“Beauty awakens the soul to act.” ~Dante Alighieri
What is beauty?
Is it the absence of the hideous and grotesque?
The conundrum with that definition is that what is perceived as beastly to one may be considered lovely to another.
Thus, making the concepts of beauty and the unattractive subjective rather than definitive.
Which begs the question again: What is beauty?
Is beauty the perfect pain?
The immaculate ache in our hearts that defines true love. The sorrow in our shadows that looms like a cloud. Yet, even the rain is beautiful in the absence of the sun.
The perfect storm of our emotions when the cool air collides with a warm breeze.
In that regard, pain can save us.
It will cleanse us of what we know to prepare us for what we need.
Love.
Love is an ache of a different sort, for in it we ache for more of it. Akin to tasting raindrops on our lips in the desert.
Parched, we realize we need more. We want more. We crave more.
We long for that next drop.
We wait for it—eyes wide shut—heads tilted to the sky waiting patiently for another kiss from heaven.
It comes crashing down, but it misses us, and we step forward in anticipation of the next kiss, the next caress, the next blessing. The more we move forward, the more distance we create between our past and our future.
We pursue the taste of bliss without looking forward and without looking back.
Before we know it, we have ventured miles into the unknown savoring every moment of the now for that beautiful feeling we experience.
The more we have of it, the more we crave it, until it becomes all we know and all we love. Then we realize we have been lured out of the desert by chasing a storm.
That storm is passion.
That storm is raging.
The storm is perfect.
The warm breeze of our breath collides with the cool scent of the rain and brings us comfort. Suddenly, we find ourselves enveloped in the eye of the storm. The madness that surrounds us is everything that entails love.
A new storm of emotions.
One that is both terrifying and comforting all at once.
As with love, no two storms are ever the same.
From a distance, they may resemble each other, but up close and personal each experience is unique. Each relationship is its own storm.
Seek it.
Find it.
Live it.
In a world where nothing is guaranteed, I can promise you this: She is beautiful. She is passionate. She is not the storm you run from, but rather she is the storm you chase after.
She is the one whose essence inspires you to act.
Felix Alexander Writer 