funny, maybe even tragic, thing about it is that many people will go through life never having experienced that. I'm old enough to know the difference between conditional and unconditional love, but young enough to admit that I don't know enough.

I think another reason why I like Cyrano was that it reminded me of "Lady of the Camellias". I had read "Lady Of The Camellias" a year before having read "Cyrano", the funny thing was that the "Lady Of The Camellias" was not required reading for class. I was familiar with the "Lady Of The Camellias", because growing up my parents would talk about literature and history a great deal and Dumas was one that they often talk about. I don't think they know to what extent I was really listening and retaining the things that I did. But anyway, when I saw the book in the library (because of the elegant portrait of a lady on the cover :::Chuckles::: yes SUCH a girl!), the synposis reminded me of the story that my mom had told me when I was a girl and so I checked the book out and read it. I was 13 at the time. Probably shouldn't have been reading it. So sue me!

"Lady Of The Camellias" is a bit more complicated than "Cyrano", but the underlying message is still the same I believe. If you don't have time to read the novels, the movie versions I recommend has Greta Garbo playing Marguerite, and Gerard Depardieu playing Cyrano.

I believe that in both novels, Cyrano and Marquerite had perserved the state of enchantment by forever creating a perfect image of who they are and what they stand for in the other person's mind.

I should also mentioned that both novels were based on true stories. Also, there's a camellias bush that's been outside my bedroom window ever since I could remember. I didn't know what it was intil my parents told me. Synchronicity!?

There's a modern version of "Lady Of The Camellias" starring Nicole Kidman called Moulin Rouge. Moulin Rouge, is a very good movie, but it had cut a bit of the original story and added a few new subplots- but still very good. Maybe it's all the dancing, and singing and beautiful costumes...maybe it was Nicole's enchanting beauty... or maybe it's just that love is a universial language regardless of how it's conveyed that won me over...