What was the first twinkle in the nucleus of one paramecium that attracted another? What glow of cilia in moonlight triggered the first pang of romantic love? It is not all, as has been previously proposed (I nod respectfully now to the proponents of Mr. Darwin in the audience) the simple logic of advancing the species. From the beginning men and women, and the creatures that existed before them, have made the wrong choices. Explain the Lady MacBeths and the Svengalis. Explain my first, second and third wives. Some greater force that has nothing to do with the epic purposes of nature or self preservation has cruelly guided our reaching hand. A vast pond of chaos lies beneath this thin veneer of order.

But I see that you shift uncomfortably in your seats. I see the whispering in ears about the madness I am talking.

Ahem (I clear my throat). Allow me then, to tell you an apocryphal tale to illustrate my point.

A man, let's call him Rupert, because I have never known anyone named Rupert--is walking down the street. He sees a woman, a pretty woman, with light red hair, pale skin, icy blue eyes. It is a sunny day with a light breeze scented by leaves, grass, flowers, etc., so his heart stirs in that familiar way. A tightening then crowding in his chest, as if his heart were a hand that makes a fist then stretches out all its fingers to examine the nails and the crescent dents they have made in the palm. 

This may be love or sexual attraction, but what are its roots and reasons? Pale skin, a narrow waist, small--if pronounced--breasts: none of this speaks of strength and an appropriate conduit for the advancement of the species. And yet it is the type that young Rupert has always preferred. So he smiles as she passes, and his head turns to follow her progress. He sees her enter a store and makes a note of it. He will visit that store in the future, hoping to see her. It is on his way home from work. It will be no inconvenience for him to hold out so slim a hope. A week later, for the purposes of this story, he does see her there, looking at the colorful scarves that hang on a rack near the door.

"Hello," he says, smiling.

"Hello," she says smiling back, a sweet, friendly, pink-red lipped smile that further stirs that mysterious thing within his rib cage. A spattering of light freckles lay across the bridge of her nose.

"Can I help you?" she asks and he realizes then that she works in the store, a lucky break for our young hero. He buys a watch that he has no actual use for, knowing he will be back. He can return it, and returning it, see her again.

I could go on, of course. I could tell you about the repeated visits, the occasional purchases, the small talk getting bigger, but that would be a lecture for a different audience: sociologist, anthropologists, economists, a younger, perhaps handsomer, longer-haired crowd (and you, esteemed colleagues, snicker disdainfully at these lesser disciplines). So I will skip ahead.

Rupert learns her name, gets to know some of what she likes and dislikes, tells her something of himself and his ambitions. He takes her to a movie, a restaurant, a walk along the beach. They hold hands, kiss, fondle, etc. They marry. A church wedding, with pretty bridesmaids, handsome ushers, colorful streamers and flying rice (puffed, so that it will not sicken the birds). They find their little dream house and move in with their clothes, their new furniture, their boxes of wedding gifts.

But how long does the glitter of this new life last? How long before the first fight where bitterness does not dissipate under an assault of apologies and kisses? Let us say a year. A year before his eye begins to fall upon other women who pass him on sidewalks on sunny days. A year or two before she talks to her friends about his shortcomings. Two or three years before the paleness of her skin is a sickly annoyance, her freckles are blemishes, her red hair is dry and lifeless, her eyes are the color of ice. There is a hollowness in his chest now and he longs for a time, past or future, when it was or is full. He makes jokes at work: my first wife, he calls her. My insignificant other.

Is it as simple a story as a marriage that has gone bad? No, there are days still when they are able to forget these disappointments and dissatisfactions and think and say, without resignation, that they are made for each other. There are still times when he drives home anxious to see her after a long day at work, and times when she smiles warmly as he walks in the door. Love does not fade so much as it flickers, with the gaps of darkness growing longer and longer until there is nothing else but that.

He is not an unattractive man. Time has been kind to him and there are women, at work, in bars, at the library were he does his research, who will listen, if he is clever and witty enough, to his tales of an unhappy marriage and a wife who does not understand him. One woman in particular, whose pale skin glows, whose red hair seems alive with fire, whose blue eyes seem warm, listens so attentively, so sympathetically. She was married once. It had not ended happily. She understands the loneliness of sharing your life with the wrong person. She knows.

Rushing forward again past the details of small and less-small talk, past clandestine meetings and pathetic excuses, past bitter tears. Rupert divorces one woman and (eventually) marries the other. And more golden days follow, more fresh promise, until the red hair of this angel's head fades as well. The woman who is now his wife reminds him, at times and inevitably, of the woman who had been his wife before. And not only this--as his own body begins to deteriorate (and hers too, of course, sagging as flesh must) he sees the youth, the young flesh, on warm spring or summer days, and longs for that. It was his once, the promise of newness, the scent of flowers and fresh cut grass, the un-mottled skin and tight muscles. The unbroken face. If he could touch it again--that taut, soft, smooth, clean flesh--would he himself not be young again? In a way? In a sad and clichéd way he would rather not analyze.

So I tidy up my little story with the classic number three (it always comes in threes): a third wife, younger than the others, only a hint of red in her golden brown hair. Her eyes are more green than blue, and how could the color green ever grow cold and lifeless? I do not know how, but it can and does. The purest white yellows and the third nameless angel's cupid bow lips become dry, chapped and unkissable.

But what is the point to this pointless tale? What did my hero seek from his eternal return to the altar? Only something that he could not have. Some ineffable thing that he sought first in the bright light of a follicle and then in the bright life of youth. You may call it love, he called it that, but explain to me then, in scientific terms, the purpose of love. It does not ensure fidelity or procreation any more than beauty does. It is no more achievable than perfection, yet we try, we seek, we struggle to grasp some saintly, unobtainable vision we saw once in a dream. Is it youth or the angel from our illustrated children's bible that haunts our memory? What good does it do us to want it? 

Maybe spring is the price we pay for our fall from grace; beauty and the types of beauty we pursue are a trap, a punishment that leads us back into the darkness we had no right to leave. Or no, perhaps it is something else again. Perhaps the perfect glowing beauty that we seek with a kind of religious ardor is in fact an inborn religion itself. A hereditary belief in some pure form that will complete us. We want to hold the hand of God, but hold it in a movie theater, in the dark. We want to kiss God's full lips and gaze into Her almond shaped eyes. No, no more than this. (I lose my place, I fumble through my notes. You, the audience, rustle and shift impatiently in your seats; there is a water-like murmur growing in the darkness. Please, allow me to go on).

My audience rebels. You boo. Tomatoes and eggs are thrown (You must have brought them with you; you must have been planning this all along.) But they booed Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps and threw rotten produce at poor Igor too.

So this is my Rite of Spring.

Thank you and goodnight.