A Sense of Doubt blog post #1388 - Moses Supposes - THE BEST OF ALL TIME!
I have to tell the story that I tell in the class room, at the very least to save it for posterity.
But before I start the story, I want to make a disclaimer about my purpose. I have been accused of thinking about my past too much, and this is likely a reasonable accusation. I like to think that I am analyzing my past rather than wallowing in it. I do not feel as if I am stuck in my past or living in my past and not living in the present or being impeded from moving into the future. But I rationalize my actions because I believe that through analyzing my past I am learning from it, growing, individuating because that's all I can do to advance in the process of individuation. I feel that it is important work.
I also want to make a disclaimer for my wife, whom I love very much, the evidence for which is all over this blog and the T-shirts blog, and those feelings have not changed. I hope that this story does not diminish how much I adore my wife in anyone's eyes. Liesel is an amazing human, and I might be so bold as to claim that she is the single most amazing human I have ever known. True, I know and have known many great humans, so maybe I should claim she is "one of" the most amazing, but hyperbole aside, her amazingness is why I married her, so that's a thing. Also, this story is in large part about setting the record straight on some things in my past, showing gratitude for the influence of so many people (one person in particular in this story) who have helped to shape me into the person who I am and the person who I am continuing to become, the self off of which I am unpeeling the layers, barriers, repressions, projections, shadows, and denials.The point of this story -- because it's always best to share the point first, otherwise there's lots of detail to wait through GETTING to the point -- is that I came to hold dear Singin' In The Rain as one of my top five favorite movies of all time (that whole list another time) and really one of my favorite things of all things of ALL TIME. (Also, the movie Top Hat but that's part of the story.)
There's synchronicity because a Facebook friend posted the image (just above left) the other day, while at the same time friends of mine on Facebook were crediting me with "giving" them things, which out me on this whole thinking track of the influences of our lives and how we have gained the things we love, some through self-discovery, of course, more so now that self-discovery is easier because of the Internet, but also through recommendations, friends who share things that they love and so we come to love them, too.
And so, how I came to value Singin' In The Rain.
At K-College around the time I turned 21 years old, I met an amazing human and because I am going to be somewhat private I will refrain from sharing her name though anyone who really knows me well surely knows who I am writing about.
She was very much a recluse, but I discovered that she was a HUGE David Bowie fan and a fan of the Jam, a band I knew but was not totally into yet, so I figured out a way to arrange an introduction, and we began to hang out, talk, and eventually started a relationship.
I very quickly fell completely and passionately in love with her, probably more deeply in love than I had been yet in my life. She was Japanese and Irish, which I though was a very intriguing combination. She was an accomplished visual artist but had chosen to study biology at K, a practice into which she put the kinds of hours that medical students logged and graduated magna cum laude despite a brief struggle with grades the quarter she dated me. Her mother was a very famous and beloved artist in Kalamazoo and also a truly inspiring, lovable human. Her father was an English professor at WMU and would, oddly, later be the graduate director when I studied there and my professor for two classes.
I was smitten. I could not resist. And she came to love me, too, and so I joined her in reclusion as we began to spend most of our time together.
Around Valentine's Day, the K Film Society hosted a double feature of two of her favorite movies: Singin' in the Rain and Top Hat. Though we didn't go out much, and mostly stayed in, she asked me to go on a date out with her to see these movies.
Here's the stupid part.
I was a very, VERY stupid young man and times blind, stubborn, and accustomed flights of childish rage, an illness that now I chalk up to raging hormones of someone who entered puberty around the age of eighteen (okay maybe sixteen) rather then thirteen.
I told her I didn't want to go. I may have even alluded to the movies as sounding as if they were "stupid."
I do not remember how much convincing I needed. I remember that she explained how she had found them on TV when she was home with the flu a few years before. She explained why she loved them. And since I loved her, I was not going to refuse to go. I may have been a stupid boy, but I was not a total idiot.
We went to the movies, and I fell in love with both, but more so with Singin' In The Rain, and it's not just me and my then girlfriend who love this movie. It is considered the FIFTH GREATEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME by the American Film Institute.
