October 29, 2000 ~ Not a Cinderella Story

Romance, to me, is not a sudden redemption from rags into riches. It is a turning of rags into riches. It is not the Cinderella story of living in misery until I find my Prince, who takes away every care and every financial worry. It is, instead, the ability to love despite the rags. To see the beauty in another person, just as poor as myself, and love him anyway, even though he can give me nothing.

We have only a dorm room, but we have turned it into a castle. In this little room is our life, and we are content to furnish it with love. We use a cheap, but beautiful tapestry to decorate a wall, a scarf to artfully hide a milk-crate bookshelf, and some scraps of pretty fabric to cover the scrapes in the paint of another bookshelf. Someone else's discarded popcorn tin is our garbage can, covered in a pretty gold star and moon pattern. Knick-knacks we have found here and there over the years hide the tops of plywood shelves. The curtains are two halves of a dark green bed sheet that someone else threw away. Pretty, colorful, glass bottles that we found in the recycling bin over the years sit in the windowsill and cast their colors across the desk in the evening, when the sunlight streams in the window. We have hundreds of books, most of which we obtained for little or nothing by taking books that other people threw away to the local used bookstore to trade in for credit. We have created riches from rags with our love.

Tonight, while Morgan was changing the laundry, I set up a little treat on the floor of our dorm room. I found the left over salsa we had used in burritos a week ago and poured a little bowl of it, setting it next to a bag of tortilla chips. I warmed up an old, leftover slice of soy-cheese pizza. I got out the peanut butter and some left over hummus, and made sandwiches. Morgan walked in and smiled, happy with the little feast I had prepared for him. After he was full, he leaned back and caught my eyes. "This is the most romantic thing you've done in a while," he said, "thank you!"

A treasure in some leftovers. It doesn't take much to keep love alive. Certainly not a Prince, a Palace, and riches!

previous / archive / next