The most important of all though is the theme which is romance and passion. In every movie there is a pretty heroine-usually blond, and a handsome clean cut hero with dazzling white teeth. Sometimes the girl is an ambitious boss and the man is a lowly clerk. Sometimes the man is rich and the girl is a single mom struggling to survive. The best movies have royals. Either there is a prince from Duldavia who falls in love with a common girl from Idaho, or there is a princess from Andovia who falls in love with the local handyman. The movies always have happy endings with romance and passion and we are happy because this is what we all want.
There are other kinds of passion of course besides romantic love and parenthood is one of them. This passion is intense and time consuming. The first ten years of my life as a mother was like this,but when the children reached young adulthood it was time for me to step back and find something else to be passionate about. I remember thinking of picking up bird watching, butterfly collecting or stamp collecting. None of these "grabbed" me.
At this point I discovered Art. Art is a hard master and can even kill you but it is a passion that can be sustained for years. My home is filled with the results of this passion.
Another passion is reading which has been my passion for years. I was considered a bookworm by my long suffering Mom. She believed books were fantasy- lies and of course, being mom she was right for my favourite reading materials were romance and adventure novels. I loved Jane Austin, all the Bronte novels, all adventures written for boys and girl and science fiction.
However lately -probably because I am sated with Netflix and Romantic movies, I seem to have lost my passion. I read, listlessly, several books at a time without finishing any of them-including the one from my book club. My paint brushes have been soaking for days, the paints drying and the canvases dulling. Worst of all when I turn on the television I find myself doing what men do-flicking from station to station and rejecting most of the movies on Netflex. I had become listless and and without passion. But no more!
Last week, we were Christmas shopping in the Bolen Book store when my daughter mentioned she had been in the Science Fiction section and was tempted to buy a Ursala Quinn novel one of my favourite science fiction authors."O yes!" do!" I said." OH! also what about Anne McCaffrey! remember Dragon flight?" and suddenly desire overwhelmed me. The dragon series by Anne McCaffery were a favourite and I had to have one right now. I rushed to buy one.
Passion was back . O the delight of not being able to wait til one gets home to open the desired book.
What fun to delve deeply into high adventure again instead of crawling painfully through the serious modern books dealing with momentous issues and thoughtful analysis or the painfully tragic novels that I had recently been reading. Here I was as I had been years ago as a young woman when I last read her series, flying through the sky perched on the golden dragon queen, soaring up into the distant stratosphere and plunging recklessly down to earth on the lovely planet of Pern trying to save it from disaster. I was not alone I was with all the other handsome male riders on their bronze, brown, green and blue dragons throwing flames at the enemy. I gobbled the book up in a few hours and found myself driving to the shop to buy the next one. I am in luck. She has written at least twenty in the Pern series. This will carry me through the trying festive season. Passion in my life has been restored.
Take my advice dear readers and search for your passion -don't let the mundane and serious take over your life. Look for your passion where-ever it resides even if it is in a rather fantasy place like mine perched on a dragon fighting enemies. It does not matter the form it takes. Just find it and wallow in it and enjoy Christmas.
