There is a certain look that a woman has that makes her the most attractive thing in heaven and on earth to a man. It is a look of desire more akin to an unnamed hope combined with an expectation of a feeling reciprocated. Sometimes, this look is a confident one, expressing a certainty that her feelings will be returned. Other times, this look combines uncertainty. Even if her words express certainty that she will be loved, her underlying feelings that this might not be so make their way to the surface and are expressed in her face, body language and speech. In either case, she may reserve her feelings because they are underlain and suffused with a fear that perhaps she is wrong and any overtures might be rejected. It is this cautious, expectant hope of love in her face that arouses in a man not just desire, but an expectant hope as well.

This look is reflected in songs, movies and books. In Spiderman 2, Mary Jane is the most beautiful when she and Peter Parker sit in the coffee shop and she is trying to figure out what his feelings are. She is cautious yet hopeful and confident enough to ask him to kiss her. You can see this expectant look in her face and hear it in the tenor of her voice.

In the opening lines of Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road, the music evokes and the words describe this as well.

The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves.
Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely,
"Hey that’s me and I want you only."
Don’t turn me home again;
I just can’t face myself alone again.

This vignette describes a woman who is looking for her hero "to rise from the streets." She runs across the porch to see if the singer is the hero she is looking for. One can just imagine the hopeful yet cautious feelings Mary has that perhaps this is the love she is looking for.

Finally, in M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie The Village, when Ivy Walker and Lucius Hunt talk on the porch at night, that same look is in her face, confident and demanding. It is during this scene that she is the most beautiful. The look in her face and her blind eyes reflect her love for him, her certainty that he loves her in return and the hope that he will overcome his own fears and express those feelings to her.

Are this look and this feeling the sole possession of the young? I remember it in my youth, though I didn’t recognize it. Now I am older and I recognize it, though I rarely see it only in movies or reflected in songs or books. Can older women still express that feeling in their faces and bodies or do people practice suppressing it over the years and let fear practice hiding it? Is it only found by accidental discovery? Can it be found by searching? Where would one begin to look?