Learning To Love

What's that about? Just follow your heart, no learning required. 

Hold on a second. 

That's a musical joke. Get it? Segue into one of the best musicals ever produced, one that we watched again last night.

Even if mindless attraction is where love starts, you don't get far without thoughtful commitment, wisdom and generosity. That doesn't always come naturally. Remember Freddy Eynsford-Hill in raptures over Eliza Dolittle "on the street where you live?" Eliza would have liked fewer words and a bit more action, "Tell me no dreams filled with desire. If you're on fire, show me." You know the story. Poor Freddy didn't measure up. Neither did 'enry 'iggins, the self-important, arrogant, misogynist linguistics professor who set out to make a princess out of a gutter-snipe just to prove how clever he was. Assuming false humility, Professor Higgins fancied himself just an ordinary man who would never let a woman in his life. Eventually, surprise, he learned to let a woman in his life. When the story ends, Henry still has a lot to learn and Eliza is the teacher.

The film version of My Fair Lady came out in 1964, the year Dorothy and I were married. 
Brilliant songs by Lerner and Loewe.
Stelar performances by Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison.
Some loose parallels with our own story.
I started off back then as a bit of Freddy with a dash of Henry, a dollop of Alfred (Eliza's reprobate father) and a whiff of Colonel Pickering.
Apparently my fair lady liked a challenge.
I'm still happily learning 61 years later.

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My Fair Lady: the full movie on archive.org,
priceless yet free.