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| WELL, I WOULDN'T GO THAT FAR...BUT I CAN FANTASIZE CAN'T I? |
Okay everybody...It's SPRING! And you know what happens in spring, right?
In spring a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love!
And don't discount old guys like me. Let's be honest...We may be too old to pop, but we have long memories when it comes to an inbred ability to fantasize about the fairer sex.
In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast
In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest
In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove
In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
The poem concludes with what is one of the best known lines in English poetry. However, it wasn't the whimsical accolade to young love as might be imagined. The protagonist muses on unrequited love in a somewhat bitter mood. Tennyson described the poem as showing "young life, its good side, its deficiencies, and its yearnings".
By the word 'fancy' Tennyson meant 'imagination; a mental image'. To take a fancy to is to be attracted to and imagine (fancy) oneself together with the object of one's affection. This expression was well known from the 16th century onward. It is first found in the 1541 Acts of Parliament of Henry VIII:
"In case it fortune... the king... should take a fancie to anie woman."
With all of this as preamble, I was thinking earlier today about the handful (no pun intended) of girl friends I had over brief periods of time in my formative and adolescent late teens period, before marrying at 22 years of age. There was Claudette, Sylvia, Marjorie and Pat -- all a little different personality-wise, but all beautiful in their own special ways. In retrospect, I did not deserve them, maybe even going so far as to unintentionally taking them for granted.
Breakups were mutual for the most part, but there were inevitable unanswered questions and lingering, suppressed heartbreak on both sides too. That's kind of the way life goes, isn't it. Sometimes it is almost unfair. To this day I struggle with the impulse to tell those wonderful women (several now deceased) how much I respect them and the fond memories I have of the lazy, hazy days when we shared each other's company.
Sadly, in a way, you just do not do things like that, however. You let bygones be bygones.
In truth, no matter how strongly I felt, I cannot remember ever telling any of those girls that I loved them and I cannot remember any of them expressing such emotions for me. Maybe we were guardedly cautious, inexperienced as we were in expressing hormonally-induced feelings. We were just very good friends with a going-steady understanding in several cases. Having sex never entered the equation, but there was ample cuddling, hand holding and whispered sweet nothings of an innocent nature. We went to movies, dances, ice skating in winter and the beach in summer. We haunted restaurants and spent a lot of time sitting on parental sofas pretending to watch television.
Thinking back on those relationships now, it would have been so easy (perhaps even natural) for me to speak of love for effect; but again you just did not go to that length in those days -- unless you were genuinely ready to make a commitment from the heart, and you were convinced you had sown sufficient proverbial wild oats.
In retrospect, I came to realize that there is nothing more hurtful than unrequited love and it is not to be taken lightly. Love should not hurt but it so often does in real life. Love is to be shared -- equally. We learn as we mature, and we are better for those precious boy-girl relationships we had when we were so emotionally vulnerable.
We learn to openly express love, even in retrospect and 65 years or so after the fact.
It is safe for me to say now, at my advanced age, that I hold nothing but love in my heart for all the girls who at one time came in and out of my door and, since I'm in a nostalgic springtime mood, I harken to one of my favorite songs made famous in particular by Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson.
💞 To all the girls I've loved before
Who travelled in and out my doorI'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the girls I've loved before
To all the girls I once caressed
And may I say I've held the best
For helping me to grow
I owe a lot I know
To all the girls I've loved before
The winds of change are always blowing
And every time I try to stay
The winds of change continue blowing
And they just carry me away
To all the girls who shared my life
Who now are someone else's wives
I'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the girls I've loved before
To all the girls who cared for me
Who filled my nights with ecstasy
They live within my heart
I'll always be a part
Of all the girls I've loved before
I could not have said it better myself guys.
~~with special acknowledgement to Hal David for writing the words.
~~with special acknowledgement to Hal David for writing the words.
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