1. It looks like my trip back east at the end of the month will include a visit, almost right off the bat, with The Troxstar in his home state of Massachusetts. It's going to happen, but we have a few details to iron out about what we want to do and, today, I pushed that process forward a bit in an email with some of my thoughts. I also learned that it's highly likely that I'll be able to spend time, at some point, between June 7th and 11th with Scott and Cate Shirk somewhere in New York City -- Manhattan, maybe? Brooklyn, possibly? That's not nailed down at all, but at least I know we'll be able to work out some kind of plan during that week.
2. I spent much of the afternoon today watching, feeling the impact of, and thinking about the movie Manchester By the Sea. The movie tells the story of Lee Chandler, who, in his late thirties/early forties lives alone, works as a custodian for apartments in Quincy, MA, and has the small world of his present life upended when his brother dies and he's named, in his brother's will, as the guardian of his teenaged nephew.
I really don't want to give away much of this movie. Even though the movie is about five years old and was an award winner, I watched it today knowing very little about it. Not having the cushion of foreknowledge about the movie, it disturbed me a lot and crowded my mind for the rest of the day and evening. I knew the bare bones of the story -- no more than what I wrote in the previous paragraph. But, as the movie progressed and as I learned more about Lee Chandler's and his families' past and as I watched Lee work out things with his nephew, the movie's emotional content gripped me more and more.
As I felt the impact of Manchester By the Sea and thought about it, I also thought about how much my response to movies has changed over the years. I used to thrive on watching movies like Manchester by the Sea. I loved movies that dealt with suffering, not because I loved the suffering, but because I didn't enjoy escapism. I still enjoy serious movies way more than escapist movies, but not in high volume, not with the voraciousness I used to possess. I was thinking today that after watching Manchester by the Sea, I'd need a few days to recover from it and there was a time when I'd go straight from one movie like it to another, either at home or in the theaters. Not now. I think being older and having had more experience, this movie hit me hard and the suffering it portrayed got more into my guts and less into my head the way these movies did years ago.
3. Debbie went to Growler and Gill today in West Nyack and sent me a picture of the DIPA she was drinking, brewed by Equilibrium of Middletown, NY. I loved having the sensation return, through memory, of the great DIPAs I enjoyed back east and I could almost smell Debbie's beer while looking at the picture. Later, Debbie called and we discussed the uncertainty of the next several months, leaving ourselves plenty to talk about when we see each other starting May 29th. Our hope is that as this month proceeds, we'll know more about a variety of things that will help us see what we can expect for the remainder of 2021.
It's all good.
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