I have to admit, I have been reluctant to show my face here.
Days pile on top of days piling on top of me and my words, and I get lost in the shuffle of it all. It is not a shimmery business, this writing thing. Sometimes it feels like owning a very personable animal. When you take it daily to walk with you, to experience the life that you experience, it is well-mannered and pleasureable. The silent conversations between the two of you will be easy and intrinsically understood. If, however, you stop having time for these walks and conversations, your playmate will become flighty and unpredictable. One moment, she's by your side, and, in the middle of a sentence, she'll suddenly be gone, as though she has decided not to exist. But while she's busy not-existing, you're on hands and knees at the scene of her immaterialization, frantically searching out the sidewalks for a trace of her.
She may or may not fly back to you.
Probably, if you wait, she'll come around in the end.
So, that, friends, is the precarious position in which I choose to place myself for the sake of words strung together on a computer screen.
Why?
I saw a movie tonight called August Rush.
I'm not even sure where to begin. So much of the story in this film echoes around in the spaces of my heart. Before it was even over, I trusted it to be one of my very favorite movies, second only to The Village. It was a fairytale, a true story and a love story. I can usually recognize a good movie by how involved I feel while I'm watching it. It is so rare to watch something and feel literally as though your insides are on the edges of their seats. It wasn't suspense, really, so much as it was just that I cared about what would happen to these people on the screen. So often, I'll realize somewhere halfway through the movie that I don't really care anymore. Who lives, who dies, who gets married, or who gets thrown into a pit of leeches- it all just feels meaningless. I'm not involved. But with a really good movie, I can feel the very center of me being all wound up and tangled with the concerns and causes of the characters on screen. It feels kind of like having your fists clenched, internally.
This is how I felt during August Rush. I want to explain why, but I really, really just want you to see it. It will hopefully make clear to you the feeling I'm talking about, while also answering the question I asked earlier- why on earth do I keep writing?
Why did my dad leave a well-paid job that he really liked to be a not-so-well-paid music minister at a church?
Why did my mom home school her three children when it would have made so much more sense not to?
Why do I believe so truly in a person I cannot see?
So. It's a beautiful movie. Go see it. And then report back to me with thoughts.
Other than this,
1. It's raining. I wish it would do so for fourteen days straight.
2. It's November. I can't believe how quickly time urges us forward. I wish it were colder. I love this month. I want to be married in a November.
3. I just wrote 4. instead of 3. I need sleeping. Much sleeping. Hooray for holidays! I still have to work on Saturday though. I'm a big fan of paychecks, though, so I'll refrain from my complaining.
4. Happy Thanksgiving. Not turkey-day. Some people eat ham. I am not one of them, but it's always prudent to remember the less fortunate.
5. Lalo is singing goodnight songs to me. He is saying, "Please, either talk to me or turn out the lights, babycakes. I can't be listening to you type all night long." Coincidentally, this song sounds quite similar to the, "Get up, dang it!" song, and also the "I'm in love with you! Forsake your boyfriend and fly away with me for all eternity!" song. He is a very expressive bird.
So, those are my words for tonight. Goodnight world. I wish for days when writing here will be weekly again, you know? I miss you all.
11/22/07
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7 comments:
i blissed at your following...
look forward to seeing you today.
Uncle Dan
Lovely.
So true. I can't explain how many times a movie has ended and I've sort of rolled my eyes in my head. I want to see this film; and than talk about it! :-)
I think your points at the end are my favorites. (Also because I am usually featured in them in one way or another.)
Ham-day...my brother is talking about how upset his is about that now, actually. Everyone who just gets ham today has permission to cry.
At least you get Thanksgiving off... :-(
Tell Lalo, I say hi (I'm taking the higher ground.) Tell him, your boyfriend said it.
I wanted to write something really long, but everyone is staring at me from across the room, waiting for their turn for the laptop.
So. Happy Thanksgiving!!! :-)
Have a lovely day.
Signed,
~010100110110000101101101~
last saturday,
i saw the sneak preview of August Rush.
...i know what you mean.
everytime i see a really sad, or really amazing, movie, i only cry one tear.
August Rush is a one-tear movie.
to make it better,
i saw it not thirty minutes after my honor chorus was over.
so i'd been singing for two straight days, then went and saw this beautiful music movie.
i want to go see it again.
i want to go to borders and get the soundtrack.
i want to breathe this movie.
...
you put it in better words.
thank you.
:)
capturing
your blogs feel like a good story i keep coming back to.
which is happy and sad.
i think they're calling that bittersweet these days.
it's bittersweet because,
sweet) your writing is lovely. it's a pet i'd love to have and take walks with every day.
bitter) it shouldn't seem a story to me, far off and distant in the authors world. it should be like a summery of everything you told me a couple hours before, when we last had out 2 hour conversation while you're cooking or painting and i'm babysitting.
or, wait.
no, those are the old days.
which is why it is truly, so horribly, deeply, sadly, bitter.
i vote:
december. we see this movie together, August Rush. (3rd times the charm, right? ;) and have a sleepover afterwards? we'll make some gingerbread cookies at the sleepover too. with arms and legs and buttons and faces. (both on the cookies and on ourselves. haha)
vote soon so i can tally up the ballets and see who wins, k annabellie?
oh, three more thoughts.
1) the 'word verification' thing below my comment is making me write a word with q, but there's not a U after, it's an O. it bothers me. and it seemed like something that'd bother you. like that things Krystal made for me ages ago that said "there" instead of "their" and it bugged you.
2) the word is "shlqork" it sounds like something i'd call you if we'd been talking too late into the night. "sleep tight, shlqorkmuffinmix. don't let the bed bugs bite."
3) my heart did a little "ohno!" when i read that August Rush was a new favorite movie. but we were both reassured that The Village is still in first place. you'd think i made the movie, not M. Night, i take so much pride in how much you adore that film. :-)
well, toodles lovey!
thank you for writing.
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