Last night, I was feeling sad. One of those moods that slips over me once in a while.
Not a huge deal. A mood.
Put the girls to bed. Kiss Maj good night.
Kiss Kallan good night.
Kallan reaches for me with outstretched arms, “I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.”
I sit down next to her, “Any particular reason?”
“School’s boring.”
“Yes, well . . . sometimes that’s true. But there are a lot of good things about school.”
“Yeah, I know. But it’s not as good as when we were home-schooling.”
Neither of the girls has ever expressed any sadness at leaving home-schooling behind.
Which, to tell you the truth, has hurt my feelings a little bit.
I worked really hard at home-schooling the girls. We had an amazing time together during that year and a half. An amazing wonderful time.
I was excited to send them to their new school when we moved here last January.
But I also mourned the end of that home-schooling chapter in our lives.
Mourned it all by myself.
A little bit lonely, that.
Anyway.
So I hug Kallan tight, “I miss you during the day, you know.”
She hugs me back, “I miss you, too. I miss all the things we used to get to do together during the day. We were always doing fun things.”
“It was pretty great, wasn’t it? But this way is also great. You know it is.”
Her lower lip quivers, “I know. I miss my friends, though. I forgot how much I missed them until Daddy took us down to Vallejo last week. It was weird to see everything just like I left it . . . but moving on without me. It was like I was just there. Like I was always there. Except not. Different. I wanted to stay. We didn’t get to visit very long or see very many people, and I wanted to stay.”
Tears prick at my eyelids, “I know, babe. You left a lot of important people behind when we moved. It’s hard to go back and then leave again. I know.”
I hold her face in my hands, kiss first one cheek and then the other, “I love you, Kallie. More than anything. Change is hard. You are a very big girl to talk to me about this. You’re growing up all speedy.”
I rumple her hair and tuck her blankets around her, “Stop, OK? Stop growing up. I can’t even keep up with you.”
She smiles and snuggles into her pillow, “Night, Mom. I love you.”
“Night, you. I love you too.”
Ugh.
I walked downstairs, my sadness made deeper by the conversation.
I am not always confident that we made the right choice in moving.
So much that we left behind.
OK, that was hard to say.
Sigh.
But Mark has popcorn! And a movie!
Something called Synecdoche. A comedy.
Yes . . . I could use a little comic relief.
Start that movie up.
I won’t review the movie here. That’s not what I do.
But people? Synecdoche is a huge movie. There are funny moments, but it is not a comedy. It’s the story of creation and mankind and the search for universal truths. The story of the search for meaning and the recognition that in the end there is no meaning.
The story of one man and the story of every human being who has ever lived.
Really.
It is a fucked-up mess of a movie that tries to do too much. The time sequence is all confused. The narrative is convoluted. Characters and identity are slippery transient things. There are moments in which you cannot believe you are sitting here watching this garbage, and then in the next moment? You can’t believe you were ever thinking of looking away.
It is genius. Genius of the messy insane sort.
I was all vulnerable, and this movie just slipped beneath my skin.
The final scene is a voice-over, a mysterious director speaking into the ear of the actor who frets his last moments upon the stage of life . . .
What was once before you—an exciting, mysterious future—is now behind you. Lived. Understood. Disappointing. You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone’s experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone’s everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen. All her meager sadnesses are yours; all her loneliness. The gray, straw-like hair. Her red, raw hands. It’s yours. It is time for you to understand this.
. . . as you recognize your transience . . . as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one . . . as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was . . .
Die.
And fade to black.
Are you fucking kidding me?
I went upstairs to hug my sleeping daughters.
Kiss each of them on the cheek.
Life is transient.
So fuck the sadness and the loneliness.
I will hold these moments right here against that certain future.
And know . . .
That time is short.
Plus also?
Next time, I am picking the movie.
Wow. Now there’s a great pick-me-up movie. Hmph. I may be in huge denial, but I don’t think that me or my family are some meaningless blip. Our parts may be small, infinitesimally so, but I do not believe that they are meaningless.
Anyway.
It is really touching to see that side of Kallan…the non-frisky side. But it makes me a little sad. *sigh*
The point of the movie?
Is that no one thinks he is meaningless.
