You know, when I wrote the first comment, I was reminded of act III in Our Town. Emily is dead and sitting in the graveyard with all of the other dead, but she knows--she senses--that she can go back and re-live it all over again. And she says that she'll chose a happy moment--like when her baby was born or when she first knew that she loved her husband-to-be. The other dead advise her against it. They tell her that she should chose a day just like any other, nothing too exciting or special, just a day. Emily asks why, but they never really give her an answer. So she says "Well, it can still be a happy day, right? I can have a happy day?" * They tell her that she may and Emily chooses her twelfth birthday. And she goes back to that day, everything from getting up and having breakfast to opening her presents. But, somewhere along the line, she realizes that going back is pointless. That going back is painful. Because it reminds her of how little, how very very little people appreciate life from one day to the next. She says "Mama, mama can't we... can't we just look at each other?" And when the day continues as it had when she was twelve, her mother not hearing her plea, she wants out of the memory. Emily asks later if anyone truly understands what a gift life is while they're living it. The response? "The saints, maybe, and a few poets."
Honestly? If I live in the past, I'm more likely to live in the vague past of blurry, happy memories than I am to dwell in the dispairing ones. Do I have a certain moment? No, not really, although several of the same ones are often replayed. Do I think myself a poet, able to
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regna
Re: Living in the past
Date: 2004-06-08 11:45 pm (UTC)Emily is dead and sitting in the graveyard with all of the other dead, but she knows--she senses--that she can go back and re-live it all over again. And she says that she'll chose a happy moment--like when her baby was born or when she first knew that she loved her husband-to-be. The other dead advise her against it. They tell her that she should chose a day just like any other, nothing too exciting or special, just a day. Emily asks why, but they never really give her an answer. So she says "Well, it can still be a happy day, right? I can have a happy day?" * They tell her that she may and Emily chooses her twelfth birthday. And she goes back to that day, everything from getting up and having breakfast to opening her presents. But, somewhere along the line, she realizes that going back is pointless. That going back is painful. Because it reminds her of how little, how very very little people appreciate life from one day to the next. She says "Mama, mama can't we... can't we just look at each other?" And when the day continues as it had when she was twelve, her mother not hearing her plea, she wants out of the memory.
Emily asks later if anyone truly understands what a gift life is while they're living it. The response? "The saints, maybe, and a few poets."
Honestly? If I live in the past, I'm more likely to live in the vague past of blurry, happy memories than I am to dwell in the dispairing ones. Do I have a certain moment? No, not really, although several of the same ones are often replayed. Do I think myself a poet, able to