Train Station Scene

I was watching Amelie once when I remembered a scene in the train station. (By the way, Amelie is an excellent magical realism film. Try it out. You might be surprised.) It's the scene where Amelie tells Nino to be at the photo booth at 5:15 and it is there that he figures out the mystery of the "ghost." Amelie sees him scrounging around for torn, discarded photos under the booth and she tentatively walks towards him. Before she reaches him, however, a cart towing luggage passes between them and Amelie stops and turns around. She closes her eyes and stands there for a minute, looking scared and conflicted. It seems to imply that she is still afraid to face Nino and the "reality check" that he represents. Of course, by the time the luggage cart rolls by and Amelie turns around, Nino is gone and the entire train station is suddenly devoid of people.

I sat there watching that scene and thought, "That scene represents my life." The scene was a surreal reflection of how my life felt suspended in that moment. I looked at how Amelie stood there, paralyzed and forlorn, her chance gone again. I contemplated how that seemed so much like what I was doing lately. Having things pass by me and not saying a word. Not taking a chance. Not approaching and seizing the moment. I suppose the train station is symbolic, too. Maybe representative of how trains take people places and Amelie just went to this waiting station not to go anywhere physically, but to go a new direction in her life. To meet someone. Meet someone at the intersection of so many different worlds. While everyone else was rushing off to catch a train or go about their business, she was a person standing still. A solitary bird in an ocean of moving, changing tides. In the scene, it was mostly she who was still. Her and Nino. AND SHE DIDN'T END UP MEETING HIM. She didn't meet the person she set out to meet. By the time the luggage cart passes, Nino is gone. Everyone is gone except for Amelie. Another chance gone by. Another moment lost.

Okay, I am taking this too far. I am probably taking this one scene too seriously. I mean, come on. It's three seconds on a screen. What about the rest of the movie? Well, I suppose I'll have to watch it again and find out.

Starry Night

Friday night, I came home and, like usual, took a glance up at the sky. I was awestruck. It was one of the best starry nights I had ever seen. Seriously, only the Van Gogh painting could have rivaled this. The temperature outside was dropping and I huddled closer into my thin jacket. Yet I still did not go inside right away. I stood out there looking at the winks of starlight embedded into the heavens. The night air was clear, unlike the cloudiness I had seen earlier today. Every place that wasn't obstructed by trees was a ink spill of pastel night blue. The stars rolled in between the open, cavernous spaces of night wash and dark branches of towering trees made an ornate border around the scene. I breathed out slowly, making sure I still felt alive enough to witness this. A fleeting thought in my mind--should I go to the Botanical Gardens to see all this? There, the stars would not have to compete with lamplight and neon signs. There, the sky would be unobstructed. It was like having your own conservatory in which to gaze at the globe of sky above you. I thought about it--thought about sitting on the grass, shivering in a small blanket but feeling like it was all worth it. I replayed that scene multiple times. I had even headed towards my car once or twice. But no. It was late at night and the air was going to be dancing with frost soon. I could see the windows of my car already fogging up because of the chill. Besides, I had other things to do tomorrow and I needed to sleep. That was when I stopped in my tracks. I had grown up, I realized. I suppose one grew up when one had obligations other than to admire nature in all its wonder. Another time, I thought. Tonight was better than a Disney-movie night even, but I would have to wait until another time. If this night never came again, then at least I got a glimpse of it at all. I thought of people who were blind or of ones lying in a coma in a hospital bed. At least I saw it at all. I looked up once more before I went inside. The stars winked back at me, sad but sympathetic, like a child saying goodbye to a mother. Another time, I thought. We'll be waiting, the stars replied.

Chicken Crispers

Chicken Crispers is what decided the whole thing. My roommate Craig and I went to dinner with Lauren, his best friend from high school. Now let me explain something about Lauren--she's one of those people who can pull off being funny without effort. She doesn't regard herself as particularly funny, but her irreverent comments about life leave me laughing so much that I always end up feeling better than before.

Anyway, when she made plans to have dinner with us, she originally wanted to eat a place called Texas Roadhouse--a mainly Caucasian eating place. When Craig asked her why, she said, "Some of my white friends got me into it."

