Beautiful Girls

Watching a movie I haven't seen in years, Beautiful Girls.  Reasons you should see it:

Michael Rapaport's monologue: A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you've been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high full of the single greatest commodity known to man - promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it's going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That's all they are. Bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels. 

The soundtrack: Afghan Whigs, Chris Isaak, Ween, Neil Diamond, Pete Droge, King Floyd, Howling Maggie, Satchel, etc.

The cast: Rapaport, Uma Thurman, Timothy Hutton, Matt Dillon, Mira Sorvino, Natalie Portman, Annabeth Gish.

Allusions: Van Morrison, Christopher Robin, Nabokov, Jerry Lee Lewis.

And, you should see it because I love it, and when I decide to love something, you can bet it's pretty great.

Safety Net: Cinema is My Babysitter

For the last week or so, I've been watching movies like someone has declared film illegal.  I'm consuming them.  Katherine Hepburn black and whites, independent weirdies with casts I've never heard of, new releases about twisted young girls in rock bands, romantic comedies designed to make any viewer believe in the transformative power of love.

I have always loved movies.  They provide an escape from whatever tragic thing is happening in my life, or a picture of a better world, or they help you believe that people can be better than you'd ever imagined.  Sitting in a room seeing someone else's vision of love, tragedy, history, experiencing the world as it could be, as we hope it never will be again...there's a real reassurance in knowing that no matter where I am in my life, I can count on the movies.

Tonight, a movie I hesitated renting because I dislike the actress in it, had a moment in it that snapped me right out of my escape.  In it, after a particularly ridiculous chain of events that makes the female lead want to flee a restaurant, the male lead asks her where she would feel most safe.  Where they go and what happens in the rest of the movie--while heartwarming and lovely--don't really matter.  What matters is that, when he asked that question, I realized I don't exactly have an answer to that question right now.

I used to think that wherever the people I loved and trusted could be found, I was safe, but circumstances change, people change.  Love and trust can only take you so far and when the road runs out, so does any illusion of safety.

I'm not sure where my safe place is, and I'm not sure I'm ready to look for one right now.  I think I'll just let cinema be my babysitter until I'm strong enough to not need one anymore.  Film can be my safety net.  I'll live in other peoples' dreams until I start believing in my own again.

Broken English & Chaos Theory

It's horrifyingly hot today so, after church, Z and I rented some movies and became complete couch potatoes for the afternoon.  


The first movie, Broken English, is a Parker Posey film about a woman who feels like she "must be doing something horribly wrong" when it comes to love, but she just can't figure out what it is.  Eventually, she ends up in Paris where an older man says to her:  Most people are together just so they are not alone. But some people want magic. I think you are one of those people.  She asks if there is anything wrong with wanting magic and he tells her no, but it just doesn't happen all the time.  


I loved this movie because that same man, who is barely on screen at all, tells her she needs to love herself before anyone else can love her.  I'd urge the screenwriter to add that, until the person you love loves him or herself, they're never going to be available to you the way you need them to be.


The second film, Chaos Theory, may be one of the best movies I've seen in the last year.  The soundtrack is mostly a guy named Alex Dezen and The Damnwells, names I assure you I'll be looking up on itunes very soon, and it's shot in the Pacific Northwest which allows for some simply stunning shots.  The heart of the story revolves around a man--played by Ryan Reynolds--who has devoted his life to making lists, being efficient, and planning for all conceivable outcomes only to experience a small disruption to his routine that has large repercussions.


I may watch it again before returning it to the video store--yes, I still go to one of those.  I have a Netflix account, I get HBO, and I've been known to frequent those RedBox stands, but there is something so lovely about yards and yards of films waiting to be plucked off the shelf and discovered or revisited.  I like knowing that, seemingly by chance, I may stumble across exactly what I need at any given moment just by choosing the right box from the shelf, bringing it home, and giving it my full attention.  There's probably a metaphor for love in there somewhere, but I can't begin to even think about those rows of shelves, so for now let's stick to movies.


Chaos Theory featured a speech that I loved with a line in it that I wish everyone could live by.  For now, I'm going to try to.


...it turns out that are few things more chaotic than the beat of a human heart. It's beating up, slowing down. Pretty face, flirty stares. It's always changing on what's happening to ourselves out there. It's an erratic son of a bitch. But underneath all of that bump-da-bump mess, there is in fact a pattern, the truth, and it's love. Most important thing about love is that we choose to give it, and we choose to receive it. Making it the least random act in the entire universe. It transcends blood, it transcends betrayal and all the dirt and makes us human. 

34

Today I am 34.  This has been my most difficult birthday, not because I'm getting older but because of recent changes that had to happen so the people involved can find out what they need and who they are.  But, while they are necessary changes, they have also been incredibly painful.


Someone asked recently whether I have regrets and if I would change anything.  Despite the agony of the last few months--and the particular hell of the last few days--I wouldn't.  The idea of regret has always suggested, to me, that the person who has them doesn't want to be exactly who she is.  So, if changing something from my past changes who I am today, I'll pass.


I am not perfect, no one is, but I usually like myself.  I have doubts like everyone else, but I know who I am because of what I have been through, and I am proud of that.   This picture was taken today before friends took me out to dinner and the woman in it knows who she is.  I wouldn't trade that for anything.


It would be easier to live head down, mouth shut, pretending everything is okay.  But I can't do that.  I believe in telling the truth, even when it means letting people I love go, hoping they find happiness, even if that happiness may have nothing to do with me.  


T.S. Eliot wrote "What we call the beginning is often the end.  And to make an end is to make a beginning.  The end is where we start from."


My prayer for this year is that I am strong enough to believe more in the beginning than the end.

Coronado Heights

Coronado Heights is a place I went to a lot as a kid.  Picnics with relatives from far away, weekend jaunts with parents, parties in high school, drives up by myself.  It's always been kind of magical, the way you can look in any direction and see for miles and miles and miles.  From up there, the world is more peaceful than almost any other place I've ever been.  

The entrance

The drive up

The buildings--main on left, fire pit on right

This road leads away from the entrance.

Picnic table

Inside the castle

WPA sign on turret

View from the top

Me and mom