The movie begins from Joel's perspective, tracing the fateful morning that he awoke with no memory of the woman he loved. Clementine enters centered in her own frame, but exists from Joel's perspective as always far-away, and never in focus. We only know it is Clementine from the bright orange hoodie that gives her so much hazy prominence in the frame. This all goes along fine for Joel, until she approaches him on the train later, and they are finally shot together for the first time. The rate of cutting speeds forward like the nervous heart of a boy in love often will do...always giving Clementine the power in each shot, with color, dominance, and positioning.
The rest of the movie you'll have to watch for yourself.
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This has been a significant week, to make an understatement. Like saying the Titanic was a boat, or the sunrise is "what wakes me up in the morning". I don't fully understand the sequence of separations, interactions, and mistakes that have all converged to bring about this moment and this feeling.
I wrote my last post about cliffs, and all week I have been looking over one. Comtemplating the dive. Wondering if this might be the time that I fall, but do not die. Like a non-errant footstep could carry me over the edge into the greatest free-fall of my life.
As humans, we spend our entire lives trying to make desperate sense out of our world. It's infuriating, and sometimes agonizing, but I don't think that's ever stopped anyone from looking though it may have guided their eyes elsewhere. And after my 21 years of heavy thought, I don't believe that any of it is past comprehension, although I am convinced that it is fraught with dead-ends and times where there is no clear path anymore. You've got to pick your way through the rocks and find out where you really want to go. The way my brother put it to me, sometimes "You just have to choose."
I don't like choosing things. I'm bad at it. I can stand in the candy aisle at a grocery store for twenty minutes, pacing and wondering which choice is perfect for me. I just know that the other people in the grocery store must think I've lost my car keys somewhere in the bags and wrappers. Nobody looks for candy harder than me. But this is not about candy, and if I've found out nothing else in the last week it's that there are a very few choices worth making. And in those ones that do matter, it doesn't matter how far you have to go to make them. At some point, when you stop waiting for life to fall in your lap, you decide what you really want.
When that happens, you're ready to stay up all night in that aisle if you have to. You're ready to fight with the aisle, and be angry at the aisle, and just stop for a minute and rest your head on its cool, smooth foor. Then you try it again. And no matter how long it takes, you know that you just have to stay, and wait. And wait, and pray.
We can make choices, but the impact we have on our lives often feels so small.
Our choices are so often only half the battle. The bigger half is You.
And you.
I wrote my last post about cliffs, and all week I have been looking over one. Comtemplating the dive. Wondering if this might be the time that I fall, but do not die. Like a non-errant footstep could carry me over the edge into the greatest free-fall of my life.
As humans, we spend our entire lives trying to make desperate sense out of our world. It's infuriating, and sometimes agonizing, but I don't think that's ever stopped anyone from looking though it may have guided their eyes elsewhere. And after my 21 years of heavy thought, I don't believe that any of it is past comprehension, although I am convinced that it is fraught with dead-ends and times where there is no clear path anymore. You've got to pick your way through the rocks and find out where you really want to go. The way my brother put it to me, sometimes "You just have to choose."
I don't like choosing things. I'm bad at it. I can stand in the candy aisle at a grocery store for twenty minutes, pacing and wondering which choice is perfect for me. I just know that the other people in the grocery store must think I've lost my car keys somewhere in the bags and wrappers. Nobody looks for candy harder than me. But this is not about candy, and if I've found out nothing else in the last week it's that there are a very few choices worth making. And in those ones that do matter, it doesn't matter how far you have to go to make them. At some point, when you stop waiting for life to fall in your lap, you decide what you really want.
When that happens, you're ready to stay up all night in that aisle if you have to. You're ready to fight with the aisle, and be angry at the aisle, and just stop for a minute and rest your head on its cool, smooth foor. Then you try it again. And no matter how long it takes, you know that you just have to stay, and wait. And wait, and pray.
We can make choices, but the impact we have on our lives often feels so small.
Our choices are so often only half the battle. The bigger half is You.
And you.
This and your previous entry are exactly why I wanted you to start a blog.
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