Boyhood

Last week I went to see Richard Linklater's epic film Boyhood. If you like action adventures, don't go. I loved it to bits.

Nathaniel, writing in TheFilmExperience.net says this:

Boyhood is less about its narrative than the experience of making one's own story through living, romanticizing, examining and sometimes confronting life itself.

Making ones own story. We can find ourselves wasting our lives trying to get a walk-on part in someone else's story when in reality we are starring in our own show right now, just like Truman in The Truman Show. We are real, but only when we are not playing a part.

We should be celebrating at every twist and turn because this is our life. We are not waiting for it to start, we cannot disown the bits we don't like, they are all what we are.

There is a beautiful scene in Boyhood, where the boy Mason's Mum casually advises an immigrant labourer to go to evening classes and learn English because he deserves better in life. Years later she is served by him in the restaurant he now manages, having gone to class and made good. She is struck speechless. She realises that in her preoccupation with her career and her relationships, much of her life has gone by unnoticed.

"You know what I'm realising? My life is just going to go. Like that. This series of milestones. Getting married. Having kids. Getting divorced. The time that we thought you were dyslexic. When I taught you how to ride a bike. Getting divorced... again. Getting my masters degree. Finally getting the job I wanted. Sending Samantha off to college. Sending you off to college. You know what's next? Huh? It's my fucking funeral!"

It has been said that life is what happens while you are making your plans.

We should all celebrate the life we have. It may not be exactly what we wanted, or what we were expecting, but it is ours and it is precious. One day our story will end. May it be a good story. May it have a happy ending.

Prequel

Written 12th September 2006, Jimena, Andalucia

This is the snapshot of the moment.

I'm sitting on the tiled roof, a few shirts listlessly rocking in the quiet air.

Above and on my left, the old Moorish castle walls crumbling defiantly while chickens cluck and cocks crow.

Below me and on my right the jig-saw pieces of mottled tiles and white walls lie strewn and seemingly forgotten down the hillside to the centre, where the church tower clangs mechanically to an absent audience.

Beyond the town, fields and trees, green and tawny gold, barking dogs, snoring cars sleepily following some distant purpose of their own, reduced to the scale of ants by the mountains which rise is a grey-blue haze to the white-whisped blue warm sky.

This is a snapshot of me in chains. For as long as I strive to capture the moment, to have it and hold it, to freeze it and dry it, to pin it on the wall and admire it, for as long as I try to own the view, I shall never be a part of it. Every line I write is a line drawn between me and my desire. All my snapshots are scenes seen from the bars of my cell.

Just as your true-love can never truly love you until you give her freedom, so no picture, no music, no moment can be saved for a rainy day; it will fall through a hole in your pocket; it will turn sour. Love is shown in the letting go. So let these times sing for you, dance for you, then let them leave the stage. Drink the wine while it is warm and drink ye all of it. Gather the manna while it is fresh and save none for later. God is in the downs as well as the ups; he is in the valley of the shadow of death and on the banks of Sheol. He is on the mountain top. The moment sits like a dandelion seed in the palm of your hand then you blow it away with a wish and it is gone over the wall and out of sight.

How can you have a holiday that lasts forever? How many sights do you have to see before you can sleep in the sand? How many postcards to buy, how many sangrias to sink? One morning you wake to find yourself at home though you have not moved, and you cannot think a clear thought for the confetti of casual acquaintances, and you cannot see out for all the sights you have taken in.

First then, for the holiday of a lifetime, you must give away the holiday and then go. Enjoy the flight out; enjoy the flight back; enjoy the sun; enjoy the rain. Enjoy the friendship of others; enjoy the friendship of yourself. Find peace in the noise; find a poem in a drop of water.

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Now I am in the garden. Pen in one hand, beer in the other. It's warmer now. Water clatters into the pool while the fountain motor whirls. I sit in the dappled shade of an orange tree, my feet on the cool cobbles. Curious friendly ants explore my arms and feet. A fly fidgets forgetfully before flying off. I look down the dusty red-flagged steps to the dark cool of the house, where, out of sight on the couch, a guest ginger cat sleeps insouciant, head back, eyes narrowed to a smile of bliss. I immerse myself in the moment, screw it up and throw it away; a moment later it comes back, having freshened up. Such is the grace of God.