Save Your Dry Cleaner Bags…….
June 4, 2011
I have lately been into watching movies that I can stream from Netflix….and since I have seen most US films made in the last 10 years …have switched to Foreign Films…and man….there is such a vast banquet there….without the sexual hangups that we Americans have….it is thoroughly refreshing….
just finished an Italian movie “Il Compleano” … which has…well I really don’t know why I say this but guess because I am from the puritanical USA…but it has in one of its segments this straight guy who realizes he is bisexual….
it all is quite moving …. you are drawn to the heady overpowering essence of the Mediterranean…which makes you want to be overlooking the coast as the waves crash as you chat with your lover and friends as you all are imbibing a glass of vino………..
it turned me onto Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde”and an Italian singer Loretta Goggi…….
it is all quite wonderful…and made me realize how far I have come….from the days of my grands…..her with her whale bone – (what I thought were urine stains.but could not have been due to positioning) corsets drying on the back room radiator in St Paul Minnesota….and of my grandfather….a self made man who was embarrassed to say he only had an 8th grade education…who NEVER talked …like me….sitting in a chair in the front (high ceilinged ) parlor of their house at 825 Fairmount Avenue….his just sitting alone…and all you could see of him as the dusk drifted into night was the ember of his cigar……..as he never had a light on as it would cost…it is quite sadly romantic in my memories……
I saw a wonderfully quirky movie today with Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer “Beginners” ..and a wonderful Jack Russel Terrier …which is basically told through Ewan’s eyes young and old ….in a comfortable flashback way…..about after his mom dying…his father (Christopher P..) coming out at the age of 75…. as the gay man he had always been….which his wife knew when she married him but thought she could fix…..and then there is the love story of Ewan (Oliver) and this gorgeous French Actress Melanie Laurent….who reminds me so strongly of my niece Laura , and friend Laura T (yeah I fall for Laura’s)….they have the same subtle knockout beauty and same dry sense of humor……which I totally love…..
I guess it is the scenes when Christopher comes out and gets a younger lover ….and for the first time in his LIFE lives Life the way he ALWAYS wanted and was supposed to live it…well it reminds me soo much of my mom…of how after Dad died she TOTALLY changed into the person she was meant ALWAYS to be….and man was it a beautiful transformation
….she would go out until the wee hours of the morning ….. starting at the Dakota Jazz Club in St Paul …and going onto Leslie Ball’s Improv Space at midnight in Minneapolis …and then onto pizza with the cast …..this was when she was in her 70’s…….getting home at 3 or 4…….and when Christopher was dying…he was like Mom….happy and smiling…………. as he HAD LIVED!!!!
I read an article tonight at my fave Thai joint this article in the The New York Mag….an interview with now 81 year old Chris Plummer…where he discusses the movie…(and by the way Chris is straight)….he says ” Goran Visnjic (Plummer’s gay lover in the movie) “was nervous, ’cause he’s very butch, and he would be pacing up and down and saying, “My God, My God, we’ve REALLY got to kiss” and I got petulant about it and said “What’s so BAD about kissing ME?” It was nerve racking, but once it happened, it was rather pleasurable, actually….We fell into it as if we’d always been gay.”….
and to watch that scene…it WAS VERY convincing!!!!!
all of this made me think about my own death…..and state of mind (after I left groceries in my car all last night….and realized it only when I went to grab a banana off the top of the frig…this AM …that they were., alas, STILL in the car…)
……..as I now breathe on a Happy 65…..I guess it is NOT wanting to be a burden on anyone…..wish when the time comes…I can wander out into the snows of Alaska and just go to sleep…
or as Mom always said to me…”Oh Heck….just grab one of my dry cleaner bags …..”….which I would have done if she had been in pain….but though she spent it seems like forever bedridden …with her eyes closed…and not speaking…….when she died she had this beautiful smile on her face….that made me furious……and I just wanted to shake her and ask her……. WHY was she smiling?????
I will find out some day…………………….(smile)
You say “all of this made me think about my own death” You better not die for a looonnngggg time yet, my friend. I need to spend time with you. There are holes that need filling, memories to check, long time questions that need to be answered – which only YOU can do. I’m sending you an email.
Tom