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These things do not Just Happen.
Feb. 5th, 2006 10:53 pmToday I helped usher a woman I've been friends with since early high school--that's well over half my life, in case you're counting--onto a plane to send her back home to an undisclosed midwestern location after a weekend of exotic food and driving and shopping and movie watching, and I'd count that an excellent weekend even if I were doing those things alone, but the fact that I got to do them with someone I think of and miss on a daily basis made them infinitely better. Indescribably better. Coco, don't you want the house with the built-in bookcases on the next block?
And then I went home and set up my pantry with the new shelves my friend bought me at IKEA, and after that, I just sat on my bed and watched Magnolia for the first time in forever. Since I first moved to Macon. And I love P.T. Anderson, and I knew that I loved Magnolia, which in spite of my love for Punch-Drunk Love I consider to be his masterpiece, and it's so beautifully put together and clever and touching and funny but I had forgotten just how much I love it until the end, when John C. Reilly voiced over the part about learning to understand when to forgive and when not to forgive, and I started crying.
I guess this has been on my mind a lot lately, this question, and I'm feeling as though it's one of the most important ones, not only because goddamn, that's a hard thing to do, forgive someone who's genuinely hurt you, not just stepped on your feelings but smashed your life right up, but because so much of a lasting relationship is predicated on it. I listened to John C. Reilly, and then watched him--just the edge of him--sit on the edge of Melora Walters's bed, and her luminous tearful smile straight into the camera, the last thing you see of the movie, and you know she understands that she's found someone who can forgive her and what that means, exactly how important that is. I think that smile straight into the camera is the most beautiful smile I've ever seen.
Maybe it's the most important thing, being able to forgive, at least for me. A big part of I want when I think in the abstract about falling in love and spending the rest of my life with someone is that he have the capacity to forgive me for being me, and in return be forgiven and accept that for the astonishing and rare and lovely thing it is.
Okay, now. Off to watch the commentary.
And then I went home and set up my pantry with the new shelves my friend bought me at IKEA, and after that, I just sat on my bed and watched Magnolia for the first time in forever. Since I first moved to Macon. And I love P.T. Anderson, and I knew that I loved Magnolia, which in spite of my love for Punch-Drunk Love I consider to be his masterpiece, and it's so beautifully put together and clever and touching and funny but I had forgotten just how much I love it until the end, when John C. Reilly voiced over the part about learning to understand when to forgive and when not to forgive, and I started crying.
I guess this has been on my mind a lot lately, this question, and I'm feeling as though it's one of the most important ones, not only because goddamn, that's a hard thing to do, forgive someone who's genuinely hurt you, not just stepped on your feelings but smashed your life right up, but because so much of a lasting relationship is predicated on it. I listened to John C. Reilly, and then watched him--just the edge of him--sit on the edge of Melora Walters's bed, and her luminous tearful smile straight into the camera, the last thing you see of the movie, and you know she understands that she's found someone who can forgive her and what that means, exactly how important that is. I think that smile straight into the camera is the most beautiful smile I've ever seen.
Maybe it's the most important thing, being able to forgive, at least for me. A big part of I want when I think in the abstract about falling in love and spending the rest of my life with someone is that he have the capacity to forgive me for being me, and in return be forgiven and accept that for the astonishing and rare and lovely thing it is.
Okay, now. Off to watch the commentary.