I remember leaving the recital hall, where they showed the films, and kissing in the hallway that led to the exit by Humphrey House. That night and that kiss remain one of the most special memories of that time with her, that relationship.
It was a moment like frozen time. We had been holding hands throughout the movie. We were in love. We had just seen two wonderful movies full of laughter, romance, and joyful feelings, I had the immense of epiphany of casting out my previously stupid opinions and falling in love with my movies like I had fallen in love with her, and she had the pleasure of sharing them with me, watching me love them, watching me realize that I was a very stupid boy and that I needed to be more open minded, especially to the suggestions by those people I loved and respected.
The hallway was empty. It was quiet in that way that institutions become eerily quiet, so that a pin drop deafens. The hall was partly lit. We stopped in the middle and kissed. I do not remember who stopped or who initiated the kiss, maybe it was mutual, maybe it was my thank you to her for sharing those amazing movies, maybe it was her thank to me for opening myself after my initial resistance, maybe it was all of those and things and more. It was a good kiss, sweet and passionate and hungry for more. It was a magical moment. I will never forget it.
And I have loved these movies ever since.
So, on the subject of analyzing my past, part of my purpose is less about regrets than it is about shamefulness. Sure, I have regrets. I wish I had left K to go to film school. I wish I had gone back to New York and continued to work at Marvel Comics and lived with my then girlfriend on a boat on the Hudson. I wish I had been smarter about getting my Star Trek novel published after using it to earn my MFA. And more recently, I wish I had studied computer science (or Psychology) as an undergraduate and not English and Theatre, as much as I love both. As I mentioned, I was young and stupid.
VERY STUPID.
But the regrets are like memories on a shelf. They're in bottles, like biological specimens floating in formaldehyde. They're contained. That do not control me. They do not hold me back. And given that I have moved to the Pacific Northwest, which I LOVE, with my amazing wife, whom I ADORE and love beyond measure and astronomically more so than the early, immature love I have described here, I do not have any real regrets. I love my life. I am happy.
BUT.
I did and said stupid things for which I wish to make amends. If that girlfriend from that time reads this, I want to apologize for all the stupid things I said and did and to thank her for giving me these films; for stoking my fires of love for the Jam; for introducing me to Charles Bukowski and Black Sparrow Press, for sharing with me Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae and more; and for one of the sweetest, passion-filled, and truly cherished relationships of my past.
I am not going to recount the little, stupid things for which I feel stinging, poisonous shame as she surely does not remember them, if she were to read this post, and I don't want to remind her. But the greatest shame is for how poorly I handled the break up, an ending she had to make to our relationship so she could reach her goal of graduating best on our 1985 class (or maybe tied with a couple of others as she might remind me).
Admirably, she tried to remain friends, but all I did was try to argue her back into the relationship. I was so hurt, and I was completely blind to how my actions were unfair to her. Ultimately, she cut off all contact with me for her own sanity and safety. It took me over a year to see the wisdom in that decision. I tried to go tell her that I understood, and I was sorry for how I treated her, and she slammed the door in my face.
A couple of years later, we talked, and I think I told her how sorry I was and how I understood why she did what she did, but if I didn't say all those things, here they are, in print, on the Internet, preserved for all time so that thousands of years from now advanced transhumans will have no idea what I am talking about.
The shame from my actions is not suffocating or crippling. I learn from the shame. I grow because of it, and I work to prevent those types of things from happening again. I evolve.
All of what I have written here is MUCH MORE than I ever share with students in a class room.
In the end, the upshot is that I have played "Moses Supposes" for hundreds of students over the years. And when I play it, I talk about this girlfriend and how one of the greatest things about college is the people we meet and what they come to mean to us, how they give of themselves, giving us things we cherish forever.
One last thing.
There are so many reasons to love Singin' In The Rain and so many things to love about it, but one thing that I want to mention as I close is the sheer ebullient joy of most of it, and you can see and feel that unbridled joy in the video above for "Moses Supposes."
ENJOY.
ROTTEN TOMATOES - SINGIN' IN THE RAIN
90% liked this movie
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| exam study session Friday December 07th 2018 - Concordia University |
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1812.09 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1254 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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