Reminiscence
Well hello LJ, it's been a looong time. So what has drawn me back here this time? Will I stay? What's happened since I "left" and frequented other internet haunts more? Lots, probably!
I can at least say that it's reminiscence that has brought me back - which is usually the case. Something happens in life which reminds one of old times and you suddenly feel the urge or need to pop back to that place you once frequented where "the good times" happened, and talk to the blank canvas of LJ where someone may happen across another chapter of your life and have a read.
The past few days have been sad for me and it's a kind of low level grief that I am finding a bit tricky. It's not a struggle per se but it is something deep and raw and I guess, like all things, it just needs time to heal. As you may or may not be aware, recent days have seen the passing of Sir Christopher Lee, legend of the silver screen, at the grand old age of 93. Anyone who has known me long enough will know that I was - and remain - a big fan of his and, naturally, when a person you admire passes it's gonna strike a blow.
I haven't been a rampant, attentive fan of his as of late, if I'm honest, but I think the same goes for most things. I've hit that point in my life where I'm fully independent and living away from family, working full time, and struggling to tie financial ends together. There are also other emotional and physical drains which have supplanted the fun and frivolity of my days where I felt keen to draw, to write, and to "geek out" on the internet. But I digress...
I took the news of Christopher's passing fairly ok when I heard it last Thursday. Of course I was sad, but there was an inevitability with every passing year as he went through his eighties and hit the nineties where one knew he couldn't live forever - hope as one may, he seemed immortal and unchanging! But it has hit me harder these past few days, as if the reality has hit me, and I'm surprised at the depth of sadness it has wrought within me. As I have mentioned, though I've not been tirelessly following the progress of Mr Lee's career recently, or geeking out over his movies like I used to, there remains the fact that this man was a massive influence on me during what I retrospectively think now was a very impressionable period of my life - those benchmark years of early adulthood stretching between the age of 17 (which sounds so young to me now!) up to, I don't know, 21/22 years old? And it was a fanaticism that caught me by surprise but, with my usual attitude of "fuck it, just go with it", I allowed myself to be enveloped by it and I'm glad I did.
It's only now that I realise that those years, that period of obsessively hunting and watching any film which Christopher Lee even had a minor appearance, of sketching him over and over in his multitude of past and (then) current roles, of managing to meet him not once, but twice - these memories and the very memory of the "feeling" of that era has been lodged securely away in the locked safe of my heart. And now with his passing, though I've not lost that, an emptiness has suddenly opened in a place I was unaware was vulnerable. Though I didn't know the man on a personal level, it didn't mean that the mere fact that he was still active on this mortal coil with the rest of us didn't give me some level of comfort - and now, with his passing, there comes this human struggle - the emotions of being bereft of something you may never even have been aware you relied on; the sticky issue of trying to figure out why something has hit you so badly that it renders you into a blubbing mess at a random moment in the middle of the night.
Grief is selfish, but selfishness isn't always a bad thing. We need to indulge our sense of loss in best order to move on, I guess. And grief is also a reminder that there was something great before, something worthwhile and inspirational. And for this reminder of a part of my life that has been an obsolete and slumbering memory these past few years, I have a bitter-sweet gladness. I had forgot the crazed enthusiasm, the feeling of latching on to an exceptional (though not faultless) individual and admiring their ability and presence and happily losing oneself in the indefinable happiness they inadvertently give you. I'd forgotten about those many occasions of setting the VCR (yes, remember those?) to record random and odd B-movies being shown overnight in which Christopher Lee had a part, just so I could watch him do his thing time and again. I remember the joy of meeting a man whose presence and stature could never fail to set you in awe. I remember being 17 and having a poster of Count Dooku on my wall as opposed to whoever the current heart throb/boy band of the time was. Fuck convention; it was always been my attitude, and continues to be. My favourite thing in the world at that time was an octogenarian seeing a renaissance in his career, a horror movie icon and world war II veteran - I don't think it could have gotten much cooler than that! And no one stopped me; they let me exist in my bubble of weird happiness and eccentricity and I am so thankful they did.
I don't really know what point I'm trying to make. I think talking my way through this just helps me deal with my present feelings of loss, of fond old memories, of life passing and of, at 30 years old now, my being far more aware of mortality and the fact that everything ends.
My memories of meeting Christopher are rusty, both occasions were over a decade ago now and, fuck me, a lot has happened since then. But I remember the first occasion I met him I said to him something along the lines of "It's great to see you in person", to which he riposted "what's left of me"; he was well aware that he was getting ever older but he never let that stop him, and I think if there was ever an example well set by a person to live every day like it's your last, to take advantage of every opportunity because you might die tomorrow or live to be 100, it was Sir Christopher Lee.
And finally, to wrap up,when I met Christopher for the second time, with my usual lack of grace or social finesse, I admitted to him candidly something along the lines of, "I don't know what to say". And he said, with such patience and gentility, "You can say whatever you like". So I did.
