It was a miracle. I was able to align the planets Thursday night and make it out to the movies. Does that not seem miraculous to you? Then you musn’t have children. Because once you do procreate, your visits to the cinema will become so infrequent, once you actually make it to a theater you will be old enough to bitch about the price of tickets and popcorn, and complain about your back hurting half way through the movie.
Planning a movie date is like planning a military expedition. The sitter must be booked and show times must be selected. This is why H and I never get to the movies. Who thought up “dinner and a movie” as a date? The timing makes no sense. At least in theaters in the tri-state area, the only evening showings are typically in the neighborhood of seven and nine o’clock for movies that aren’t playing in multiple theaters, and none of the movies I want to see, with the exception of The Expendables, are in high enough demand by fourteen year-old boys to warrant hourly showings. So choosing between those two movie times you wind up with two scenarios. Seeing the movie at seven requires either eating with the ninety year-olds at five o’clock, or waiting to eat after the show, which really translates into eating yourself into a fake-butter-Twizzler coma which really sets the stage for some date night bedroom action. Alternately, one can see the nine o’clock show, which allows for a leisurely dinner, but it also means getting home close to midnight, which unless it’s a Saturday night, is way past my bedtime. Next door to my bar, I plan on opening an adults-only (non-porn) theater that has an eight o’clock showing . Instead of theater seats, there will be tables for two and dinner will be served. And of course, wine.*
One way to decrease some of the difficulty of the whole movie process is to catch the early show on a weeknight with my girlfriends. Of course, it adds the annoying factor of husbands missing trains or being called into late meetings, forcing emergency babysitting to be procured (I’m looking at you, H), but it can be done. And that’s how this week, I managed to see Eat, Pray, Love.
I went to the movie with pretty much no expectations other than enjoying some Julia Roberts (how can you help but love her?), food porn** and pretty scenery. Having read the book upon which the movie was based, I was not surprised to be annoyed by watching a financially stable, well-educated woman travel around the world in order to find happiness, with all the self-indulgent navel-gazing associated with that process. I just could barely keep myself in my seat for wanting to jump up shouting, “Get over yourself, lady!” And this wasn’t just because I sort of don’t like Elizabeth Gilbert. It just made me think, we all have too much damn time on our hands to determine if we are “happy”.
The movie got me thinking, all of the existential nonsense we all go through is only possible because we are not working from sun up to sun down trying to scrape together sustenance for ourselves and our families, before falling into an exhausted sleep as soon as it got dark. Instead, we find ourselves up at night, agitated into alertness from too much visual stimulation via TV and computer, wondering, “What am I doing with my life?” Part of Gilbert’s trip is visiting an ashram in India to reconnect with her spirit. As part of the process at there Gilbert performs an act of selfless devotion each day. Her assignment was to scrub floors. I nearly laughed out loud. She is paying thousands of dollars to do what I do every Tuesday. I’m sure paying to scrub floors guarantees you don’t have to do it with a toddler hanging off your back trying to play “horsey”. Maybe we’re all the wrong kind of busy – the kind where we are racing to make trains, constantly checking our Blackberries and running to the store to buy birthday party favors. Maybe being more physical and less cerebral is the answer. Which, I know, is so possible for the average American. So what do we do? Get comfortable with our misery?
Sure, some people meditate and do yoga. I personally, can not sit still for that long and if I’m going to spend time working out, I’d better be able to wear skinny jeans as a result. Yes, I know Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow are yogis and they are thin, although Madonna has made the wrong ass-face decision***, but I think there is something in the DNA of those people and lucky you if you are one of them. But what if we thought of our lives like living on an ashram like Gilbert? Viewed in that light, we all perform acts of selfless devotion, whether it be going to work everyday or taking care of our children (can you think of a better, more accurate description of parenthood?), and our lives can take on a deeper meaning other than driving us mad. What we do each day can be a contribution instead of a drain.
As usual, I have no answers, and, yes, I do feel kind of ridiculous that this movie made me think about anything other than eating pizza. I just don’t think we need to run away from our lives to feel connected to them or to see how we fit into the bigger picture. And if I’m going to be scrubbing anyone’s floor it’s damn sure going to be my own.
*And, yes, I snuggled a bottle of wine into the theater. Shut up.
**I hate movies that try to be enlightened by pointing out how ridiculous it is American women suffer from food issues by having thin women pretend to eat lots of food, happily accept they have gained some weight while enjoying such pleasure, and run out to buy new “big lady pants”, which they show us in a montage of size four body models struggling to button up size two pants.
***There comes an age, according to Coco Chanel, when every woman must choose between a good-looking ass and a young-looking face. I, myself, plan on using this as an excuse to start binge-eating donuts when I turn forty-five. Sorry, H.
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