of permanence and fleetingness
Click to viewcomic strips by pon and zi
stumbled upon this clip sometime ago and i thought it was really cute. would have placed the original music clip with joshua radin harmonising with priscilla ahn instead except that i'm in the mood for something cute tonight. and one of the highlight this week was catching a long awaited movie.
and so, the time travelers wife finally made it to the big screens on our tiny shores on 3rd september. i had been anticipating the movie since 2 years ago and would say it was a good attempt by the movie makers to bring this literature into reel life; though the bittersweet aftertaste that lingered from watching wasnt as intense as from reading, i felt.
nonetheless, the essence of the fiction was delivered rather succinctly in my opinion. of permanence and transience. of leaving and being left behind. of the struggle to maintain a balance between the variant dichotomies - clare being the one staying and henry, the one constantly disappearing, time travelling.
the afterthoughts of the show somehow also brought to mind the time when i was in europe, where every weekend was spent travelling to new places and spaces. i recall the fresh excitement of a new adventurer. a spirit that wished to follow the sun with nothing but a single suitcase and no idea where tomorrow may lead. at first the sensation one feels is akin to a sort of superiority. its like we are a race apart, we the travelers. we have seen, experienced, so much more than they - living their lives in an endless round of sleep-work-sleep, to tend their neat gardens, their identical suburban houses, their modest dreams. and we hold them a little in recalcitrance. but strangely, that feeling doesnt last as long as thought because after a while, comes envy. the first time it is almost funny: a sudden sharp sting that subsides nearly right way. a woman in a park, bending over a child in a pushchair, both faces lit by something that is not the sun. then comes the second time, the third; a group of french school girls on their lunch break, giggling over coffee and croissants.. before long it morphs into a constant ache for the same sort of permanence, same sort of happiness. by then you realise that, afterall, home is where the heart is.
"Home sweet home. No place like home. Take me home, country roads. Home is where the heart is. But my heart is here. So I must be home. Clare sighs, turns her head, and is quiet. Hi, honey. I'm home. I'm home. Don't you think it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life? We laugh and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment. There is only one page left to write on. I will fill it with words of only one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love."
- Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)