And that a whole life is spent trying to attach meaning to something which in the end?
Slips away into nothingness.
I didn’t say it was a happy movie.
Oh, lord. I’m the point of that movie?
“I matter! I matter! I matter!”
*blip*
Or not.
LoL
I think it’s your turn to pick a movie…
OK, babe?
You have made me giggle uncontrollably.
Thank you for that.
Thank you so much.
If you spend your time worrying about the past and the future, you will miss out on today.
Its hard letting go of everything except the now. I wish I was better at it.
You have made me all thoughtful and stuff now.
Yes, but . . .
All that has gone before makes this moment right here what it is.
And this moment right here is valuable because of our knowledge that it cannot be held.
And that it slips, as all moments do . . . into the past.
To make way for the new present.
Which just a moment ago was the future.
Sigh.
Wow. Again I bow to your ability to put words together… Just wow.
M
Awwww.
That’s true. All of it.
You word stuff way better than l ever could.
Love.
it simultaneously sucks the big one and rocks the casbah when something like that happens.
Love you
Yes.
Exactly.
All simultaneously.
Wow: coming out of Home Depot the other day it just flashed on me that I’d never watched Synecdoche — that’s spooky!
Incidentally, when it’s your turn to choose? Have u ever by any chance heard of The Reader? Very hot sex, but that’s not why it’s the only video I’ve ever bought (go figure): it’s because every time I watch it I’m grabbed again by the complex moral decisions and ambiguity of the plot. Won’t say any more, but it’s my favorite movie. Oh, by the way, did I mention hot sex?
I have heard there are Nazis in this film.
Eh.
Not so much about movies with Nazis.
Also?
I heard that the hot sex is interrupted with long stretches of boredom.
True?
The Nazis are all in courtroom scene (again, don’t want to say 2 much that might give anything away). I bet some would say rest is boring — it just gave me time to ruminate about the questions of good & evil & morality. One of the reasons I loved it? There’s a key twist at one point, & seeing it again you are of course aware of that in advance so the surprise is gone. And yet I still found it compelling. But maybe I just like ruminating. Does Netflix have a section devoted to ruminating?
Yes.
Lots of ruminative movies.
Filed under C . . . for Cows.
Or B . . . for Bovine.
Possibly.
sigh. I feel the sadness over kids growing and if they are sad. change can be good for kids. it is hard to miss people you love.
sigh.
Heavy sighs.
Moving forward into what comes next.
But yes . . . heavy sighs.
What comes next is often referred to as adolescence. Would be nice to skip that portion: one day, cheerful kid. Next, brooding adolescent. Fortunately,I’ve also seen they eventually emerge from other end of the tunnel.
Yay!
Sigh.
What the hell? That last part of the movie that you quoted is beyond depressing.
Like WTH am I Doing?, I liked seeing the softer side of Kallan. Does that side kill you ever time she shows it? When my “Center of attention/life of the party” guy settles down and opens up, my heart hurts. Sometimes from happiness or pride, or other times out of pure pain and sadness.
It was a depressing movie.
An awesome movie, but a depressing movie.
And yes . . . when Kallan is softer?
I just melt.
this post hits me hard. the hardest thing about parenting is the decisions we have to make FOR our children when they are young. it’s impossible to know if you are doing the right thing.
beautifully written. per usual.
Thank you, babe.
I know that you know what I am talking about.
It’s hard, this parenting thing.
Okay… seriously that was not the movie to watch in that mood!! And I am told I pick strange movies!!
Each life might be small but each has purpose.
Also change sucks. It really does. BUT it always leads to something good, eventually. I believe that, it gets me through sometimes when it looks like crap ahead. When all that’s ahead looks crappy you need something, right? Right.
Crap – I think he should be banned from picking movies for a while..
Big time.
M
I agree with all that you have said.
And I also agree that Mark should not get to pick movies for a while.
Sigh.
BTW: bet when all is said & done you make the right choice: get their education off to great start that they can only get with such personal attention, but then kick them out of the nest for that all-important socialization! Bet you were an incredible teacher and the memories will never fade for any of you.
