Don and I used to talk, endlessly, about how a relationship that's right will bring out the best in the two people involved in that relationship. You know how that goes. How many times have you witnessed two lovely people who are, if not ruined, then in many ways neither helped by the very fact of their partnership? If I had a dollar for every friend I have had who thought s/he had met the perfect person, the ideal partner, only to find that when s/he was with that perfect person tempers flared, decisions were waylaid, and, for whatever reasons, happiness was always deferred, I would be a wealthy woman...gliding across the Aegean Sea, for example, and not sitting here writing this blog entry. (Not that there's anything wrong with that...)
For the last several weeks I have had my eye on Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell, and it seems fairly obvious to me that the two of them are somewhere between dating and fantasizing about living together. Had you asked me two years ago what I thought of this configuration I would have laughed out loud, and probably a little sneeringly. But as the weeks go by this season I cannot help but look at Paula and Simon and admire the differences between those past seasons and this.
Paula, for starters, seems sober. I don't mean to cast aspersions, either. I have no idea if she has ever been plagued by alcohol or by prescription medication, but I do know (and I had a wonderful but vulnerable mother to thank for this) that in the past Paula has been caught slurringly red-handed. I also know that I have spent far too many moments commenting on Simon's belaboured nastiness to now ignore what seems to be a more fleeting petulance and a grinning boyishness that often takes me by delighted surprise. After all, who of us doesn't wish for any one of us to be happy?
In short, I think -- in truth, I hope -- that they are dating. For whatever reasons -- his British patriarchy? her girlish tenderness? -- they seem to be making one another happy this year. She is more articulate and sweeter; he seems incapable of long-lasting diatribes, instead grinning over at her like a boyish Cheshire cat. I am almost embarrassed to say how endearing I find them together.
Life is so short. Love can be so fleeting. And seldom do two people -- individuals who seem to need desperate help to right themselves -- find this kind of solace in like-minded partners -- in people who help them laugh away their days together; with partners who huddle under pre-dawn covers and giggle; with sweethearts who whisper tender secrets, and promise to love one another forever.
Call me a sucker for love. Call me a fool. (Call me a Billy Joel song.) But I once loved a man who has died, and I have known -- I still know -- what it means to have spent a lifetime with someone who brought out the best in me. (If that sounds vain, you ought to have seen me before.) And I think any one of us would be ridiculous to make an assertion against love in its highest configuration. This is why we can look at two people we do not know -- two judges of a talent show, for example -- and wish the very best for them. Who are we to decide what should or should not be, especially when what we see tells us a brighter, sweeter story?
First comes love...
<:^)
