Rendezvous a Paris...(Reminiscing on Melisey and Paris)

This afternoon I got lost in the nostalgia daydreaming about Melisey and Paris; the sights, the smells, the tastes, what i experienced and felt there...I firmly do believe that I left a piece of my heart in France.  Set to the backdrop of my Rendezvous A Paris cd from Starbucks, I began to read through the poetry and musings that my experiences and self reflection while in Paris/Melisey inspired.  And so I share with you know what my rendezvous a Paris et a Melisey inspired:

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Everyday I think of you

I hear your voice in every murmur in the wind

Your face appears before me in a stranger's smile

Your scent penetrates me even in your absence

Everywhere I go I feel your presence

your touch haunts me in dreams

I constantly long to be held in your embrace

to feel the grazing of your lips against my skin...

I fantasize every scenario I can place you in

where this ambiguity can find resolve-

When in travels I find myself wishing you were with me,

and I often mention what I see you'd enjoy

I keep seeking for your essence in everything that surrounds me--

I find it in the slightest resembling to someone else

I feel it in the warmth of a French sun's rays

I sense you in the velvety taste of my Bourgogne Pinot Noir

And I feel you in the steady rhythm of a southern France river

Then I think of you again,

I let myself go deep in thought

I let the images of your face carry me away

I take the liberty to indulge in the memories and nostalgia

I wander through the many unanswered questions

through the labyrinth of almosts and nearlys

I masochistically immerse myself in our lack of definition

and I soak in the unknowing of your feelings

The next day comes and I think of you again,

wondering, longing, seeking,yearning...

Living in a perpetual daze like state....

by, Nahyr Bracamontes

Little Blue Dress

The hours pour away

minute by minute they transgress

And here I sit dwelling on what could've been

regretting what never was

mocked by that little blue dress

There it hangs with illicit regality

defiant to the cruel turns of fate

It stubbornly insists to be worn

wanting to parade its elegance

and be gazed in the arms of its date

Remnants of a girlish daydream over come me

longing for what you clearly cannot provide

I cling foolishly to our stagnant ambiguity

seeking meaning in every last glance,

wanting for a slip in which you inadvertently confide

There it hangs with illicit regality

Defiant to the cruel turns of fate

It stubbornly insists to be worn

wanting to parade its elegance

and be gazed in the arms of its date

Now here I lay

mocked relentlessly by that blue dress

staring into nothing, drowning in melancholy

for how do I miss what I've never had

Feeling such emotional distress

mocked by that little blue dress.

by, Nahyr Bracamontes

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Part of me carries bits and pieces of you

My smile carries within your devious stare

my laugh holds the dimples on your right cheek

My skin retains your caress

my mouth preserves the taste of your breath as you held me that torturous night...

My fingers cling to the feel of your silky hair tangled between them

Every gesture I make mirrors a reference to you

Part of me hold ons to a part of you

you are a part of me

and I want to be a part of you.

My writing echoes your words

my choreography strokes brushes of your essence on the dance floor

My nose indulges in the remnants of your intoxicating scent

My body remembers the feeling of molding to your shape

My arms reminisce in the sense of your fingers grazing them delicately

My eyes twinkle with the fantoms of every quip, witty banter, and retort exchanged

Then they evolve to a seductive dreamy look as they recollect every last tease

My mouth preserves the taste of your breath as you held me that torturous night

My legs tremble at the memory of yours between them, interlaced timidly and tenderly

My heart beats profoundly at the repetition from the rhythmic melody left behind by yours

Part of me holds on to part of you

you are part of me

and I long to be a part of you.

by, Nahyr Bracamontes

So that's a taste of the inspirations that overtook me in Melisey and Paris...

Paris Je T'aime.

"Dime que No" Ricardo Arjona's Ode to the Chase

While listening to Arjona's popular tribute to the art and thrill of the pursuit of impossible love, I found myself musing about the concept of playing hard to get and unrequited love.  While to most they must seem very different platforms of falling in love, I feel that they share a common denominator: the thrill of the chase.  Arjona sings, "Dime que no, me tendras pensando todo el dia en ti; planeando la estrategia para un si...Dime que no lanzame un 'si' camoflajeado, clavame una duda y me quedara a tu lado." (Say no, you'll have me thinking about you night and day; devising a strategy to obtain a 'yes'...Say no, send me a camouflaged 'yes' stab me with doubt, plant a seed of maybe, and I'll stay at your side).  The most truthful words a poet has ever written about Love I think, however, I don't think this phenomenon is exclusive to the male gender.  I feel that often women find themselves living with unrequited Love; yet they stay very much in Love.  Why is that? (Asks the rest of the sane world)  Why love someone who doesn't love you in return? It seems rather foolish, doesn't it?

However, there's a perfectly logical explanation, and that is that unrequited Love has a certain glamorous romance; it's the thrill of the chase...It's the proverbial impossible Love; it's what inspires the most beautiful music, poetry, literature, movies---it's what fuels the greatest Love stories of all time.  The forsaken lover doesn't ever focus on the fact that they are not loved in return, they are focused solely on the little hints of doubt they can interpret freely (though perhaps not logically) as the possibility that their beloved loves them in return.  For the same reason, the more you "play hard to get," the more you say no, the less the person smitten or in love with you seems to go away.

It seems to me that Love is a very tricky, very shady feeling, and yet almost against all odds we trust this feeling blindly...

