review
kind of
I knew it was not a matter of if I would cry, but when. I’m not a crier. At the age of six, I trained myself to hold
back tears out of embarrassment. You
know how six-year-olds can be. When.
There were all the usual moments, the easy moments, but it didn’t
come until the moment Hazel’s mother told her that she had been wrong in the
ICU, wrong that she’d stop being a mother.
There was too much of my own parents in it not to break me. Of course I was two years pre-existent when
Joshua died, but that’s never limited my imagination or my feeling. And once it started, it didn’t stop. Not until the funeral. You all know which one.
I’m sitting here while my boyfriend and our friend play
Warhammer. They don’t know I’m here yet,
I think. I slipped in the door, into my
office. Or else they’re giving me space
because they know that death and cancer are my particular triggers. Not that everyone doesn’t fear death, but I’d
like to think he and I have a special flirtation. A friendly rivalry, if you will. That when he comes for me we’ll banter and he’ll
tease, “Couldn’t stop thinking about me, could you?” As charming as Augustus, and as tall.
I’ve never been in a theater before where everyone was
crying. Not all loudly, and not all at
the same time, but everyone at least once, even the non-criers like me. A lot of sniffling, “ugly crying” my friend
calls it, and for a moment you felt awkward to hear it. Until it was you, and then you were just
holding it in. I was holding it in,
silent sobs, the kind that won’t drown out Ansel and Shailene. (The thunder already did that, so loud I
asked my friend if it was real thunder of movie thunder. Real thunder.) Who were wonderful. I’ve heard Shailene called wooden, but I’m
not sure I can imagine the speechless giggling and cynicism of Hazel with
anyone’s eyes but hers. Even if her arms
were too muscular from Divergent and
she didn’t have Hazel’s cheeks.
It wasn’t raining when we left, really. There were clouds, but the fluffy gilded kind
you can’t photograph or they look painted.
And there was a break in them like a huge glowing scar and it was one of
those perfect moments that’s too hopelessly clichéd to occur in anything but
real life. The kind of perfect that can
make a wavering agnostic feel something for a moment, even though I know that
those clouds and that light were there for everyone else, too. That it wasn’t a message or a sign or any
hint of the universe establishing itself.
That it wasn’t for me.
And then I saw the rainbow.
A friggin’ rainbow.
. . .
This isn’t really a review so much as a feeling. A feeling will tell you more than my
itemization of Ansel’s smirks or Shailene’s lovesick winces. So I’ll tell you freely, I don’t believe in
God. Most of the time. And maybe I don’t believe in oblivion either,
or signs, or revelations. But I do
believe in perfect moments and driving back from that theater, with my sunroof
open so I could see the real sky and
the rain still streaking down (in sprinkles, I’m not that crazy) I believed in the words of Augustus Waters, who has a
life outside of John Green as Anna had a life outside of Peter Van Houten. Okay?
In a minute or two I’ll go back to the usual pills and
problems and the magic will shatter and I’ll have the memory of a memory of something. But for this moment, I think I’m going to
enjoy my own strange little infinity.
Okay.
June 11, 2014
9:25 p.m.
That is just beautiful you've captured the feels so perfectly
ReplyDeleteThank you! (:
Delete