Also feeling for you with that wave of sadness: hit me last nite with leukemia death of a wonderful friend in combination with some other woes. Last nite I wondered if I was going to have a bout of depression, but with some tough love I’m back @ it today (or at least until the election results roll in @ 8 PM, when I’ll start thinking about whether I’m really a Canadian @ heart, LOL).
Thanks, you.
And my condolences on your loss.
Take some time to mourn that loss.
Seriously.
Your girls are each showing flashes of maturity over there. Scary and exciting all synchronized.
That movie? I’ll save for awhile. Til I’m feeling all pompous and full of myself.
Yes, this would be the perfect movie to cure a case of pomposity.
Do you have those episodes often?
I do not.
Snort!
Plus also?
You have been paying attention.
Happy sighs.
pomposity?!?!?!
Running to dictionary…
If thats a real world, I am going to roll around on the floor and laugh. HARD.
It’s a word!
Silly you.
pomposity
1. vain or ostentatious display of dignity or importance
2. the quality of being pompous
3. ostentatiously lofty style, language, etc.
4. a pompous action, remark, etc.
Hee hee!
HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!
OMG, sides! hurting!
pomposity!!!!!
omg! hurt me!!!
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
it sounds like it should be the noise a hippo makes when walking or something…
ok, Im clearly too silly for polite company right now…
You?
You with your visions of hippo-stomping pomposity?
I love you!
hippo-stomping pomposity?!?!
OMG! I finally got back under control!!!
HA HA HA HA HA!!!!
I HEART WORDS!
And you!!
Kallan captured what’s it’s like to move and then visit again perfectly. life is bittersweet.
I usually love convoluted movies about the transience of life. but I don’t think I can deal right now. I need laughter. but it will go in my endless netflix queue. seriously, I have so many movies in there, I will never see them all.
Kallan is way smart.
She is growing up so quickly.
And this movie? I would save it for a time when its message cannot penetrate so deeply.
A less vulnerable moment than I chose.
That’s what I would recommend.
They just can’t stop growing up, can they? *sigh* My son is grown but in my heart? Still that sweet little boy in the Osh Kosh B’Gosh overalls with a book for me to read to him.
Nihilists make me all stabby. Fine for them to be content with the thought that “Nothing really matters since everything is for naught” but they can all shut the eff up, as far as I’m concerned. *I* choose to believe that the little moments, the sweetness and the agony, that cause our hearts to expand in response to the ones we love are more than enough to validate our existence, our purpose in living. We are here for each other and for ourselves.
That narrator needs a good therapist – and Prozac.
Love those moments that squeeze your heart? Damn right! Love you, too.
Yes . . . and that’s what I try to believe in my life as well.
I really do.
But in a moment of vulnerability?
That fear of the nothingness creeps in.
Oooooh . . . Have you ever seen The Neverending Story?
Such a great movie, with The Nothing threatening existence as belief and imagination fall prey to maturity.
Oh, I want to watch that movie again.
A great movie and a great song too :)
(Neverending story that is, not the crappy one you just saw!)
It was a good movie.
The Luck Dragon?
Love that guy.
If I could have written what “leliaa13p” said…I would have! If nothing mattered then we’d all be robbing banks and eating a dozen twinkies for breakfast…you know?
I will be skipping that movie.
I cherish those moments at bedtime with my kids. My oldest (6 yrs) will talk about anything in order to delay bedtime but then the conversation sometimes turns into something heartfelt and special. And I learn something new about my girl.
OK, but what if we spend our whole lives thinking that those little moments matter and add up to something?
And in the end, they don’t?
Anyway.
I like your version better.
I’m voting that Mark be banned from all movie choices, for like the next year. Sheesh.
I think that going back is always hard. Change is hard as an adult, much less as a nine year old. I have trouble coming home every single time I go to California. I feel like it’s my true home, it’s where I belong. I just don’t happen to get to live there.
Yeah, Kallan was born in Vallejo.
Lived there for her entire life before we moved here.
It is home to her, as much as she likes this new place.
Sigh.
My hubby lost his movie selection privleges after making me watch Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia…what do you think I said when he SUGGESTED Vanilla Sky? That’s right. A swift punch to the sack. ;)
OK, Magnolia?
Loved that movie.
The other two sucked.
I am not a huge Tom Cruise fan.
He annoys me.