Ménilmontant (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1926)
"... ... ... ..."
Technically we're in Paris, but this will all work much better if you imagine yourself in the city/town/village you grew up in. Streets and people and abstract sights that you know so well, that are a part of you. But there is no you, it's just people and places. Then a shadow steps in, and the camera tilts up, and it's you. Partly because we need a main character, but also because... well... who else was going to step into frame?
These are the sights and sounds of your childhood. They're history, and they don't exist in the same way anymore, but to you they're very much alive. They're not simply images, they're imbued with emotions, and temperature, and texture. In a word: feeling.
It's perfectly natural to find yourself yearning for these sights and sounds again, for a return to simpler times, when you felt safe and protected. When I was around 4 or 5 years old we moved to a new house, and there was a mantelpiece that stretched across one side of the living room with recesses at either end. I could crawl underneath and quietly observe the world go by. In all honesty I don't believe I've ever felt more secure.
But to go back to these places is to go back to them in the now. They're different, they've moved on, the world has moved on, and so, deep down, have you.
And all of this is before we come to the blood.
Instead of talking about any particular negatives in your past or present, I'm simply going to refer to them as 'the blood.' Now this could be whatever you want it to be, whatever negative experience pushes you back, causes you to regroup, hide, lick your wounds. This is the blood.
When you go back to those sights and sounds of the past, you tend to leave out the blood. After all, who wants to relive that time and time again? But you're well aware of the blood now, because you're living in it. It's ever-present, and unavoidable. And you would be forgiven for making the presumption that a return to your past would rid you of the blood.
Perhaps instead you should entertain the possibility of living with your pain, of accepting the blood, of taking jagged breaths of ice-cold air by the side of the river as an old man takes pity on you and shares what meager lunch he has with you, and part of you is so overwhelmed at his kindness, at his generosity, and another part of you is finding it so hard to stay alive in the biting weather, and all of you is praying for some kind of reconciliation, of some kind of human contact and acceptance, and as all of these thoughts run through your mind at once you find yourself staring at a reflection of the places you knew so well, the places that are now and will never be again, and at this point your eyes refocus and you see yourself reflected in a shop window, superimposed over everything you knew, and it comes as no surprise to see that your face is wet with tears.
Technically we're in Paris, but this will all work much better if you imagine yourself in the city/town/village you grew up in. Streets and people and abstract sights that you know so well, that are a part of you. But there is no you, it's just people and places. Then a shadow steps in, and the camera tilts up, and it's you. Partly because we need a main character, but also because... well... who else was going to step into frame?
These are the sights and sounds of your childhood. They're history, and they don't exist in the same way anymore, but to you they're very much alive. They're not simply images, they're imbued with emotions, and temperature, and texture. In a word: feeling.
It's perfectly natural to find yourself yearning for these sights and sounds again, for a return to simpler times, when you felt safe and protected. When I was around 4 or 5 years old we moved to a new house, and there was a mantelpiece that stretched across one side of the living room with recesses at either end. I could crawl underneath and quietly observe the world go by. In all honesty I don't believe I've ever felt more secure.
But to go back to these places is to go back to them in the now. They're different, they've moved on, the world has moved on, and so, deep down, have you.
And all of this is before we come to the blood.
Instead of talking about any particular negatives in your past or present, I'm simply going to refer to them as 'the blood.' Now this could be whatever you want it to be, whatever negative experience pushes you back, causes you to regroup, hide, lick your wounds. This is the blood.
When you go back to those sights and sounds of the past, you tend to leave out the blood. After all, who wants to relive that time and time again? But you're well aware of the blood now, because you're living in it. It's ever-present, and unavoidable. And you would be forgiven for making the presumption that a return to your past would rid you of the blood.
Perhaps instead you should entertain the possibility of living with your pain, of accepting the blood, of taking jagged breaths of ice-cold air by the side of the river as an old man takes pity on you and shares what meager lunch he has with you, and part of you is so overwhelmed at his kindness, at his generosity, and another part of you is finding it so hard to stay alive in the biting weather, and all of you is praying for some kind of reconciliation, of some kind of human contact and acceptance, and as all of these thoughts run through your mind at once you find yourself staring at a reflection of the places you knew so well, the places that are now and will never be again, and at this point your eyes refocus and you see yourself reflected in a shop window, superimposed over everything you knew, and it comes as no surprise to see that your face is wet with tears.