Swingers

 Like life, my notions of romantic locations became more sophisticated as I became wise to the world.  By the time I was five, for example, my grandfather became the manager for two theaters in Wichita Falls.  Downtown!  The Wichita and the State.  To go to an indoor theater had meant driving over to Archer City where the theater was small but tickets were cheap.  But now, my grandfather was in charge and not only did we get to go free, but I had permission to sit in the projectionist’s booth and watch movies from on high.  I thought then that watching a movie screen down that stream of light was the most romantic thing in the world.  And the Wichita and the State did have air conditioning.  As if that weren’t enough, I got free popcorn and cokes.  Could there ever have been a more privileged child?  I had everything but a tiara.  Wait, I think I did make myself a tiara out of foil once.

 My ideas of romance changed dramatically when my family moved from Texas to Alaska.  During those adolescent years, the night sky was replaced by the aurora borealis and the cherry crested colors that outlined the mountains beneath the setting sun.  Romance in those days was found in nature’s newfallen snow drifts, giant treetops laden with pinecones.  Mountains majesty and the honor of walking those woods was quixotic. 

 It wasn’t until I returned to the great southwest that romance took on human form.  Oh sure, there had  been boys and toys, and the British Envasion caused had some heart tremors.  But  palpitations at the sight of the cutest boy in school or a new trinket from a suitor now became the standard for romantic fantasy in my life.

 For years, I regarded romance as an outward experience.  Couples holding hands, Saturday night dates to the football game, elaborate wedding ceremonies…all those became tangled in my experience in a confused web of external criteria for dreamy eyed love. 

 In recent years I have gone full circle in my notions of romance.  It was on my last trip with my father that it became clear.  We took a father daughter trip to Ireland and as we walked along the riverside having what was to be one of our final daddy talks, I got it that romance isn’t reliant upon knights on white horses and external objects of affection.  It’s a knowing inside that the heart is a tender place where all things beautiful live.  It’s sharing a sky of pink poodle clouds with a father who will soon be living there.  It’s the peaceful feeling that comes from knowing that today I have seen the light of God shining in another person’s face.  Romance is in the bygone details of those warm summer nights in Texas when my big sister took me by the hand to the swing set and let me play as long as I wanted while my parents waited in the car.  My romantic spirit comes to life when I observe in nature the struggles of a weed growing through solid concrete and living to feel the sunshine.  And it is that same sunshine of the spirit that knows no bounds and transcends all obstacles and captures the romantic spirit of the human capacity for love