The Weird Kid
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
I'm trying.
The more escapism appeals to me as a viable life choice, the more I kept thinking about the movie "Trainspotting." To live a life where all that matters is heroin. There is nothing small or confusing in that life, just a blind drive to get more heroin. There is freedom in those chains.
Probably the first independent movie I ever watched. Helped me understand there was a world where a movie like this could be made, where grime was glory and selfish suffering was poetry. My world was built and waiting for me, I realized.
Anyway.
I keep a bootleg DVD of it, seldom watch it. I did tonight, after I put the baby down.
I swear this is not a depressing post. Though it will be if you click on this link. Don't click. I link it because it exists.
It was the scene that kicked me in my bland heart. It is a dead baby, a baby who spends the first half of the movie crawling, ignored, and sweetly babbling among heroin vials and needles. It will hurt.
I had not seen this movie since giving birth. I watched this scene, and felt the old appreciation, the hot beauty of showing things that shouldn't be shown, flush out of me.
I did something then, that I never ever do, because I am jealous of my time to myself. I opened Smudge's door, a half hour after putting her down. I didn't care if I woke her. Had to see her.
I don't talk about her much. Up lifts this perfect little round head, lush with remarkable hair for an almost 2-yr-old. Big sweet eyes reflected in the hall light. Big smile, like. "Ma! Fancy meetin' you here!"
I scooped her up, cuddled her, whispered to her. I love her and it aches it aches in my stomach so hard. Got her more juice water, tucked her back in. Laid a finger on her nose because that is how I kiss the final goodnight kiss, unable to lean over the height of the crib.
I love my kid. I don't know what it means that the love seems to come out of my body, not my head. Lines of gentle lightening under the skin and small pain and large need in my stomach. The only time my brain is quiet.
Ah me. Sure I can write an uplifting post...but I'm going to need footage of a baby dead in a drug den.
I'm trying!!!
Probably the first independent movie I ever watched. Helped me understand there was a world where a movie like this could be made, where grime was glory and selfish suffering was poetry. My world was built and waiting for me, I realized.
Anyway.
I keep a bootleg DVD of it, seldom watch it. I did tonight, after I put the baby down.
I swear this is not a depressing post. Though it will be if you click on this link. Don't click. I link it because it exists.
It was the scene that kicked me in my bland heart. It is a dead baby, a baby who spends the first half of the movie crawling, ignored, and sweetly babbling among heroin vials and needles. It will hurt.
I had not seen this movie since giving birth. I watched this scene, and felt the old appreciation, the hot beauty of showing things that shouldn't be shown, flush out of me.
I did something then, that I never ever do, because I am jealous of my time to myself. I opened Smudge's door, a half hour after putting her down. I didn't care if I woke her. Had to see her.
I don't talk about her much. Up lifts this perfect little round head, lush with remarkable hair for an almost 2-yr-old. Big sweet eyes reflected in the hall light. Big smile, like. "Ma! Fancy meetin' you here!"
I scooped her up, cuddled her, whispered to her. I love her and it aches it aches in my stomach so hard. Got her more juice water, tucked her back in. Laid a finger on her nose because that is how I kiss the final goodnight kiss, unable to lean over the height of the crib.
I love my kid. I don't know what it means that the love seems to come out of my body, not my head. Lines of gentle lightening under the skin and small pain and large need in my stomach. The only time my brain is quiet.
Ah me. Sure I can write an uplifting post...but I'm going to need footage of a baby dead in a drug den.
I'm trying!!!
posted by Imez at 9:44 PM
8 Comments:
It was worth it. That was a sweet post. :-)
Ahha, look at you trying! :)
That scene...oh my god. I saw it when I was pregnant (yeah, who the hell watches Trainspotting while pregnant) and I swear that scene traumatized me FOR LIFE.
If nothing else, it does make you want to hold your child close.
Trying, and doing a great job of it! Sweetness.
I remember nothing about that movie except the dead baby and the shit splattered around the kitchen. I imagine heroin users have a neurological defect that allow them to stick that needle in their whatever.
But back to your uplifting post... "love seems to come out of my body, not my head." I know, right? It's like you have a little choke-chain wrapped around your heart, attached to the wrist of your child. They flap their arms and your heart goes, "EEERRRCCHH, EEERRRCCCHH!"
I watched just a few minutes of that movie before i knew it would depress me foor days, and so i bravely wandered into another room.
I didn't click on the link either.
I could almost smell your baby's sweet smell from this post.
It was a little dark, but spirit of the post was beautiful, so there. It doesn't matter to her where your love is coming from...as long as she has it :)
I'm still bothered by that scene. There are scenes in movies like this that haunt me and I can't watch the rest so then i'm stuck with the worst of it and nothing else to clear the image. Judd the obscure had a similar effect.
I get what you are getting at-- sometimes you hold so little respect for yourself and your mothering instincts, and in seeing this you know you are a good mother, you know you are not any where near bad.
Maybe? I know.
Happy day to you love.
princess- I have possibly never been called sweet in this context.
kate-I know! Aren't I adorable when I try!!!
Fancy-No, you're sweetness.
Mignon-I love how we so often get each other and can express it with made up words and lots of exclamation points.
meno- I never thought of you as the type of girl to wander away from things that seemed depressing.
mrs. "A little dark." Seriously, that one was as close as i get to sunshine rolling out my bum. Thank you.
lu- Jude the Obscure. Jesus, I remember that you're talking about. Absolutely soul stealing scene. And I have a theory, a new one, that a large portion of the comments we write to each other, while completely true and applicable to the other woman, apply to the woman writing it just as much.
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