Monday, August 25, 2014

The Appearance of Movement


Bob and I were with friends at the Natural History Museum recently. There is a Hollywood history exhibit there that shows how in the production of old movies, the film makers would use footage projected onto a screen on the back window of the fake car the actors were riding in. It gave the appearance of movement. The list of background choices was endless. The exhibit showed rear view footage of driving away from the Eiffel Tower, driving through the desert, driving down 5th Avenue.

I will close my eyes and out the rear window of my imaginary car (mine is a red '58 Volvo 444) I see my life speeding by. Flickering images of a stage in the high school auditorium, a foggy beach in the evening, a woman in a garden pulling a carrot from the ground. There is my tiny first office in the basement in Hollywood. Turn to my toddler on a swing at the park. A girl running through a cemetery at five in the morning and a bike with a sissy bar and a bright yellow flag. There is a black dog in the pool, and we fly past a jukebox at the back of the bar. A man playing the drum with hair in his eyes. The bullet train. The French bakery where I worked the summer before college, rain. Blowing out the candles. All of these out the rear view window. These spaces that hold me together. The visions that wallpaper my insides. 

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