Thankfully time has changed and we are much freer to do what we want and to follow our heart wherever it takes us.
I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when I was in South Denmark having a room right underneath the place where a true drama played out about 130 years ago.
A hotel in Svendborg is where Elvira Madigan and Sixten Sparre stayed before they went to a wood and killed themselves as their love seemed impossible due to class difference (he of noble Swedish hesitance and her a Danish circus princess). The story is immortalized in a 1967 movie about their love affair to which Beethoven's piano concert no. 21 is played: the Elvira Madigan tune.
Having revisited their grave and story, it is good to be reminded how we go about our everyday life today, where we no longer pay attention to differences in social status, in ethnicity or gender in couples. How lucky we are, as we, in our part of the world, literally can love and live with our chosen one regardless.
