Lose Your Heart to the City, Detroit!

February is American Heart Month and mid-month we celebrate Valentine’s Day.

So, all these heart-related holidays got me thinking…

Not only is the city the perfect place to celebrate your romance, but the city itself embodies romance.

Okay. You might be scratching your head and wondering how I got from point A to point B.

Let me explain—not just my reasoning, but why I see the city as being the very essence of romance.

To start with the obvious, I considered ‘romance’ between two people.

When I thought about it, I realized romance is basically founded on ‘hope’: a hope that begins with the belief that there is a ‘Mr.’ or a ‘Ms. Right’ somewhere out there…and that you will eventually connect with that person.

Romance is also the lure of the ‘promise,’ or the potential, of that other person: that as you discover more and more about each other, you will eventually succeed together.

It also seemed to me to be important to consider that in every instance of the eventual ‘together’ of romance, there was an initial meeting of two people.  Two different people.  Sure, they may have had similar goals and desires, but they probably had two different ways of looking at those goals and of going about achieving those ends…and it is the bringing together of those different perspectives that leads to eventual success in romance. And in life.

Which brought me to a second consideration of ‘romance’ that plays into my conclusion that the city embodies romance: The Romantic Era. Basically, a couple of centuries ago, artists and visionaries began questioning the status quo, social norms and ideals of beauty, and wondering if they could not be re-imagined…and in doing so, they ushered in a period of more freedom of creativity.

And while the Romantics often found their inspiration in nature, today the city offers a landscape of hope, promise, and creativity…an inspirational space where every day different people come together and imagine a future where we all succeed. Together.

Okay. So Hallmark doesn’t make a card for that. But if they did, I like to imagine I can guess the ‘logo’…