RIP Sir Christopher Lee 1922-2015, legend, idol and one of the coolest people to have graced this world Not perfect, but fuck, who is; you are missed but what a legacy you have left. X
I can at least say that it's reminiscence that has brought me back - which is usually the case. Something happens in life which reminds one of old times and you suddenly feel the urge or need to pop back to that place you once frequented where "the good times" happened, and talk to the blank canvas of LJ where someone may happen across another chapter of your life and have a read.
The past few days have been sad for me and it's a kind of low level grief that I am finding a bit tricky. It's not a struggle per se but it is something deep and raw and I guess, like all things, it just needs time to heal. As you may or may not be aware, recent days have seen the passing of Sir Christopher Lee, legend of the silver screen, at the grand old age of 93. Anyone who has known me long enough will know that I was - and remain - a big fan of his and, naturally, when a person you admire passes it's gonna strike a blow.
I haven't been a rampant, attentive fan of his as of late, if I'm honest, but I think the same goes for most things. I've hit that point in my life where I'm fully independent and living away from family, working full time, and struggling to tie financial ends together. There are also other emotional and physical drains which have supplanted the fun and frivolity of my days where I felt keen to draw, to write, and to "geek out" on the internet. But I digress...
I took the news of Christopher's passing fairly ok when I heard it last Thursday. Of course I was sad, but there was an inevitability with every passing year as he went through his eighties and hit the nineties where one knew he couldn't live forever - hope as one may, he seemed immortal and unchanging! But it has hit me harder these past few days, as if the reality has hit me, and I'm surprised at the depth of sadness it has wrought within me. As I have mentioned, though I've not been tirelessly following the progress of Mr Lee's career recently, or geeking out over his movies like I used to, there remains the fact that this man was a massive influence on me during what I retrospectively think now was a very impressionable period of my life - those benchmark years of early adulthood stretching between the age of 17 (which sounds so young to me now!) up to, I don't know, 21/22 years old? And it was a fanaticism that caught me by surprise but, with my usual attitude of "fuck it, just go with it", I allowed myself to be enveloped by it and I'm glad I did.
It's only now that I realise that those years, that period of obsessively hunting and watching any film which Christopher Lee even had a minor appearance, of sketching him over and over in his multitude of past and (then) current roles, of managing to meet him not once, but twice - these memories and the very memory of the "feeling" of that era has been lodged securely away in the locked safe of my heart. And now with his passing, though I've not lost that, an emptiness has suddenly opened in a place I was unaware was vulnerable. Though I didn't know the man on a personal level, it didn't mean that the mere fact that he was still active on this mortal coil with the rest of us didn't give me some level of comfort - and now, with his passing, there comes this human struggle - the emotions of being bereft of something you may never even have been aware you relied on; the sticky issue of trying to figure out why something has hit you so badly that it renders you into a blubbing mess at a random moment in the middle of the night.
Grief is selfish, but selfishness isn't always a bad thing. We need to indulge our sense of loss in best order to move on, I guess. And grief is also a reminder that there was something great before, something worthwhile and inspirational. And for this reminder of a part of my life that has been an obsolete and slumbering memory these past few years, I have a bitter-sweet gladness. I had forgot the crazed enthusiasm, the feeling of latching on to an exceptional (though not faultless) individual and admiring their ability and presence and happily losing oneself in the indefinable happiness they inadvertently give you. I'd forgotten about those many occasions of setting the VCR (yes, remember those?) to record random and odd B-movies being shown overnight in which Christopher Lee had a part, just so I could watch him do his thing time and again. I remember the joy of meeting a man whose presence and stature could never fail to set you in awe. I remember being 17 and having a poster of Count Dooku on my wall as opposed to whoever the current heart throb/boy band of the time was. Fuck convention; it was always been my attitude, and continues to be. My favourite thing in the world at that time was an octogenarian seeing a renaissance in his career, a horror movie icon and world war II veteran - I don't think it could have gotten much cooler than that! And no one stopped me; they let me exist in my bubble of weird happiness and eccentricity and I am so thankful they did.
I don't really know what point I'm trying to make. I think talking my way through this just helps me deal with my present feelings of loss, of fond old memories, of life passing and of, at 30 years old now, my being far more aware of mortality and the fact that everything ends.
My memories of meeting Christopher are rusty, both occasions were over a decade ago now and, fuck me, a lot has happened since then. But I remember the first occasion I met him I said to him something along the lines of "It's great to see you in person", to which he riposted "what's left of me"; he was well aware that he was getting ever older but he never let that stop him, and I think if there was ever an example well set by a person to live every day like it's your last, to take advantage of every opportunity because you might die tomorrow or live to be 100, it was Sir Christopher Lee.
And finally, to wrap up,when I met Christopher for the second time, with my usual lack of grace or social finesse, I admitted to him candidly something along the lines of, "I don't know what to say". And he said, with such patience and gentility, "You can say whatever you like". So I did.
RIP Sir Christopher Lee 1922-2015, legend, idol and one of the coolest people to have graced this world Not perfect, but fuck, who is; you are missed but what a legacy you have left. X