Sunday, January 15, 2006

Back-breaking love

I just got back from the movies. The first movie I've seen in a theater in more than a year and probably almost 2 years. I never intended to go that long without seeing a movie. It just happened that way. One day passed and then another and soon the calendar had turned before I knew it.

It's become a recurring theme.

There have been several movies I've wanted to see, but some of the ones that were on my list aren't even in wide distribution anymore. I'm spending the weekend housesitting for family in Portland and was getting tired of sitting around someone else's house. So I opted to see "Brokeback Mountain" this afternoon. There's been lots of buzz about this movie, so I decided to see what all the murmur was about. Apparently I wasn't the only one thinking about seeing it, because the 4:15 p.m. showing was pretty full.

There are plenty of places on the 'net where you can read reviews or summaries of the movie, so I won't go into the plot here. But I will offer some commentary about the theme, or a theme, of the movie, and that is that sometimes we let life get in the way of love. Society's morals or values of what's acceptable or not can derail a lot of relationships. Time and distance do damage to many others.

The lead characters in the love story spent about 20 years seeing each other periodically. A few fleeting moments of happiness amid year after year of marking time earning a living and living a life of deception.

The timing was rather ironic. Last night, Brat and I had a rather serious conversation. For those of you who may not have caught the bits and pieces of our story scattered through this blog, Brat and I have spent the last 7 years, off and on, talking online, on the phone and through voice chat, but have never managed to get ourselves in the same place at the same time to actually meet face to face. During that time, including a couple of extended breaks, we have become friends and developed strong feelings through those long hours of talking. We struggle sometimes to explain, even to ourselves, what those feelings are and what they mean, but we know that they are real. And it sort of struck me that we are like the story in "Brokeback Mountain," watching the years slowly tick by at the speed of light and we are still pretty much where we were in 1999 or 2000.

In the movie, there was no happy ending, sadly a little too true to life. Fortunately for Brat and I, the climax of our drama has not yet been written. Let's hope -- no, check that, we need to make sure -- this isn't a case of life imitating art.


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