First, it made me think about how I don't care about politics this election season, and instead would just prefer to write in "Tom Waits" on the ticket ... then I decided that a Tom Waits/Neil Young combo would be the most awesome White House ever ... then I decided I needed to Google "Waits Young" to find that picture of those two when Tom got inducted into the Music Hall of Fame ... then I found a picture of a young Tom Waits ... and then I had to post both of those pictures to Facebook, of course.
All of this made my brain dj start playing "Picture in a Frame" off of Mule Variations on repeat in my head ... which made me think of that first date video that I made with Dr. Jekyll Donkeybundle, also from nearly five years ago, and of how sweet that seemed at the time, but the camera does hide a different picture that is just outside of that "frame" ... all of which made me think of how I'd truly love to hold myself in this place of love where I'm at right now with Scott. Indefinitely.
(No, Scott doesn't have an awesome nickname just yet, although I have tried out "sexy pied piper" and "sexy vampire boyfriend" and "sexy helper monkey" (actually, I think he added the "sexy" part to each, but that doesn't make it any less true), but those are more like in-the-moment descriptors ... one that sticks will present itself soon, I'm sure of that.)
Where was I?
Oh yeah, so I was thinking of holding on, but that also brings up thoughts of letting go. Not letting go of Scott! Heavens, no! I was thinking of how I'd been letting go of the past, but there is always more to let go of ... which made me think about letting go in the past ... how and when and why I let go, and what I took away.
Then in a moment of pure inspired whimsy earlier today, while my brain dj was spinning Sesame Street's "Sing" (in particular, the lyrics, "Sing of happy, not sad. Sing of good things, not bad."), I posted another picture to Facebook that I thought was super sweet and reminded me of the same kind of gaze that I so love between Scott and I, regardless of however dissimilar to "reality" it is (we don't necessarily look like those two icons, nor did those two icons ever gaze at each other like that), only to be reminded that others nearby seeing the same image may see bitterness and sadness in what I only saw as sweetness and light.
Rather than find that curious, I understood fully, as I'd been there, too.
My brain was then immediately transported back to my reaction to the first time I saw Roberto Benigni's movie LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL ... and away went the brain blog ... switching from dj to writer just like that! And little pieces of that bygone time started floating back, while I attempted to focus on a complicated spreadsheet task at work.
{{{{{ Insert wavy, wooshy flashback lines here. }}}}}
It was early 1999, what would eventually become the last year of my first marriage. I was just barely holding on, thanks to a very rocky, emotional experience that began with my husband hiding a case of thyroid cancer from me, me getting him through it anyway, and none of that bringing us closer together like I'd always imagined something scary might finally do. It was also repeatedly being pointed out to me everywhere I went that perhaps our marriage was an empty shell ... that maybe there was more to a relationship than just getting through another day together.
I'd been putting off seeing LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, mostly because he and I never agreed on any movies. Despite our first movie date being DELICATESSAN, suggesting he had an interest in foreign and/or artier fare, my husband refused to watch anything that didn't have a body count, once the relationship got rolling. As a result, we only went to a total of 9 films at the theater in the course of our seven years together. And I was a film major!
On the heels of a lot of stress and still waiting on the results of my husband's biopsy, I had decided that I wanted to see as many of the Oscar contenders as possible on the day of the show because I was tired. I was tired of not being true to myself. I was tired of feeling empty. I was tired of giving him and my children everything and not leaving anything left for myself. I was going to leave my kids with my mother, and I was going to see these movies, dammit! I had already seen one or two of the other contenders, and I was going to see three nominees on this day ... ending the triple feature marathon with the sappiest, darlingest one of the bunch: LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL.
For some reason, this time my usually reticent husband decided to go with me. Maybe he didn't believe I was actually going to be spending the day at the movies? Maybe he didn't want to get stuck with babysitting duty? Maybe he genuinely wanted to see those movies and spend time with me? I don't know, but there we were ... seeing three whole movies together ... one-third of our entire theater experience was being accumulated in just one day!
I no longer even recall the other two movies that day, but I do remember being in awe of Benigni's film at the time ... of its charm and its sweetness. Something else struck me: the fact that Benigni truly loved his real-life wife, whom he cast to play his character's wife in the film. The way he looked at her resonated volumes through the camera lens ... so much so, it made me make an audible shudder-sigh sound when I witnessed it. I mean, as unconventional looking as he is, who wouldn't want to have their beloved gaze at them the way he gazes at her?
It was making me long for that look, that feeling. It made me realize that not only had I never received that look from the man who was sitting to my left in all of our history together, not even after the births of our children, but I had also never been able to gaze upon him in that awesome manner. It just wasn't there for us.
For years, I unfairly mentally compared him to a couple of boys I'd carried torches for since high school ... ideals that even the real boys couldn't live up to ... and he constantly reminded me that he still had a crush on a girl he'd only had a couple of dates with before he met me. She didn't give him a chance before she moved away, but he always felt a strong bond to her, and he went looking for that bond in several other women as the years passed, having not found it in me, I suppose. (She drew robots for him, I was told. I could draw robots, too, but he never seemed to see that ability in me.)
