One of the
best ways to get in touch with your inner Paris is to fall in love--or even better,
to experience the particularly exquisite pain of encountering an old flame, the
kind of pain that inspired the words, “We’ll always have Paris.”
According to
Psychology Today, 62% of us would
consider getting back together with a former flame, and an unknown percentage
of us take it a bit further and walk into every airport consciously hoping to find
him (or her) standing at the baggage claim.
It’s an
interesting fact of life to know that most people--many of them married, we
must assume--are going through their lives, not just fondly remembering a
former love but willing to consider getting back together with him/her.
Casablanca is a classic because it
captures the most romantic scenario of all—two lovers’ chance encounter halfway
around the world. “Of all the gin
joints in all the world, she has to walk into mine.” The idea is that nothing can keep the lovers apart; neither
time nor distance, eventually, they will find each other. It’s a deeply held belief by the most
romantic of us, that we’ll see him again . . . somewhere. (And hopefully that somewhere is not on
an early Sunday morning run to the grocery store for bread and milk.)
Amazingly,
the grocery store is precisely the setting for Dan Fogelberg’s Same Auld Lang Syne. My sister, who is perhaps the most
sentimental human being on the planet, tells me she has to turn off the radio
when that song is played because it never fails to bring her to tears. And she says it’s not that she’s
remembering an old lover; it’s just that the exquisite pain of the situation so
touches her. So for some of us,
even if we don’t have an old flame, the idea of someone, anyone, reuniting with
an old flame is powerfully romantic and compelling.
A less
well-known film that explores this theme is Babette’s
Feast, a Danish film released in 1987. In both Babette’s
Feast and Casablanca, love was
sacrificed for a higher purpose; righteousness was chosen over bliss. And naturally, the characters have
doubts about their choices. But it
is Babette, the exiled head chef of Paris’ renowned Café Anglais, who has the
ability to turn dinner (life?) into a kind of love affair that makes no distinction
between the bodily appetite and the spiritual appetite. Leave it to a Parisienne . . .
So, let’s
lift our glasses to Babette, and remember our old flames—not with regret for
our choices—but with an appreciation for life’s most exquisite pain.
For Barbara Barney--one of Dallas' most romantic women.
