Romanticism

I am a romantic.  I have been for this entire lifetime, and I suspect for many lifetimes before this one.  No matter what other way I might define myself, that is a truth that colors all others.  I sometimes feel as though I should be embarrassed about this part of my nature.  We live in a cynical world.  It is not considered sophisticated or even intelligent to be romantic.  Somehow intellect and romanticism are considered to be mutually exclusive.  But I am an intelligent, rational, logical person.  My brain works just fine.  My brain does not get to overrule my heart, as much as it may seem safer to hide my heart from ridicule, my soul chooses to embrace my heart’s desires and to believe in the magick that is love. 

I have, at times, embraced the cynical, cold, hard-hearted logic the world esteems so highly.  I have, at times, clutched tightly to my intellect like a shield against the disappointment and heartbreak that comes from believing.  But, as much as I enjoy the flights of my intellect, it seems to me that my imagination has always been the source of life, of joy, of magick.  I think of my imagination as the creative expression of my heart, as the voice of my romantic self.  Intellect without imagination seems dead to me, or at best, only a half-life. 

My soul is the part of me that mediates between my mind and my heart.  And when my mind wants to be a bully and insist on safety and cynicism, or my heart becomes afraid that what it hopes will never come to pass, my soul chooses to be courageous and to insist upon believing in the dream.  My soul is a romantic.  So is my body.  My body responds to that which moves my heart and my soul. 

I find my body wanting physical intimacy, sexual intimacy but also the physical intimacy of touching, of skin against skin, of lying beside someone and feeling them breathe, of sleeping beside another body, of conversation and laughter and shared food, of simple companionship, and sharing energy.  This too is an expression of my romanticism.