January 05, 2009

something there that wasn't there before

I still remember the first time I saw Beauty and the Beast. It was movie night with my family; I was young and happily tomboyish. We watched it on the VCR (completely ancient now) and that was when I realized that despite my tomboyish attitude I was a romantic.

I reacted awed at Belle, wanting to have my own adventure too; equally disgusted with Gaston, and his drunkard minion. And then there was the Beast. The Beast was one part daunting and another part amazing. Daunting in the sense that he was a beast, easily could maul you apart, amazing in the part that he was human underneath all the fur.

What made me discover my being a romantic was not their love triangle. It certainly wasn't the part where Gaston proposed to, well, himself. Nor was it the part when Beast gets rid of Gaston once and for all. I cheered at that part though. But it was the part when Beast surprised Belle with a library. (A library, you say?)

Yes, a library. What's so romantic about books? It wasn't about the books. When Beast gave Belle a library it was like giving Belle love. Belle loved books. Her love for books was greater than the ridicule she faced daily from the villagers who thought she was different from them. Beast gave her the library because it would make Belle happy. I think loving is like that. It's giving or doing something for a person knowing that he or she would be happy about it, or that that person would love it. I'm not saying that we should go and give the people we love a library (thank you, though, if you give me one) but we should desire to make that person happy. Just go and love the person.

I'm equating the act of Beast giving Belle a library with love. Ridiculous? Maybe. But I'm a romantic remember? So in the meantime, while I sit here and listen to the soundtrack, I'll wait for my own library.

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