Life with Serendipity & Eternal Sunshine

For some unknown reason, these two have been my favorite films. Maybe its the idea of an unknown and non-designated journey of romance that gripped my heart like any romantic fools would (which I don't consider myself to be, sorry!). And at the same time wouldn't one like the option of simply getting rid of bad memories...just ask some heartbroken person and you get your answer!

Watching the film, Serendipity, has always always always moved me. Maybe, for a change, giving up controls of your life in the hands of destiny, fate, kismet (or whatever you would want to call it) and letting it ride you, is an exhilarating thought. A movie is, although, a controlled environment, where kismet cannot play havoc as it often does in real life. It can be a place where flowers bloom and never wither, a place where lover's meet but never part, where things go right irrelevant to the fact that you made a wrong turn.

But at the same time, a film can also be a place where it can be chaotic, raining shell-shocks rather than petals, with people parting ways without knowing the whys. Such a film, that gave me solace at one time, is the Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (ESSM). The film is based on the idea that the memories of a love turned sour can be erased allowing you to seek love anew and afresh. What an experiment on life...simply marvelous!

I find both these films opposite to each other and yet so similar. In Serendipity, one gives up controlling one's love-life....only to find it with its memories winding back to them. ESSM takes the cake with trying to do the opposite, to control and erase the memory and the experiment failing with re-uniting the lovers and they in turn take a chance on love...again!

I find Life to be an anti-thesis with intricate layers of decisions. Decisions that run the course of our life and yet we are led to believe that despite everything life is decided. In my years lived, I have been playing a constant tug-of-war (or tug-of-love, however you would like to see) with life with me trying to go the opposite at every turn of my life. One thing I have begun to understand is that life makes the allowances, which we believe to be our effort, to make our own path. Or maybe we are walking along with life to build the path for both of us to walk together. Neither of us know it just yet.

That Thing Called Love

What is Love?

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two." -St. Augustine, 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin'

Warm sunny afternoons and the lazy evenings. Lying side by side on the green grass or a muddy patch or in own homes, beautiful music floating your way, heard by none but you. A scenario right out of the heavens and acted by only ethereal beings. Beings who are in Love.

But before we meet 'the' right one, we always bump into a few wrong ones. They are the ones who trample upon your self esteem in the name of caring and a few who do not show enough caring in the name of giving you space. Then there are those who shatter your heart because they cannot handle it delicately and the ones who never understand and find you either too complicated or simply too boring. We have all been one of these characters at one point of our lives. Maybe with the same person or with various others. Both the tormented and the tormentor.

Making a few wrong choices along the way, however, gives you a new perspective for the right one. And let me add, a whole new level of respect for yourself. Not because you made the 'right' choice but because you had the courage to make 'another' choice everytime you met failure. Because failure isn't important, but the capacity to Love is more important than it. It takes a while before you recognise, accept and slug your life ahead. But when you are ready for the cupid to hit you again, flowers bloom, music flows and you are back floating on pink candy floss.

I have met one of those few rare gems who is a big part of my life and has made me a bigger part of his, not because but despite of me. There are times I love the insane cuddly reactions I receive and other times I am battling it to be more calmer. Love, goes all the way down leaving me warmed on cold winter hours and then goes up chilling me in my mind bringing me unattainable peace. It doesn't mind being lost with me when I need time out from reality and gladly holds my hand to lead when I feel lost. Its this warm fuzzy feeling that I am learning to live and to survive all at the same time. Being in this paradise, I have learnt that sometimes Love is tainted Red filled with infatuation and passion, and intimate moments. And at times it has a soft Pink hue of chocolates and candies, and simply holding hands. Love, my world, my rock.