I think Arjona says it best "si se me pone facil, el amor se hace fragil y uno para de sonar" (if it becomes easy, the love turns fragil and one stops dreaming...)...And it made me realize that even on my personal level, I have been inspired to write a few lines on the matter, and so I share them with you here....:

Esta pluma derrama una tinta agridulce sobre estas paginas
De vez en cuando esa tinta escribe sobre la reconciliacion y el olvidar
y de vez en cuando escribe de sentimientos que no entienden razon
la pluma vuelve a visitar momentos perdidos...

Momentos en los cuales crei que me amabas
Unas lineas despues esa pluma escribe sobre la resignacion
la resignacion a que nunca hubo nada del cual escribir...
Nunca podre escribir sobbre estas paginas con certeza sobre lo que tu pudiste sentir por mi
Esta plluma escribira en vez sobre miradas coquetas, sonrisas traviesas, caricias sugestivas,
momentos extraviados en una amistad ambigua....
deseas nunca expresados, pensamientos apuntados en un jornado sonador
sentimientos gravados en una historia bella en la cual los protagonistas tuvieron un fin inesperado...

Esta pluma lo confirmira--
en estas paginas esta pluma derramara nuestra historia
Agridulce, incompleta, y celestial.

INB 3/29/10

Translation:
This pen will secrete a bittersweet ink on these pages...
Once in a while this ink will write about reconcilation and forgetting
And once in a while it writes about feelings that lack reason

The pen continues to revisit lost moments
moments in which I swore you loved me
Several lines later this pen writes of resignation-
resignation to what never was mine,
what never existed to write of...

I will never write on these pages
with any certainty of what you could have felt for me...

This pen will spill on these pages recollections of flirtatious glances, mischievous smiles, suggestive caresses
moments muddled in an addictively ambiguous friendship,
a longing never expressed,
thoughts detailed on a dreamer's journal,
 emotions recorded in a beautiful story in which its protagonists met an unexpected end.

This pen will confirm-
on these pages this pen will write of our story;
Bittersweet, incomplete and heavenly.

INB 3/29/10

"Bubbly"...Is it Love or simply a release of chemicals in your brain?

"It starts in my toes and I crinkle my nose..." is such a sweet and dare I say accurate description of the feeling of falling in love.  Psychologists and scientists will argue that this reaction is triggered by a set of chemicals released into your brain.  Among them is Biological Anthropologist and renowned authority on "romantic love rejuvenation," Dr. Helen Fisher, who describes this feeling in her book Why We Love as the simple release of increased levels of norepinephrine and dopamine while simultaneously the levels of serotonin are decreased in your brain.  According to Fisher, the presence of these chemicals is the reason we fall in love and the reason we make certain choices while in love; choices that we would most likely not make otherwise.  However, what is the trigger that causes the release of these chemicals, I wonder?

Dr. Fisher fails to address a precise trigger, she vaguely references thoughts of the loved one or visual stimuli, however, I personally am inclined to postulate that the feelings themselves trigger the chemical release.  Thus, we find ourselves in the proverbial chicken or egg conundrum.  However, I strongly advocate that we feel in love before norepinephrine and dopamine in our brain increase and serotonin decreases.  I believe it is the feeling of falling in love that increases these levels in your brain but not vice versa. While it is true and scientifically confirmed that the very first stages of love involve the release of norepinephrine, dopamine select areas of the brain, I disagree that these chemicals cause one to fall in love.  For Fisher however, “romantic love is a universal human feeling, produced by specific chemicals and networks in the brain.” (Why We Love)  Fisher goes on to say that elevated levels of dopamine in the brain are the reason we love so deeply because they are “associated with learning about novel stimuli” and produce “extremely focused attention and unwavering motivation and goal directed behaviors,” which she considers to be the basic characteristics of romantic love.  I might be mistaken, however, by this logic Dr. Fisher has reduced the process of falling and being in love to beloved Finding Nemo character, Dori’s, “something shiny” distractions wherein the new shiny object becomes the extremely focused learning for the duration of its novelty.  If this were true, wouldn’t we fall in and out of love rather effortlessly?  Wouldn’t our beloved cease to be the center of our attention as the new shiny and novel object of our devotion comes along? 

According to Dr. Fisher the other chemical crucial to feelings of romantic love is norepinephrine that causes what she refers to as “lover’s high.” Lover’s High, as Dr. Fisher describes it, is the effect on varied areas of the brain which generally cause exhilaration, excessive energy, sleeplessness, and loss of appetite- all of which Dr. Fisher considers to be further characteristics of romantic love.  However, by her own reasoning what comes after these “symptoms” is no longer romantic love.  I refuse to believe only the preliminary stages of falling in love constitute romantic love.  In my humble opinion, falling in love and being in love are two different processes.  Furthermore, the more complex and in depth later phases of romantic love; where the relationship begins to form into a more solid entity, involve conscious effort, choices, and actions beyond any involuntary chemical releases and network patterns in the brain.

In this respect I agree fully with Bell Hooks as she depicts romantic love in her book, Bell Hooks On Love, as taking a flight of stairs upon which you reach a flat platform connecting you to the next set of stairs and consciously decide to keep climbing rather than turning back.  But that’s a topic for a different day.  For now, I would venture to say that I agree that the “Bubbly” feeling of falling in love, the feeling that “starts in (our) toes” as Ms. Caillat sings, is most likely the elevated release of norepinephrine and dopamine in select areas of our brain as a response to our falling in love.  However, in my experience, the romantic love I have experienced and felt in its entirety (falling and being) is far more complex and wonderfully imperfect…