AHHHHHHHH

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

okay now that is out of the way: AHHHH, i say, AHHHHHHHHH.

Little Women is like being reunited with a familiar face in a great flurry of strangers. i have been thinking a lot lately about reading and how my relationship to it has changed over the years. i don't know exactly when things changed, but something happened where i stopped reading so feverishly and frequently for "fun." while studying English, i thought of this often, faced with professors who argued everything from "I don't care if you liked the book or not," to "what is the purpose of reading: to teach or to please?"

i am in a place now where i'm trying to recover my childhood habits. not where i read for any purpose other than that i wanted to ; i could pretend to be anywhere else, be anyone else. i am trying to rediscover reading as an escape, and think of it less as a mirror, a looking glass, a reflection of the world around me. because... maybe i am tired. maybe i am just a bit tired of looking at the world and seeing it for all its ugliness, all its loneliness, all its aches and pains. that is a very privileged exhaustion, i know, but i am so tired. i am tired of trying to make meaning out of every horrible thing that happens by chance—or worse yet, by cruel, calculated, careful intention. i am tired of trying to make fragile, imperfect things better or right or fixed. i am tired of trying to recover the past, to preserve a family history that is complicated and frustrating and opaque. i am tired of fearing the future, of anticipating the worst, of being anxious and scared and not good enough and silly and embarrassed and so often wrong about so many things. i am tired of feeling like to bear one's soul is only to invite the inevitable loss of what might be gained, if graced by it at all: friendship, love, sisterhood, accomplishments both big and small, art, the illusion of a perfect day's temperament.

it is as James Baldwin wrote: "You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read." i have loved many books that have articulated, echoed, reflected my own life, my own losses, my own frustration and questions and longings and hopes. i have also loved so many books that have shown me more than what i can see before me—other lives, small and great and ordinary and wonderful.

sometimes i want to see less, though. sometimes i just... i just want to feel less stuck in myself. like i have been rooted in this body and with my soul and every thought i've ever had for 23 years! that is a lot of time to be around oneself. it is nice to posit maybe, just maybe, even if it is for a brief blip... i can pause myself.

throughout Gerwig's Little Women, i found myself tearing up, though not always at anything in particular. sometimes there was a shot framed just right (four sisters, crowding a white window, their faces lit by the snow outside, their whole lives ahead of them) or a detail emphasized with such tenderness and care (Jo whispering to Beth) that reached beyond the screen, outside of the movie. it felt like a calling, a tug toward familiar warmth. it felt like love, really, that's all.

and then there's this moment too good to be true. Frederik sits down at the piano, which is gathering dust, untouched, a haunting reminder of days that won't happen. he offers to play for the Marchs; he means no harm. the room is heavy with grief, with regret. he starts to play... and it is, somehow, one of my favorite classical pieces. i couldn't recall the name instantly, but i knew, i knew, i knew. and it was that scene alone that made me think this is the great resilience of art—music, movies, paintings, stories... whatever the medium, art is a way by which we survive. maybe it's just one story told over and over, packaged a little differently each time. maybe it's a love story. maybe it's a ghost story. maybe it's a bit of both, delightful and soft, lonely and loving.

so... maybe Little Women is no Lady Bird. there are some character relations that feel underdeveloped, and the quick wit of Gerwig's writing doesn't quite shine as brightly here. Timothee's "7 years later" look is this year's Margot Robbie is a teenaged Tanya Harding. but i escaped into this world for a few hours, and for that—"Thank you."

it must also be said this is so well-acted, so wonderfully scored. it looks beautiful, and Pugh's wardrobe is otherworldly. i believe these little women are much bigger than they first appear. their hearts, after all, are much bigger than their fists.

i do not always recall the rest of the Baldwin quote about reading and heartache. it finishes like so: "It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive."

i know i cannot outrun or outdo myself. i don't even think i'd like to. it is nice, though, to be reminded that loneliness and solitude are not the same; that even from pain, joy can rise yet.

it is like snow of Christmas morning.
it is like the first story you ever told yourself, then were brave enough to share with someone else.
it is like a small white moth fluttering above a puddle, in which the moon's light glints, sparkles.
it is like a song you know and love but can't quite recall where you first heard it.
it is like a first love, then another.
it is like forgiveness.
it is why we do this: why we open ourselves up, whatever may come, and the little prayer we all whisper when we think no one else is listening: please, please let it be something good, gentle, gracious with its attention and affection.