There are so many love stories that have made me want to write. Stories that showed me the beauty of the written word. Stories that left me in awe...heartbroken...in love...and everything in between. Books that I love and cherished so much I can remember everything about them down to when and where I purchased them.
I can still vividly recall strolling on a Saturday afternoon through Hell's Kitchen in New York as a teenager with my boyfriend. We came upon a flea market. It was stocked with a million and one random things, some treasures, some junk, and among them I found a stand of used books. There I purchased for $2, a 1931 a hardcover translation of the play Cyrano De Bergerac By Edmond Rostand. It was illustrated and had a periwinkle blue cover with a brown leather spine It was old, fragile and perfect.
I can still remember reading it for the first time. How my heart broke so completely for Cyrano as Roxane stood before him and professed her love for another. My innocent heart, still believed that love was magical and enough to conquer all things. How could she not see how much he loved her? How I wished I could change it and make Cyrano profess his love and win her heart from Christian.
"She goes out. Cyrano remains motionless, his eyes on the ground. Silence."
-Cyrano De Bergerac, Edmond Rostand
But like all great tragic romances it was not to be. I tell you that I rewrote that story a thousand times in my mind even though I knew deep down I would never change a word. It is within his heartrending unrequited love that the beauty and sorrow of the human experience revealed itself.
As I've said before my dear Constant Reader, at a certain point in my life I couldn't get enough of tragic romances. But as young love faded into the haze of memories, my tastes changed and I searched for a new type of romance to reveal in. And eventually to want to create stories of my own.
But through it all, Cyrano stayed with me. Made me want to give the all the underdogs of the world their Roxane's to love and to be loved by them in return. It made me want to create stories that moved people in the same way, and make them believe in the magic of love all over again.
-Vita
No comments:
Post a Comment