reality – Hearts Still Care

Today, I was made to feel bad about the fact that I wasn’t adult enough, by a dear, old friend, who is a mentor to me, as well. On the whole, it began with his trip to New Zealand and how he visited all those places that I would love to have seen: Hobbiton, Matamata, the Old Mill, Bag End, SamWise Gamgee’s hobbit home, with the yellow door, Weta Works, etc. Of course, he visited all those places and I didn’t, even though I would have enjoyed them far more than he ever could, for the simple reason that he isn’t a Tolkien book or movie fan, whereas I am all things nerdy, when it comes to Middle-earth.

He gifted me the vinyl figures of Gandalf and Saruman and I loved them so much that I thought of getting the Fellowship. My aunt who was sitting beside me offered to get them for me as gifts and so I went ahead and ordered them online. My partner mentioned this to my friend who wrote to me, later on, during the evening, and chastised me for not saving money and splurging it on unnecessary things.

I understand where he is coming from, of course. I am 44 years old and I save only as much as is required with no great thought about the future and the terrors it could bring. Unbeknownst to him though, I have tackled worst case scenarios in my lifetime and I don’t believe they hardened me enough to let go of the child in me. I have faced the impact of great diseases, taken care of loved ones who have survived them, have also cared for and lost to death those who couldn’t. Childhood was kind and I was loved but my teen years impacted me with the abuse of a father and the torment of being ridiculed for my sexuality. Irrespective, I did well for myself academically and I fixated on happy endings in the books I read and in the movies I watched.

I became a people person, when I grew seemingly confident about myself. I was betrayed in love, I was cast away, I was lost. I lose myself often, when reality strikes with a bludgeoning. But I always find myself, though I was chipped and have lost faith in the existence of gods. I take heart in what they stand for as I battled to see the good in life. Irrespective of the fact that I saw very little of it, I tried to be the good I wanted to see in others. I retained the honest streak I grew up with and still clung to happy endings. As the real got difficult, I clung to the fantastical and saw this as a means to deal with existential truths.

When I see Frodo losing his sanity at the edge of Mount Doom, I revel in the tenacity of SamWise as he rallies forth. I cry when I share Harry’s despair as he realizes he must be sacrificed to shatter a Horcrux – I walked the walk to the Forbidden Forest right alongside him. When Superman flies, I do not see just his indomitable strength of muscle, I take heart in the idea of all that he stands for. At the age of five, Clark Kent taught me to love, to be kind to animals, to take heart in the fact that negativity cannot survive in the end. And apart from the fantastical, a shipwrecked boy finds hope and solace in an Arabian Stallion, he calls Black … it could sustain me a lifetime of memory and faith. Anne of Green Gables assures me that tomorrow has no mistakes in it – yet.

So, I cling to this notion – and if one chooses to call it a fantasy, so be it. I am not sad for being called a child, or of that I am assured of the probability that the future is a bleak prospect. I am crestfallen because growing up is equated with becoming wiser, and that turning a certain age implies that all of childhood is negated. All the lessons I learned from childhood weren’t centered around life being grim and bleak… most of the lessons came from a place where Sith lords ruled the world and then through sheer dent of will and determination, the Jedis cast them down. I go back to the thought of another real life super hero when he enunciates, “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it – always.”

So, I order the vinyl figures of Gandalf, Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Merry, Pippin, Boromir, Legolas and Gimli, to remind me that matters of personal strife, prejudice, envy, greed, error can be overcome with hope, love, faith and determination. As I see them, I will think of the fact that there are people who care about me, who lift me up in my sorrow and guide me towards a future that no one can truly comprehend. Like Gandalf, one can fall and rise; like Gimli and Legolas, one can overcome prejudice; like Sam, one can be steadfast and honourable; like Merry and Pippin, one can relish the child and still be an adult; like Boromir, one can overcome insecurity and fear; and, like Frodo, deal with immeasurable burdens of the heart and soul and eventually be uplifted.

I love romantic movies. Romance comedies. Movies that are centred around the concept of love. I love to see the intricacies of human relationships and how they twist and turn and how they unravel. I love seeing the hero and the heroine or the hero and the hero or the heroine and heroine go through their character journeys, highs and lows, histories and future dreams and interweave them into a surreal diaspora of abstractions.

But love isn’t just an abstraction here. In the realm of Julia and Sandra, Richard and Hugh the story lines pack love and its scope in laughter and tears, with laughter, always laughter, predominating and climaxing. It’s like a wonderful love making. You see the camera swoop from angles and it makes the panorama so pretty. I move from George’s room to Audrey’s face and the song shall forever remain in my heart as its very favourite. It knows with a sated assurance that the cat will be found and the lovers will be reunited under the pouring rain. It makes you believe through those few hours that love will prevail and how love can make you and keep you happy. For a few hours.

Then there are those other movies, where love charges with a brutality that is so forceful it is almost destructive. Almost. You see Kate letting go of Leo as he sinks into the Atlantic, or you see Heath pine away for Jake or Oliver crying for Jenny and your heart shrivels so hard you are afraid it will harden and break. But the movies lift you. They take what you thought was the utter veracity of love and makes you believe if that damn poet was right all along. Wasn’t it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

You come back to seeing this sentimentality and wonder why so much of literature cannot be more of Austen and Bronte. Why Naturalism and Realism drive the nails further into wounds that life shall anyways inflict. Maupassant and Dreiser, Ibsen and Thoreau had their share of an uproar but give me Emma Thompson who makes you cry with her version of Austen. I ache when I see the twist, and I weep when I see the denouement.

Every story told has a grey shade. The times now seem to want to move deeper into the dark. They want to overturn Cinderella and create Into the Woods, they want to disrupt the pastoral idealism of Anne and make her modern. But I would much rather have Cinderella walk down the stairs wearing blue organdy and walk away with her glass slipper and her prince. Happily ever after should remain so – even if it is just for the sake of our imagination. It makes the world better. It certainly makes me feel better!

The colours of romance are always welcome, and writing on love is a sure success. Let tired hearts who have seen too much of reality come into this world, where dreams do come true, and love doesn’t always end up painful and battered. It is such a forceful emotion that I have to end with what I just heard in the movie I saw tonight. Liking someone is always dependent on the adverb clause of reason, but loving someone, ah loving someone, is always dependent on the adverb clause of contrast.