What's The Word?

For some time now, I've been trying to find the word that means adulation or the feeling of love you would feel for a person who is accomplished in your field of passion.

I have run across the word a couple of times but dismissed it from my mind and poof, it was gone. It's so gone, that I wouldn't even recognize it if you said it. I'd have to look it up.

The word refers to having this extreme admiration for someone of the opposite sex which would account for the feeling of love.

And I'm not referring to the groupie gals who wait outside a rock star's dressing room to offer him sexual favors. The kind of love feeling I'm referring to is almost on an etherial plane. It's as if you want to touch them but wouldn't dare because their talent is so far above you, so all you could ever do is worship them from afar.

The Greeks had names for four kinds of love: agape, philia, eros, storge. What I'm talking about is kind of a mixture of agape, philia and eros. I think of the Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo and her life-time attraction and love for Diego Rivera. With them I've always felt it was mutual.

Does this sound crazy, or have others experienced this?

Marilyn has played flamenco guitar for as long as I've danced and she has experienced this with guitarists. Especially one. I'm in awe of Juan Serrano, greatest living guitarist. We had a Flamenco Juerga and had one of his students and a student of his student. I was in that strange mixture of love and awe over them because they got to actually sit with him and watch him play. Then I could watch the student's fingers move on the guitar just as Juan had taught them.

OK, you've probably guessed it. I have that love feeling for Robert Doisneau, the photographer whose black/white photos I use for headers. He is pictured above in his self-portrait. Of course, he's dead but it doesn't matter. I've had this feeling for years. It's like Heathcliff yearned for Cathy until he could join her in death.

During my last posts when we were talking about photography, Kj of 12 Paws and Frogs, looked up Robert Doisneau and wrote that she's in love. See, Kj.... you know what I mean.

Come on, all you astute people with brilliant minds. What's the word I'm looking for???? I'm going cukoo trying to find it.

A Robert Doisneau It Is Not

A Robert Doisneau this is not. But it is a humorous bit of realism that just happened to pop in front of my new little Flip Camcorder. If you've visited my blog before, you know I'm on a quest to find a digital camera that takes photos like my old "crying in the closet, Leica."

The black/white photos I use for headings in my blog were shot by my beloved Robert Doisneau. I use that term of endearment out of a cherished respect for a photographer who captured a timeless essence of human wistful foibles.

Many of Doisneau's shots were staged from the original circumstance. Mine wasn't. Just trying out a new cami. Here's the deal.

As I walked down the camera aisle in Costco, a little Flip comcorder just jumped right into my cart and said, "Buy me, buy me." My reasoning was, "It's probably an orphan and needs a home," as it went through the checkout with me.

I unboxed it in the parking lot, became acquainted with the minimal buttons (much to my liking), put it in my purse and drove off to the health food store. As I waited in the checkout line with my groceries, I took the Flip out of my purse to give it a try. You'll find the results below.