I began to squirm and shake a bit, while watching Benigni and his wife on the screen. Had I cheated myself out of the chance to be with someone who'd see only me, like he saw his wife. Had I prevented my husband from finding that robot-drawing girl, and finally feeling everything he'd wanted to feel with someone? I was watching a movie, but it felt more real than the empty life of lies I was living.
That's when it happened.
It got to the part of the movie where his character's wife, who is not Jewish, chooses to get on the train to be taken away to the concentration camp because her life means nothing, if her Jewish husband and son are gone. She was willing to die for them, rather than live without them.
I began to sob. Not just sob ... I was wailing. I had to muffle myself as best as I could, since we were not the only people in the theater, but otherwise, I could not hold back the waterfall of emotions that was pouring out of me.
Let me say this: up to that point, save for when Bambi's mom was shot, I'd almost never shed but a tear or two in any movie. Nothing had prepared me for this.
I continued shaking and sobbing through the rest of the movie, leaving my shirt literally soaked with tears, snot hanging like silky veils from my nostrils, and nothing but a sleeve with which to wipe my nose. I heard nearby patrons exasperatedly saying, "She's STILL crying?" And yet, I couldn't stop.
When the movie was over, I still could not compose myself. I sobbed through the credits, while my husband was completely flummoxed. I was embarrassed that I was going to have to manage a walk of shame through the lobby and parking lot, while still shaking and sobbing, shirt soaked and snot hanging. And I did just that.
I continued to cry for another two hours after the film was over! I was sobbing to the point that I was coughing and nearly throwing up. I thought I might not be able to stop or ever catch my breath. I wondered if anyone had died of dehydration from crying. I pictured that on my death certificate, and my children in therapy years later because of it, which just made me cry more! Man, had I built up a lot of resistance to keeping the good stuff from flowing in! But boy howdy, was the bad ever stuff flowing out of me!
I can't remember how it finally stopped, but I think I may have simply ran out of tears. The well that I had been filling for all those years with all of my sadness had run dry.
Not wanting to anger or upset my cancer-stricken husband, of course, I told him that I had been overcome with how beautiful I found that movie, which caused all of those emotions to pour out of me ... but the reality was that I knew something had to change. The lights were finally on, someone was finally home, and she was lonelier than she'd ever been in her entire life ... even being raised as an only child hadn't prepared her for the depths of this kind of loneliness.
I later took my mother to see this very same movie, expecting her to have buckets of tears, expecting myself to revisit those same tears. Instead, nothing like that happened at all. My mom sniffled a little, as did I, but no waterfalls or snot streamers in the slightest. That's when I realized it really did have to do with the person with whom I'd seen the movie ... with whom I'd chosen to have a life and children ... with whom I'd thought would one day be my best friend and my most treasured possession. There was no way that I could die without him, when I was already dead inside with him.
It's amazing how a film, or a song, or a book, or a piece of art can tug at the deepest part of your heart, pull out the one or two loosest strings, and unravel your whole world.
In the weirdest form of irony, however, when I wrote that previous October 2007 blog, I was exactly two months away from meeting the man who would offer himself up as the contrast with which I would clarify myself to who I am today. And in that tumultuous roller coaster of an 18-month relationship together, I would learn more about what I wanted ... in a relationship, and in myself ... than I'd ever learned even in my marriage.
That roller coaster relationship began with a song ... the song that I referenced in 2007 blog ... with the phrase, "I'm going to love you 'til the wheels come off ... oh yeah." And oh yeah, the wheels came off.
That relationship also ended with a story ... a story in a book ... a book that had already been recommended to me at the time of that blog post, but that I refused to pick up for another two years ... until I was at a lost enough place and needing a lighthouse to show me another way home. Coincidentally, that book had been written by a woman who had once interviewed Tom Waits.
I'm no longer saddened by any of these endings or misdirected attempts at grasping for love, however. They've clarified my choices to the place where I am today. A place that got me to create an imaginary relationship with a vibrational version of a guy with whom I could share that fantastically beautiful gaze experience. All I had to do was hold myself there, and there we were.
And today, when I sit and wonder how I can hold on to this sweet and marvelous resonance with a real version of that vibrational boyfriend -- a version who surprises, delights, and melts me in ways that leaves me weak in the knees, that even I could not conjure with my very active imagination -- I have the contrast of those past misguided attempts as trail markers, keeping me from heading in directions that I do not wish to go, or do, or feel again ... all under my control. And I have the imaginary, vibrational version to show me that I've always had this power to hold myself here all along, and I could have shared that with any of those past "mistakes" ... or with anyone else before now ... but it's just extra nice that this particular man makes it so easy for me to resonate with the happy me, the fuller me.
Maybe this brain meandering isn't quite done yet. Maybe this blog will, like others before it, uncover more layers of understanding as time progresses and as I catch up to the place my lovely inner dj keeps trying to lead me. I do know for sure, however, that I can hold on to this feeling and hold this gaze for as long as I choose to do so. And I can hold on to knowing that everything is always working out for me.
Stuck on repeat in my head tonight is yet another Mule Variation...
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