On the way driving there, she changed her mind and wanted chicken crispers. That is how we ended up at Chili's.

The three of us talked about depressing things for the first half of the evening--the people we used to date, news from hometown, friends fighting.

At least Lauren and Craig kept up good banter. I was too drowsy from my coffee dose earlier on to contribute much.

Lauren showed us the headlights on her Jeep when we were driving home. She turned them on and, for a split second, the outside looked like daytime. It was 9 o'clock at night.

Then we listened to depressing Rihanna songs and Lauren dropped Craig and me off at home.

Okay, I didn't tell that very well. I'll try again later.

A Year Off

I was speaking to my friends about what I should do after college. They helped me weigh the pro's and con's of going immediately to graduate school or taking a year off. The latter option sounds tempting. Now. What would I do if I took a year off?

Work 40 hours a week. Pay my own bills. Play music. Learn new skills and meet new people. Not have homework. Watch films. Rediscover myself. Learn what I like.

Learn who I am. All. Over. Again. Or...maybe for the first time?

I suppose I would still visit my parents every once in a while, but mostly, I would learn about the person I could be when I am away from them.

With a year off, I could make lasagna Bolognese. Write letters to people. Save up money. Treat myself every once in a while. Learn to love myself. All over again.

One of my friends stated that it would give me a new perspective on life--I could learn who I was away from my academic identity. This was after I explained to her that I had been going to school for the past 17 years of my life and now I was afraid to do anything else.

I would like more schooling eventually but, my friends do make a point. Who WOULD I be without school?

Maybe, just maybe, I should go find out.

What I want to do...

I've been conflicted lately. Should I go to graduate school right away? Should I work for a few years? Should I just take a year off to rediscover myself? I've been living so long to please other people that I don't know who I am anymore. I don't have any dreams. Not big ones, anyway.


And that's when I realize that I don't like to sit still. Well, I am okay with literally sitting still, but not so much in the figurative sense. I always need to be doing something with my life. I always need to be on a trajectory. It might be because I believe being still or taking time off is equivalent to being a loser. I worry about what others will think.


I worry too much about what others will think. What I want to do is just live in a little cottage tucked away in the countryside somewhere. Maybe England. Maybe France. Maybe I should live near the ocean in Australia. Yes. Live there in my cozy cottage with my vegetable garden and goats. Live there and write and paint and play piano all day. Only go see people once or twice a week. Go swimming in the ocean. Take solitary walks. Brush snow off of tree branches and carve lines of poetry into the sides of my house. Fold a thousand origami cranes and hang them from the ceiling. Make stained glass windows. All kinds of stuff.


Oh. And bake. Bake lots of things. Cheesecakes and pastries. Miniature eclairs and giant, towering red velvet cakes. And sew. Sew night gowns and ball gowns and handkerchiefs. Write children's books. Become a storyteller. Do some amateur filmmaking. Read until I fall asleep in my armchair. Build things. Out of legos. A lego stairway to heaven. Make wind-up clocks and craft kitchen tables. Carve headboards and rocking chairs. Play cards.

But maybe later. Right now, I have to go on and do something with my life first.

Songs

My songs don't match me anymore. Before, the songs I loved used to resonate with me. Somehow, I felt as if a songwriter miles away and worlds apart could write something that was so universally popular yet it felt as if they were speaking directly to me. As if my heart were speaking directly to me. Now, I don't have that feeling anymore. I feel as if the songs are empty, as if they always talk about a happiness or a love that I don't have. That I will not have. Before, songs used to make me feel optimistic. Now they seem as if they are telling me useless platitudes. Now the songwriters and singers of the songs seem as if they are just telling me about their life, as if they were commenting on the weather instead of speaking to my insecurities. I don't know. Maybe I'm just making too big a deal out of this. And yet I don't want to give up my music because that would mean that I would be thinking too much about things that are better off left alone. I don't want to be like that anymore. And I believe music deserves better than that. It shouldn't just be a distraction. But what else can I do? Sitting in the silence makes me numb and it seems as if my mind goes into a mode of tunnel vision. All I see is a vast, gray, endless expanse. A tunnel with a light at the end that I will never reach.

All right. Enough with the emo talk. I need to get out there and do something REAL with my life. Like my homework.