So hold on.
Last night I decided to put into action on of those “movie moments.” You see, I’ve always wanted to live something out of the Big Chill, where they all dance around the house to Marvin Gaye and bump hips and just... bliss. So I spent a long stretch of the afternoon listening to REM’s “Everybody Hurts” on repeat because I decided that if by next week this time I don’t have any interviews lined up, I would purchase a one-way plane ticket back to Phoenix.
What this all has to do with creating my own "movie moment":
I have to tell the boyfriend that I changed my mind yet again. I don’t want to stay anymore, not if I can’t find a job. No, I need to leave before the ticket prices increase and I can no longer afford to escape from paradise.
Naturally, I am sad, but I am also tired of living up on a hill in the very back of an isolated valley with no car, income, health insurance or social network. Yes, I would stay if the only thing that mattered was the boyfriend, but when I’m consistently home all day listening to “Everybody Hurts” on repeat I have finally reached the conclusion that “everybody hurts, sometimes.” So I should hurt and hold on? Or, hurt and then move on? The latter makes more sense when you're almost 24. Cold of me, right?
I guess that you’re wondering where the whole “movie moment” comes to play. So far I’ve made this sound not like a romantic comedy with a twisted-yet-predictable happy ending, but a drama [see movie moment: pottery wheel scene with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze in “Ghosts.”]. And maybe it is.
Leanne’s movie moment, begin scene one, take thirty-four (=the amount of times that I’d listened to “Everybody Hurts” on repeat).
Scene: Leanne and Matt are in Matt’s bedroom, where Leanne also currently lives, as she moved out of her own room in the anticipation of a roommate returning from a deployment. (Not that she didn’t already spend every night in Matt’s bedroom before that.)
Leanne has just reinstated her plans to leave by the end of the month. Matt is on his computer, looking sad. He has downed two beers. They are about to go out on a date.
Leanne: Can we listen to a song on your speakers and will you dance with me?
(Leanne is always trying to force Matt to dance. He never does, but he has relinquished more and more muscle control over a stationary position each time she’s forced him to dance in the past few months. A small and increasing victory.)
Matt, from the depths of his despair (or so Leanne likes to think, because she is partially evil): O.K.
Leanne cues up songza.fm and types: Everybody Hurts- REM.
Enter Michael Stipe. He stands off in the dark corner of the room, swaying to the slow music, humming.
Leanne yanks Matt out of his Star Trek chair and forces her arms around him. The room is dark, the sun has just set. Together they shuffle awkwardly in front of the full hamper and the half-ajar mirrored closet door.
Michael Stipe begins to sing. When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone...
His intensity increases-So hold on-Leanne steps on Matt’s impossibly large feet.
Leanne expects Matt pull away-he’s never let her dance him this long-but he just lets her sway his hips and two-step back and forth. She hugs him closer, squeezing until she can feel his heart beat, and she burrows her face in her favorite spot, the left-side of his collar bone. His scent is spicy poke and beer.
Leanne wonders: is this what a slow first dance would be like at a wedding? Her wedding? She has never had an official slow dance. This is her very first. She wonders if she would choose “Everybody Hurts” as the first dance song at her wedding? At a wedding? Does that even qualify as irony? Has “Everybody Hurts” ever been the first dance at any wedding in the history of wedding first dances?
Michael Stipe looks up from his sad song and at Leanne and he just shakes his head and continues to sing.
What this all has to do with creating my own "movie moment":
I have to tell the boyfriend that I changed my mind yet again. I don’t want to stay anymore, not if I can’t find a job. No, I need to leave before the ticket prices increase and I can no longer afford to escape from paradise.
Naturally, I am sad, but I am also tired of living up on a hill in the very back of an isolated valley with no car, income, health insurance or social network. Yes, I would stay if the only thing that mattered was the boyfriend, but when I’m consistently home all day listening to “Everybody Hurts” on repeat I have finally reached the conclusion that “everybody hurts, sometimes.” So I should hurt and hold on? Or, hurt and then move on? The latter makes more sense when you're almost 24. Cold of me, right?
I guess that you’re wondering where the whole “movie moment” comes to play. So far I’ve made this sound not like a romantic comedy with a twisted-yet-predictable happy ending, but a drama [see movie moment: pottery wheel scene with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze in “Ghosts.”]. And maybe it is.
Leanne’s movie moment, begin scene one, take thirty-four (=the amount of times that I’d listened to “Everybody Hurts” on repeat).
Scene: Leanne and Matt are in Matt’s bedroom, where Leanne also currently lives, as she moved out of her own room in the anticipation of a roommate returning from a deployment. (Not that she didn’t already spend every night in Matt’s bedroom before that.)
Leanne has just reinstated her plans to leave by the end of the month. Matt is on his computer, looking sad. He has downed two beers. They are about to go out on a date.
Leanne: Can we listen to a song on your speakers and will you dance with me?
(Leanne is always trying to force Matt to dance. He never does, but he has relinquished more and more muscle control over a stationary position each time she’s forced him to dance in the past few months. A small and increasing victory.)
Matt, from the depths of his despair (or so Leanne likes to think, because she is partially evil): O.K.
Leanne cues up songza.fm and types: Everybody Hurts- REM.
Enter Michael Stipe. He stands off in the dark corner of the room, swaying to the slow music, humming.
Leanne yanks Matt out of his Star Trek chair and forces her arms around him. The room is dark, the sun has just set. Together they shuffle awkwardly in front of the full hamper and the half-ajar mirrored closet door.
Michael Stipe begins to sing. When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone...
His intensity increases-So hold on-Leanne steps on Matt’s impossibly large feet.
Leanne expects Matt pull away-he’s never let her dance him this long-but he just lets her sway his hips and two-step back and forth. She hugs him closer, squeezing until she can feel his heart beat, and she burrows her face in her favorite spot, the left-side of his collar bone. His scent is spicy poke and beer.
Leanne wonders: is this what a slow first dance would be like at a wedding? Her wedding? She has never had an official slow dance. This is her very first. She wonders if she would choose “Everybody Hurts” as the first dance song at her wedding? At a wedding? Does that even qualify as irony? Has “Everybody Hurts” ever been the first dance at any wedding in the history of wedding first dances?
Michael Stipe looks up from his sad song and at Leanne and he just shakes his head and continues to sing.