Valentine's Day Feature: Love Takes Flight

Volume 4, Issue No. 46

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail.com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . . . . .

 

Our latest as of Tuesday, February 14, 2023 

~ Toronto's multidisciplinary artist Michelle Chermaine Ramos encapsulates the meaning of romantic love in her painting Love Takes Flight - a timely and fitting homage to Valentine's Day today. The community's array of music artists complements the observance with their rendition of popular hits, from Mon Torralba's Pers Lab to Chiqui Pineda's "Ikaw Lang ang Mamahalin". What a day this is for lovers! Happy Valentine's Day! 

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PAINTING BY MICHELLE CHERMAINE RAMOS

On This Day, Let "Love Takes Flight"

It Sums Up An Individual's Love and Desire

 

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

"Happiness is being immeasurably in love with someone one adores and respects. And finding that love's fruition".  - from Prerogative, the book, by Romy Marquez 

TORONTO - For days I scrambled in search of something - a song, a poem, an essay, a painting - that will detach me even for a moment from the absurdity of community politics. It's Valentine's Day, after all, the once-a-year event that celebrates everything about love and lovers.

I had looked at my video files and found two items; one from Paris (the love lock bridge across the River Seine. Video at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEkNHg7o76k), and another from England (the hometown of William Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon. Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hygSnhQH5PQ).

I have a generous collection of love poems, about 40 books, in my small library from Shakespeare to Emily Dickinson to Robert Frost to Maya Angelou to Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barret Browning to Edgar Allan Poe, and many others.

The "sentimental story about the enduring power of true love" that occupies a special place in my heart is the novel Love in the Time of Cholera by Colombian writer and Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's a nice read for Valentine's Day.

My song preference is quite unfashionable at this time of hip-hop music, understandably so because many of them were born during tempestuous times in the homeland, and the need for music to calm down frayed nerves, thus the Original Pilipino Music (OPM).

OPM and the artists that propagated Philippine sounds through eloquent lyrics are a standout up to this day. My perfect example is Ramon Torralba's Pers Lab - a paean any adolescent, mature, or senior, male or female can relate to. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6b8B2MvhTg).

Testament to its universal currency is the number - still growing nearly 50 years after it aired in 1975 - of interpretations by different artists, all hewing to the same language of ardent affection and yearning vocalized in simple verses by Torralba.

After exhausting the possibilities, the inspiration for this essay finally settled on a painting by our very own multidisciplinary artist Michelle Chermaine Ramos, who is also a designer, illustrator, journalist, and poet.

I have repeatedly glanced at her Love Takes Flight, the 24" x 36" acrylic on canvas circa 2009, without realizing the deep meaning it conveys to a lay person like me who's not schooled in the visual arts. 

(Full story at: https://www.michellechermaine.com/SymbolicFantasy/lovetakesflight.html).

But I do appreciate the art, and in my non-expert judgment, that painting is impressive, especially considering that Michelle, as she explained, is a self-taught artist. I find it an outstanding model for Valentine's Day.

For one, it captures the raw essence of romantic love; a man and a woman, unadorned and clearly possessed by each other, almost ready to let themselves be consumed by their burning passion.

Love is fire; it is stoked every now and then by an equally intense fire. And for that fire to be extinguished, albeit temporarily, rests on the ability of the lovers to let the flames of love enwrap them in a tight embrace.

Michelle's characterization of them as "soulmates" fits well into the combustion of two people loving and lusting for that touch that will satiate their human instinct.

"Long after youth’s fires of passion have faded," Michelle writes, "there needs to be mutual trust, respect, appreciation, affection and understanding on the emotional, intellectual and spiritual levels for love to last through life’s ups and downs". 

This is exactly why Love Takes Flight is relevant to our times. It looks to the future, beyond the hurts of the past and the disappointments of the present. 

" . . . to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until parted by death" - that marriage vow is simplified in Rey Valera's "Kahit Maputi na Ang Buhok Ko". (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU0WYhKpTfs).

"When one feels such a bond with their partner and understood and accepted on all levels," says Michelle, "only then can the relationship feel balanced, fulfilling and well-rounded." 

Truly, this aspect of the soulmate is more visceral in Love Takes Flight than physical. But just the same, the intrinsic love between the two individuals is obvious if not felt.

I find a few Tagalog songs that echo what Love Takes Flight is all about. One of them is Martin Nievera's "Ikaw" (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQSnbPFh0Ag). Another is Chiqui Pineda's "Ikaw Lang ang Mamahalin" (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw2GfR4_XoU). 

Michelle's painting could be said to be the sum total of all these poems, songs, essays, ala OPM. Indeed on this Valentine's Day, let Love Takes Flight. Happy Valentine's Day to all!(Copyright 2023. All Rights Reserved).