My problem with me is that I often want to see life as a movie.
I have always been the same.
Ever since I was a little boy and Shelley Winters got stuck up that Christmas Tree in The Poseidon Adventure.
Like Shelley, things were always larger than life.
I’ve joined an LGBT+ reading club in Chester, and the organise Alison has confirmed my application with a sweet email but I know that there is a part of me that is expecting the first meeting to be a little like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, what with Dawsey Adam’s hole filled jumper and Isola Pribby’s sweetly dotty spinster.
Of course it won’t be, but I know that
I get it.
Certain scenes in my life do have a cinematic resonance to them.
And we all experience these, do we not?
Dancing on the roof of Weston Park Hospital with friends one night in 1990 would have made a delightful vignette for any coming of age movie staring Molly Ringwold and John Cusack.
Christmas Morning 2002 when me, The Prof and two dogs climbed all over each other in a hug fest that told me I had my own family for the first time in my life could have graced James L Brooks’ Terms of Endearment .and My Grandmother calling out “ My Poor Poor Boy “ when she saw his coffin in Church would have sent an icy chill over any audience watching Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice.
The film clips stand. But life isn’t a movie.
We plod along
Today nurses will strike in Wales for the first time in welsh history
The postmen have already marched out and the rail drivers will go next week.
It’s all a bit serious, but at least I can smile as Mrs Trellis’s erect bobble hat can muster a few laughs aka Mrs Pumphrey in All Creatures Great And Small
Reality lies , as it always seems to do, between the too worlds .
The ordinary and the cinematic
My meatballs looked lovely but were hard as bullets
Albert peed on the carpet for the third time yesterday morning
And I did get a distinction for my first assignment, feedback lying somewhere in Google classroom.
Hey ho
Life has it's 'movie moments', but life also is just plain hard sometimes. I'm sorry. Christmas is such a difficult time for a lot of people in this old world.
ReplyDeleteMaking life into movies is a typically child like thing to do me thinks
DeleteIt did strike me today that making your life into a movie rather encourages a third person perspective to your life rather than a first person livnig of your life. But, all the same, life can be wonderful and majorly suck, sometimes all in the same day.
DeleteCongratulations on the Distinction - that is a great result. The 'movie moments' are for savouring, counterbalancing the grind of our difficult world. We're in Covid quarantine at present, so the grind is cancelling all the lovely End of year gatherings. Never mind, we will survive.
ReplyDeleteThank you ginny
DeleteIt has never occurred to me to think of my life as movie scenes, or even as part of a novel. Perhaps I should start? But what genre, hmmmmm, what genre?
ReplyDeleteOccult lesbian fantasy and legal thriller mash up!
DeleteNow that’s something I’d read
DeleteSheesh, me too!
DeleteFor too long I thought I was in one of those old black and white films where the lady threw herself absolutely disraught onto the bed sobbing x
ReplyDeleteWelcome to my world
DeletePerhaps Albert is trying to summon your diagnostic expertise. Might he have a urinary tract infection?
ReplyDeleteI think it’s senility
DeleteI hope your Chester Book Club goes well, you never know who you might meet!
ReplyDeleteWoohoo
Deletewoohoo,too
DeleteCongratulations on your distinction! Great when hard work and ability give a good result.
ReplyDeleteYou're so right about the intense highs and lows being only a part of life. Much of it is absolutely the everyday boring, irritating and draining stuff. Along with just the simple happy and content ones. No big deal but just the joy of being alive. I'm having to look harder for that at the moment with everything that is going on.
I guess I’m just making myself look more interesting x
DeleteI've seen the The Potato Peel moving but I didn't remember Michiel Huisman. He is quite nice. So, the school boy did quite well with his studies. Good work.
ReplyDeleteHe’s quite delightful
DeleteHaving experienced dramatic lows of life when I was a child, I'm very grateful for the calm and mundane.
ReplyDeleteHummm I guess I prefer drama
DeleteHighs, lows and the boring middle bit. All part of the rich tapestry of life. Hoping the book club fulfils its brief - and more. Poor old Albert. I remember my cats becoming incontinent, when nearing the end. As long as he's otherwise alright ... Well done, that boy, for the distinction. We expected nothing less from our star pupil! xx
ReplyDeleteThe book club , will I’m sure make an interesting blog entry x
DeleteCongratulations on the distinction. I do know what you mean. I sometimes see life through writer's eyes. It can help as a mental buffer.
ReplyDeleteIt makes things more interesting
DeleteWow I have missed so many post Loved your lights and that would make a wonderful Christmas card, YEA ! for your writing and sorry to hear about Albert. Our old old old so sweet cats died 2 months apart. We just think they will be around forever especially Albert he is so special.
ReplyDeleteHe’s 15 now Gayle
DeleteWell done on the distinction, obviously it was a brilliant first assignment.
ReplyDeleteMy life would have to be a comedy film or maybe just a mad episode of The Good Life, too many images spring to mind of me being a midwife for pigs, chasing new pigs that ran straight through the electric fence and were running hell for leather towards the M4, knocking chickens down out of trees and one landing on me etc etc. We'll gloss over the heartache years, the sliding down walls in a messy fit of gut wrenching tears spending my first Christmas totally alone etc etc, I dread to think what film that would be.
