DINNER AND A MOVIE - Mark’s Musing Thursday Dec. 31, 2009

today’s Musing  written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park

 

Morning walk: -22C/-8F, overcast, calm, we ran to save some time – Gusta thought that was her cue to run faster than me…. not by much, but you get my point; I’m back, winded, breakfasting . . savoring last morning walk of the year.

 

It’s New year’s eve. Some people party (I’m doing dinner and a movie with a friend); some people party hearty, some drink it all in, some drown the old one(s) with melancholy, tears and alcohol.  Some people rent a stack of movies and pop the popcorn.

 

Summing up my year: like reviewing a movie; was it comedy or tragedy, drama, thriller, romance, documentary, chick-flick?  Did it leave a deep impression, change my life or just leave buttered popcorn stains on a favorite sweater? 

 

This year’s great moments, sad ones too; moments of great joy, moments of substantial learning, and – in between - too much filler, lost time spaces that seemed like fine activities at the time, routine, but so much of it lost from memory, it’s value questionable. Maybe Charlie Chaplin was right: ‘In the end, everything is a gag’.

 

2009 is over.  Did it have value, or just take up time, or hold lessons – setting stage for 2010?  Some of it, forgettable series of clock tics or like the metaphor rich silent film - Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Little Tramp’, conveying so much meaning without a word?

 

I came across a T.S. Eliot quote that got me thinking about a movie (The Magus); of past dreams, past loves, past mistakes … and I wondered if a movie review made as much sense as year-end retrospectives.  I remember one line, more than the movie; it was one of Eliot’s: ‘We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started … and know the place for the first time’.  I was no student of Eliot, hadn’t read his work. This line was quoted by John Fowles in The French Lieutenant's Woman, not because I read it, but because it was quoted in a movie The Magus, spoken by Michael Caine as he passed that wisdom to Candace Bergen’s character.  I don’t recall her character’s name, I was only there to watch Candace Bergen. I looked it up.  She was Lily.

 

So, Caine (Nicholas Urfe), who’d met the magician Anthony Quinn (Maurice Conchis), said those words to Lily. I think it was him, or was it Conchis? Mostly I remember Lily’s awesome classic beauty, and those words; some memory of a gorgeous Greek Island. OK, you guessed it, I had huge thing for Candace Bergen back then (I was in my prime – 17 –- in 1968).

 

If my year was to be summed, it might be described as ‘full circle’ in terms of an emotional and creative roller-coaster; ups, downs, turns, speedy parts, slow parts – and an ending.  Is it happy?  Some parts.  Resolution of ‘not happy’ deposits me at this starting point of a new chapter, a going off point, a going forward place, as if intermission is over – time for the next segment of this movie.

 

Orson Welles said: ‘If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.’   As this year ends, the story continues, one not for stopping - new year begins; and we shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started … and know the place for the first time.

 

Fade to black - THE END

 

Mark Kolke

325,636

196.8

 

 

RESPONSES/COMMENTS ALWAYS WELCOME; send to musing@maxcomm.ca

 

 

 

December 30  Responses  

 

December 30 – UNTIL IT ARRIVES – My heart goes out to you both, Mark.  I remember someone saying to me: “I’ve done some research.  Menopause can last until you are 65.  I’m not sticking around that long.” – that was an end and a beginning too.  It was both the end of a 13 year relationship and the beginning of building and fulfilling some items on a ‘bucket list’.  Horribly painful, but being a moth flying into a flame wasn’t a choice. Death was, but those left behind would be hurt, would never understand, and although the courage to destroy oneself was there, the heart to hurt others was not.  The new path led to a rich platonic relationship, full of excitement. Then it led to a mortgage with only one name on it.  It led to Australia, where a choice was made not to remain there as someone’s spouse.  It led to Finland, Wales, almost every province across Canada and to someone who could see beyond and see what the other person could not.  No fault there. Each day, there’s another path and the bucket list grows.  Happiness is here, but it is also in Hawaii – I live here and dream of the other, sweet dreams without tears.  Opportunity is here, I will visit my dream often. JW – Calgary/Cochrane, AB

 

December 30 – UNTIL IT ARRIVES - My, my, Mark.  After reading the last paragraph of this musing, I am beginning to think that right before my eyes, you are turning into a real local, Maui boy!  Learning to 'hang loose' a little already.  Good.  The answer to the last question is: only in becoming little do we become great. It's about sheer faith, humility and absolute trust. Follow the dream, Mark, and you will find the reason for sleeping.  Step out and be not afraid, LP, Wailuku, HI

 

December 30 – UNTIL IT ARRIVES - Glad to see the techno challenge was resolved, and that you included my response. Onward dear friend!, SW, Coeur d'Alene, ID