We may think we are done with the past...
And Saturday in Homosassa ends with me walking the dogs by starlight. The campground is quieter tonight, although the bar at the end of the boardwalk is a hopping place just before midnight. As I approach, a man in the shadows comments, “You’ve got your hands full”. I assume that he means the three dogs I have on two leashes — they are running in two different directions following their own agendas. But I can’t help but wondering if there is something deeper. After all we’ve just finished watching Magnolia for the umpteenth time — but the first time in about ten years.
Magnolia is one of those beautiful movies I can’t claim to comprehend but only relate to on a purely emotional level — the heart understands and all that. And the performances of the actors each providing, what is to me, a personal best. How can this not affect a life? And a great way to follow a perfect day. Yesterday’s blog posed the rhetorical challenge that things could not possibly get better. But of course they can get better and they did. Sunset tonight was as good or better than last nights despite the noseeums that chased Rrainy inside and left me alone to BBQ chicken and enjoy the sunset —more spectacular than the sunset last night.
And sunset was preceded by a glorious late afternoon sitting in the sun reading and enjoying a beverage on the dock, interrupted only by a couple of morons running their boat through the channel at full tilt eliciting yells from the people upset by the stupidity of their speed and heavy wake. The idiots in the boat yelled back at the profanity from the dock, “Go back north you fuckers” fully clueless of the irony that more than half of my neighbours, and the one’s most upset are full on white-pick-upped Crackers with Florida plates; Floridians yelling at Floridians. But even this rudeness could not intrude upon the glory of the afternoon.
After all, we’d just returned from a brilliant afternoon with my Uncle Norton and Aunt Phyll; my Mom’s brother and his wife. We stopped here specifically to see them, worried a little after our visit last year that this may well be a last. But both looked so much stronger, so healthy and robust that my heart swelled and I was a little embarrassed to have underestimated them. They took us for a wonderful lunch out on Ozello Island, to their favourite little dive restaurant — the Island Outpost. This place, they’ve been coming to for over 20 years — a grocery and snack bar gradually given over to bar and luncheon serving great sandwiches and fries in a room that rings of old Florida; you expect them to be playing only Jimmy Buffet tunes and probably serve a stunning margarita although I had unsweetened tea and a Cuban Sandwich.
Conversation with Norton and Phyl was delightful and wide ranging — the number of people who remember me as a small child is dwindling. And those who remember my Mom as a small child are now down to Norton and really only him. My Mom’s other sister is 4 years younger and so could not remember a thing before my Mom’s 8th or 9th birthday. Norton even remembers my Great Grandfather Norton Sr. who died in Montreal before my Mom was born. We wove a little of my cousin Steve who passed away two weeks ago into the conversation — This is, rather unfairly, the second child they have lost — one in infancy more than 50 years ago and now a second of their four.
But the past is never done with us — and they did seem so happy regardless and this was heart warming as the parallels between then and Lorraine and I otherwise were palpable. Lorraine and Phyl hit it off and I had good chats with Nort about days gone by. It was Nort’s car problems about 1970 or so as he went to drop me and my cousin Cliff somewhere between Windsor and Point Pelee that allowed me to be philosophical about the fridge escapades this week.
Earlier in the day we had awoken to fog and “cold” — we’ve been in Florida now long enough to be accustomed to warm weather. I needed jeans and a sweatshirt to walk the dogs in the morning fog and mist — beautiful and eerie.
Thinking’s couldn’t possibly be more perfect; I couldn’t possibly be more wrong.
Things can be more perfect — but enjoy every minute regardless.
Magnolia is one of those beautiful movies I can’t claim to comprehend but only relate to on a purely emotional level — the heart understands and all that. And the performances of the actors each providing, what is to me, a personal best. How can this not affect a life? And a great way to follow a perfect day. Yesterday’s blog posed the rhetorical challenge that things could not possibly get better. But of course they can get better and they did. Sunset tonight was as good or better than last nights despite the noseeums that chased Rrainy inside and left me alone to BBQ chicken and enjoy the sunset —more spectacular than the sunset last night.
And sunset was preceded by a glorious late afternoon sitting in the sun reading and enjoying a beverage on the dock, interrupted only by a couple of morons running their boat through the channel at full tilt eliciting yells from the people upset by the stupidity of their speed and heavy wake. The idiots in the boat yelled back at the profanity from the dock, “Go back north you fuckers” fully clueless of the irony that more than half of my neighbours, and the one’s most upset are full on white-pick-upped Crackers with Florida plates; Floridians yelling at Floridians. But even this rudeness could not intrude upon the glory of the afternoon.
After all, we’d just returned from a brilliant afternoon with my Uncle Norton and Aunt Phyll; my Mom’s brother and his wife. We stopped here specifically to see them, worried a little after our visit last year that this may well be a last. But both looked so much stronger, so healthy and robust that my heart swelled and I was a little embarrassed to have underestimated them. They took us for a wonderful lunch out on Ozello Island, to their favourite little dive restaurant — the Island Outpost. This place, they’ve been coming to for over 20 years — a grocery and snack bar gradually given over to bar and luncheon serving great sandwiches and fries in a room that rings of old Florida; you expect them to be playing only Jimmy Buffet tunes and probably serve a stunning margarita although I had unsweetened tea and a Cuban Sandwich.
Conversation with Norton and Phyl was delightful and wide ranging — the number of people who remember me as a small child is dwindling. And those who remember my Mom as a small child are now down to Norton and really only him. My Mom’s other sister is 4 years younger and so could not remember a thing before my Mom’s 8th or 9th birthday. Norton even remembers my Great Grandfather Norton Sr. who died in Montreal before my Mom was born. We wove a little of my cousin Steve who passed away two weeks ago into the conversation — This is, rather unfairly, the second child they have lost — one in infancy more than 50 years ago and now a second of their four.
But the past is never done with us — and they did seem so happy regardless and this was heart warming as the parallels between then and Lorraine and I otherwise were palpable. Lorraine and Phyl hit it off and I had good chats with Nort about days gone by. It was Nort’s car problems about 1970 or so as he went to drop me and my cousin Cliff somewhere between Windsor and Point Pelee that allowed me to be philosophical about the fridge escapades this week.
Earlier in the day we had awoken to fog and “cold” — we’ve been in Florida now long enough to be accustomed to warm weather. I needed jeans and a sweatshirt to walk the dogs in the morning fog and mist — beautiful and eerie.
Thinking’s couldn’t possibly be more perfect; I couldn’t possibly be more wrong.
Things can be more perfect — but enjoy every minute regardless.
You had me at Magnolia. That film changed my life forever, for better. I haven't braved it for years, afraid of the torrent of tears that will inevitably come, maybe to wash me away. I must go in there again soon. For now, I'll listen to Aimee Mann and sip my vodka. Sure, a picture might speak a thousand words but your words evoke a million mad pictures, past, present and future. Thank you for saving me "from the ranks of the freaks who suspect that they could never love anyone".
ReplyDeleteI've never seen 'Magnolia'. Now I'll have to. The pictures of the sunset are beautiful.
ReplyDelete