Life, Lessons & Love

I Don’t Know Love

October 26, 2021

“I don’t know love.” — The Fifth Element Ending - I Don’t Know Love HD

The earliest instant of the Big Bang — a single point of impossibly-bright primordial light exploding into being, the first moment of the universe. The light itself is INTENSE — pure white-gold at the core, with radiant blooming amber and warm-yellow outer glow, sharp lens-flare radial spokes and thick volumetric bloom around it. It is the ORIGIN of all light, all matter, all love. Around it, deep cosmic black — the void that existed before, the shadow that everything will be born INTO. The bright singularity occupies maybe 20-25 percent of the frame, centered slightly high — not tiny, not overwhelming, but UNMISTAKABLY the ignition of everything. The dark surrounds it on all sides. This is love in the shadows — the spark that will light up the whole world, caught at the instant of ignition. Cinematic, painterly, hushed, reverent. The dark has weight; the light has more. — First Light—Ivy

These words express the truth from a critical moment in The Fifth Element, a movie that I love and that is loved by some of those I love.

It has taken me decades to fully appreciate the nuance within this movie. Director Luc Besson went over the top with his characters of the future, and they took their roles even further. Yet, the messages woven through the story are echoes of truths he has shared with the world in each of his movies. Watch Léon: The Professional again and see if you can spot all the echoes!

Part of my difficulty with the movie came from the challenge I had empathizing with the character Leeloo. I had known love all my life; I had never experienced a world without it.

The world I knew is beautifully framed by a note my mother gave to my father on his 38th birthday, January 15, 1971. I was five years old.

“When first I dreamed of how our love would be,

So shallow was my dream, how could I see

The whole great, matchless depth of ripened love?

Can earthbound hearts envision Heaven above?

When first we two were sweethearts, you and I,

I did not dream how swift the time would fly;

How every perfect day would be, when gone,

The prelude to a still more perfect dawn.

In all my dreams I never knew the power

That love could have to sweeten every hour;

The quiet joy I find in your caress,

The sweet content of our togetherness.

The dream was just a glimpse God gave to me,

One fleeting glimpse of sweet reality.”

With love to my husband on

His 38th birthday,

Sylvia

But none of us gets out of here alive.

Sooner or later, we will all lose everyone we love.

One of my early movie-going favorites, The Highlander, featured music by Queen, and the poignant lyrics:

There’s no time for us

There’s no place for us

…

Who dares to love forever

Oh oo woh, when love must die

Is there any hope for a never-ending love?

Maybe I don’t know love.

Maybe, I too, have only glimpsed sweet reality.

Maybe, there’s more.

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Excerpted from Hows It Works? by Mark Poesch.

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