Secretly Listening for Hoof Beats

The writer of Ecclesiastes, who was obviously the first hipster, claimed that there is "nothing new under the sun."  He knew everything about everything waaay before you, so just don't even try to say that you have had an original thought.  Now I'm not dissing Solomon or whoever wrote the book because I actually really like it.  "All is vanity and a striving after wind." The angst-ridden teenage version of me found great solace in knowing that I was totally right about the futility of life.  Ecclesiastes makes Wuthering Heights look like Pollyanna, and Wuthering Heights is my all-time favorite book of bleakness even if it does require its own dictionary in the back to decipher odd words and phrases.

Just as I do now, I did a lot of reading in those teenage years and when I wasn't reading the classics, I liked to allow my brain to wallow in the smut known as Harlequin Romances.  If Solomon was around he would tell you that "Fifty Shades of Grey" is just recycled Harlequins except that like Wuthering Heights, you kind of needed a dictionary to figure out what was going on in a Harlequin. The 1970s may have been the age of "sexual enlightenment" but the blue-haired women cranking out Harlequin Romances were still speaking in such convoluted code that the sex scenes could have easily been mistaken for a passage from the Farmer's Almanac.            

Rolf remained seated, the dawning of a twinkle in his eyes. "Our marriage is a mockery only because you have made it so, cherie. Yet I am not despondent. I see before me a woman slowly emerging from a cocoon of ice."
Then swiftly he moved to stand beside her, holding her chin and tilting her head to study her furious profile.
"There is hope for us yet," he breathed. "You are angry, you are disheveled, you smell ever so slightly of goat--yet never have I seen you looking more beautiful, more desirable, more warmly human!" (MARRIAGE BY CAPTURE, Margaret Rome)

I am giving credit here, because #1 plagiarism is a bad thing and #2, I wouldn't want you to think I made this up.

If you will notice, the couple in the above excerpt was man and wife.  It didn't take long for my BFF, Susan and I to figure out which books to steal from her mom. The books about single girls were only about the chase and if we wanted to read about any real action the couple would need to be married—but not just any kind of married.  These naïve young women would either accidentally get married because they didn't speak the language or would be forced to marry some ruthless dude to save the family farm/fortune/name.  Frequently our heroine would "step under a bus" (British phrase) and require extensive plastic surgery that would transform her into a beautiful fragile flower with retrograde amnesia.  I mean, who wouldn't want to marry Memory Loss Barbie?

Usually the male in the story would portray himself as a penniless cowboy/gypsy/pirate/oil-rig worker when in reality he owned a ranch/island/fleet/oil company.  He was always lifting a quizzical brow and flashing a sardonic look at the head-tossing woman whose absolute fury at him only made her more desirable.  

In THE BARTERED BRIDE, Marielle accidentally marries the tall, dark, brooding Rom Boro, king of the gypsies, completely clueless that he actually owns half the western hemisphere. I won't go into great detail because I don't want to spoil it for you, but a chicken had to die to protect her virtue and ultimately save her from certain death at the hand of the other gypsies who had nothing better to do than to kill people and/or plan big fat weddings.

If I have screwed up ideas about relationships—and mine generally have the shelf life of a gallon of milk—it’s because I was warped at an early age.  I want you to know that my father tried to undo the spell that Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights and all those Harlequin guys had me under.
Somewhere in my pre-driver's license teens my dad made me go pick beans in the garden with him so that we could have this little awkward heart to heart conversation:

(Dad)  "You know he's not coming for you, right?"
(Me) "Who?"  Jesus? Men in white coats?  Aliens?  Someone to rescue me from picking beans?
(Dad) "The guy on the white horse...in those books I've seen you reading.  Life isn't really  like that.  Love isn't really like that.  You understand that?"
(Me) "Pfffssshish, of course Daddy." (Lots of eye-rolling here)  Maybe a hot guy in a muscle car though...love schmuv…
(Dad) “Okay.  Just checking…and remember that there is no ‘happily ever after.’  Happiness is found along the way…a choice you make daily.  And no one else can make you happy. That’s up to you.”
(Me) “I know,” I said nodding my head.  But secretly I was listening for hoof beats…
   
Everybody wants someone to hold their hand when they are happy; their heart when they are sad; and their hair when they are throwing up.  It’s been that way since the beginning of time…since Adam first looked at Eve and said. “Wow! God, hook a brother up!”  So, I guess the writer of Ecclesiastes was right when he said that there was nothing new. But maybe—just maybe he was wrong in saying that it’s all in vain.  Maybe my dad was right about making a day to day decision to be happy and about not confusing romance with love.  And maybe it’s just the romantic in me, but it seems like if you can string enough of those day-to-day happys together that eventually it would all add up to ever after…