Mavis is also now in that age of doggy life when the occasional incontinence happens while she sleeps ... Alan can attest to how many pairs of jeans he has had to wash when she has been asleep on his knee, Suky sometimes gets confused and mistakes the large dog bed for an indoor toilet in the middle of the night ... and THEN comes to tell me that she has had an accident, but fingers crossed Ginger the cat, who is actually the eldest is managing just fine.
I totally get this reply, totally xx
DeleteSometimes I think that movies are life with all the boring bits edited out. probably just as well we have those in between!
ReplyDeleteU have put your finger on it exactly deArheart
DeleteWell done on the assignment distinction - that must feel really encouraging. With regards to seeing life as a movie - I am much like you. I over dramatise movements and expressions for effect and I even told my family last year that I tend to catastrophise everything (as if they didn't already know!)
ReplyDeleteIt’s the first academic thing I’ve written in decades
DeleteOh, I totally agree.
ReplyDeleteMy life, for example is kind of an ongoing soap opera. Well shot and costumed, but a soap opera at the end. Think Downton Abbey. Without the manor.
And Unions sometimes necessary.
XOXO
I’m too scruffy to ever spear in a costume drama ( except one of the staff)
DeleteYour way of telling stories is often cinematic. Descriptive, visual, entertaining, heartbreaking. Maybe you can be a screenwriter in your next life.
ReplyDeleteBetter than a guppy x
DeleteSaying that life isn't a movie is like saying that there is no Santa. Sacrilidge and absolutely not true! I have lived most of my life scene by scene and act by act and a wonderful extended feature length movie it has been and continues to be. Laughs, drama, tears, misery and joy all rolled into one amazing production.
ReplyDeleteI kind of still agree with you my friend …you show girl you
DeleteHas my comment gone into spam or did I forget to hit send?
ReplyDeleteThe latter ….I’m afraid x
DeleteThen I'll say again that it might explain why your blog URL title is something to do with disaster movies.
DeleteMy first love
DeleteI've also felt some moments to be cinematic. I wonder what people thought before the dawn of movies? They weren't imagining life through a lens.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Trellis with her bobble hat is definitely a cinematic character.
Some people are visual others wordy, if you are lucky u are both
DeleteWith photos and text, your blog is a movie of life.
ReplyDeleteI guess that’s the idea
DeleteI don't think about movies as much as you do, John. By the way, I watched A Boy Named Christmas on Netflix and it was sweet and sappy but I enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteMy life has always been punctuated by movies, always
DeleteKitty diaper for Albert
ReplyDeleteBless him
DeleteCongratulations on your distinction.
ReplyDeleteLovely
DeleteMovies provide escapism - and despite how good life is going along there's always a need for some of that!
ReplyDeleteRE: your meatballs! John you must make your own. Being a non-meat eater for 40+ years I only make them for Bob about twice a year and did that this week. I learned (online of course) that to prevent them being hard and dry, always soak the breadcrumbs in a little milk before mixing in to the remainder of the ingredients! My Italian version got kudos from both hubby and granddaughter who stopped by and shared.
I did make my own lol
DeleteBravo & well done on the distinction! Sorry to hear poor Albert continues to have "little accidents" on the carpet. It's so hard to watch our little furry ones age and all that entails. Hugs, John dear.
ReplyDeleteMind u it’s still - 6 out tonight before I left for work , I wouldn’t go out if I was a cat
Delete
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on the distinction. You're off to a great start with many more to come. It is a good thing that we do not know what is going to happen next. I say, take the good with the bad and everything in between...what's the alternative? It's Christmas...let's not go there.
I’ve got a brain I just need to use it
DeleteA Distinction on your report!!! Applause, applause.
ReplyDeleteSorry your meatballs were tough and lees than lovely.
Loss of bladder control was one of the signs our cat was not long for this world. That proved true. I hope it's a treatable UTI for Albert.
Hugs!
I’ve tested it , no infection.
DeleteGlad to see the public is overwhelmingly in support of the nurses strike. They need proper recognition for the horrendous conditions they've had to put with over the last few years.
ReplyDeleteI suspect nhs nurses will get 4 % rather than the requested 19%
DeleteWhen Labour left office, The NHS was in pretty good shape. The Tories' barely hidden agenda these past twelve years seems to have been to push The NHS to breaking point. Many NHS professionals seem to believe that what The Tories want is to create a two tier system - private health care for those who can pay and basic "medicare" for the poor. An awful tragedy is unfolding before our very eyes. They didn't even put it in their manifesto.
ReplyDeletePS: Do you suppose that (like his owner) Albert is having some kidney issues?
ReplyDeleteThat is crazy to have so many essential service people go on strike. What is happening to the British infrastructure and government. Spoken by a British native now living in the USA. We have other problems over here.
ReplyDeleteIs there a possibility that the walls of the litter box are too high for Albert to comfortably climb over with his poor leg? I cut down the front of my cat's box by a good inch to ensure the old boy could still get in. Just a thought. And congrats on your first assignment!
ReplyDeleteFantastic result on the distinction....not so much on Albert's incontinence poor boy. Dunno about my life being a movie... it would be a pretty crappy boring one that no one would want to watch without saying... told you so!
ReplyDeleteJo in Auckland
Life is like a movie, except the good clips are not condensed into 90 minutes. But I think we can all think of 90 minutes or more of good times.
ReplyDeleteIf life is like a movie then I'm very much hoping for Mara in the final scene in 'Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow' that I've just watched on Bfi player - a subscription that's well worth the money (a good selection of LGBT films on there too).
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