In the late 1990's I think, there was a movies called Mr. Holland's Opus which I fell in love with. I loved everything about. The time it was set through, the story, the high school experience...and at the end, Mr. Holland, a music teacher, is retiring after cuts to the arts, and a student gets up and says that for years there had been rumours that Mr. Holland was working on a symphony...anyway, I don't want to be Mr. Holland, and those of you who are around, know that I'm writing...so here's Ch. 1...although I'm totally re-working it...
tell me if it's shit.
It was the act of getting there, the slow, cautious walk towards the small crowd, dominating her thoughts this morning. And so she placed, foot over foot, slow and deliberate. Her black high heeled strides keeping a mixed up double timed beat to his quick miniature 6 year old strides. They walked, with deep conscious purpose toward where they were supposed to be. Supposed like it was obligatory, but really, from the day she met him, there was, never would, be anything obligatory. Except Aedan. That was an obligation without pretence. She couldn’t blame him, especially now. She could still feel the overwhelming force of guilt towards him for not knowing. Or herself, for not knowing he should know. She looked down, clutching his hand, little curls of blond randomly hit with rain, springing as he walked, his eyes a mixture of ocean blue and stormy gray, darting up and back, trying to catch the voyage of each drop falling from each curl, knowing by his Mother’s expression, black suit, and the umbrella they stopped to buy on the way (he had never seen his Mother with anything as reasonable as an umbrella in the rain), that this was sombre. Like church. But without his books or kneelers to kick with toe of shoe making his Mother break into the devilish grin she used when he was funny but shouldn’t be. He would have to be both quiet and seemingly fascinated with the events. He knew this. And yet, also knew, was conscious, of a feeling down below, between stomach and knees, that this was a day he needed to remember.
She knew it started at 11:00. She also knew she didn’t want to go to the church. Couldn’t be forced, by conscious or unconscious drive or sense of duty to go to the church. She had prepared herself just as she had prepared herself for this day. Knowing this day would arrive, prepared for this day to arrive, but unaware, had no knowledge of the timing. She knew, had prepared, this second dutiful good-bye. Would make it better than the first, she knew. Though it didn’t matter now. Really. Her eyes darting over the paper, reading the name once, twice, three times, before allowing herself, to understand that it was him. His name, the name she had muttered, uttered, moaned a million times, 57, died at home, blah blah she read over and over and over and somehow for some reason had cut it out, and placed it above her bed, scotch taped it next to the picture he always hated but she loved and moved with her carefully from place to place town to town to the old farmhouse that was too warm in the summer and too cold in the winter with its sounds and noises at night, keeping Aedan asleep and her dumbly wide awake. The house he would have loved, had he seen, but probably had seen. She had thought she saw, his car outside, nights before, just sitting. Knowing she knew he was there and she knowing he was there, the collective consciousness she had never felt with anyone before or since, allowing them to know each other’s thoughts at the precise moment of thought, sometimes before the other realized they were thinking together.
She knew every thought, every utterance, every love laced sigh.
She walked, with Aedan, hand clenched through the rain (and why does it always rain at these things?) thinking of Vancouver, over perfectly trimmed grass they only ever have in cemeteries and ball parks, some retired cop and his ride on lawnmower every Wednesday, looking briefly and without interest at random, dried out and withered arrangements left by families who’ve already done today, thinking of love and loss and death and forgiveness and anything but him and anything but today, the small crowd coming into vision, she looked down at her son, at their son, who with the impeccable timing of his father, squeezed her hand, looked up, with that same tired smile, and said “Come on Mom. We’ll miss it.”
tell me if it's shit.
It was the act of getting there, the slow, cautious walk towards the small crowd, dominating her thoughts this morning. And so she placed, foot over foot, slow and deliberate. Her black high heeled strides keeping a mixed up double timed beat to his quick miniature 6 year old strides. They walked, with deep conscious purpose toward where they were supposed to be. Supposed like it was obligatory, but really, from the day she met him, there was, never would, be anything obligatory. Except Aedan. That was an obligation without pretence. She couldn’t blame him, especially now. She could still feel the overwhelming force of guilt towards him for not knowing. Or herself, for not knowing he should know. She looked down, clutching his hand, little curls of blond randomly hit with rain, springing as he walked, his eyes a mixture of ocean blue and stormy gray, darting up and back, trying to catch the voyage of each drop falling from each curl, knowing by his Mother’s expression, black suit, and the umbrella they stopped to buy on the way (he had never seen his Mother with anything as reasonable as an umbrella in the rain), that this was sombre. Like church. But without his books or kneelers to kick with toe of shoe making his Mother break into the devilish grin she used when he was funny but shouldn’t be. He would have to be both quiet and seemingly fascinated with the events. He knew this. And yet, also knew, was conscious, of a feeling down below, between stomach and knees, that this was a day he needed to remember.
She knew it started at 11:00. She also knew she didn’t want to go to the church. Couldn’t be forced, by conscious or unconscious drive or sense of duty to go to the church. She had prepared herself just as she had prepared herself for this day. Knowing this day would arrive, prepared for this day to arrive, but unaware, had no knowledge of the timing. She knew, had prepared, this second dutiful good-bye. Would make it better than the first, she knew. Though it didn’t matter now. Really. Her eyes darting over the paper, reading the name once, twice, three times, before allowing herself, to understand that it was him. His name, the name she had muttered, uttered, moaned a million times, 57, died at home, blah blah she read over and over and over and somehow for some reason had cut it out, and placed it above her bed, scotch taped it next to the picture he always hated but she loved and moved with her carefully from place to place town to town to the old farmhouse that was too warm in the summer and too cold in the winter with its sounds and noises at night, keeping Aedan asleep and her dumbly wide awake. The house he would have loved, had he seen, but probably had seen. She had thought she saw, his car outside, nights before, just sitting. Knowing she knew he was there and she knowing he was there, the collective consciousness she had never felt with anyone before or since, allowing them to know each other’s thoughts at the precise moment of thought, sometimes before the other realized they were thinking together.
She knew every thought, every utterance, every love laced sigh.
She walked, with Aedan, hand clenched through the rain (and why does it always rain at these things?) thinking of Vancouver, over perfectly trimmed grass they only ever have in cemeteries and ball parks, some retired cop and his ride on lawnmower every Wednesday, looking briefly and without interest at random, dried out and withered arrangements left by families who’ve already done today, thinking of love and loss and death and forgiveness and anything but him and anything but today, the small crowd coming into vision, she looked down at her son, at their son, who with the impeccable timing of his father, squeezed her hand, looked up, with that same tired smile, and said “Come on Mom. We’ll miss it.”
posted by Faint faint faintedink at 10:27 a.m.
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