As we careen towards the end of February, I have been left to reflect on the fact that I have been writing very little in this blog. My journals at home receive my semi-regular scrawls fitfully, but somehow I have little interest in continuing to post here. It may soon be an abandoned site on the internet, a useless appendix that may or not be surgically deleted.
The Academy Awards are coming up this Sunday, and I have been thinking about recent films I have seen. I did get a chance to see Terence Malick's "The Tree of Life", and it was film that seemed overly ponderous. The visuals were entrancing at times, and I did identify with the family dynamics that were evident in the story of the three brothers, but more than anything else, I was taken with the idea of eschatology, the desire for a reconcilation and the arrival of meaning, as evident in the journey of the Sean Penn character as he steps through the door in the desert to follow his younger self, encountering loved ones at a beach at the end of time. For it does seem to lead to what feels like a conclusion, where the old encounter the young, where we come into contact with ourselves and hopefully achieve a sense of peace. And it made me think as well of my own desires, one of which is my wish to have spent more time with my paternal grandmother, a person I knew for only a brief interval of time during the decade of the 70s, and who I have missed ever since.
I also recently saw the move "Crazy Heart", with Jeff Bridges doing a wonderful job as an aging country singer, Bad Blake, and his attainment of a certain regeneration. On the other hand, I seem that the tone of the film was too saccharine at time. We all know that these stories are not meant to end in a happy manner. The aging singer would in all probability have continued to drink himself into oblivion, and the happy ending is perhaps a brief fantasy that is the product of a dying mind, of a character who is lying in a cheap motel living the last few seconds of his life after having had a heart attack. That somehow seems truer.
There are other endings to mention. We are almost at the end of February, and we have had a cycle of extreme weather. We had cold that left us walking around with trails of frozen mist in our stead, but also days of extreme warmth such as today. I'm still walking/jogging in the park, but lately, walking more than the other. My body feels exhausted, and I have to bribe myself to go exercise, promising myself a treat in order to motivate myself to go out. Tighter pants and burst buttons on my shirts also serve to motivate me, as well as the fear of a stroke or heart attack, so I proceed on a regimen of fear and embarrasment, trudging and forcing myself ocassionally to pick up the pace.
Coming up next: I'd like to finish re-reading "One Hundred of Solitude". I also have the film "The Big Lebowski" in my DVD player. There are also other books and movies to read and watch, but also, other matters to attend to this evening. Maybe reflecting that I am not where I thought I would be at my age, but then, I do everything else in order not to have to confront this fact.
Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013
