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babies, india, inspirational, love, motherhood, movies, personal, relationships, satyajit ray, writing
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(Scene from the 3rd film of The Apu Trilogy)
Several years ago, while living in Los Angeles my husband and I had taken to regularly traveling to Santa Monica to sit in a small theatre where we would watch only a handful of the films of the great Indian auteurist Satyajit Ray. To this day this remains the only film festival I’ve ever successfully managed to participate in. This wasn’t by accident.
The worlds Mr. Ray had struggled so long to bring to life on the big scene were much to my amazement worlds in which I found not just myself, but everyone else I knew. How could this be possible, you say? He is Bengali, these film were made in another place, another time, inhabited by people who would not recognize you or your kind. Their apparent otherness is what continues to mesmerize me. These lives Mr. Ray had painstakingly taken the time to reveal were doing so much more than merely telling a story. They were teaching me about time, its very essence, showing me how to face it and make it stand still. To me this was nothing less than magic. Mr. Ray was teaching me magic. I fell in love instantly.
Our time living in Burbank, California was coming to an end and looking back I see now the unlikely world I found in this man’s films had assisted me in tying the knot on what had been a strange and unsettling experience. I didn’t really like living in LA. I complained about my days and nights there in long and winding letters written mainly to one dear friend who was finding love in Dallas, Texas. My tomes were laid to rest in long white legal envelopes made fat and sassy by my discontent.
I was young and not yet comfortable in my aloneness. Blaming the City of Angels for my sorry state made me feel like a person with priorities; I took my rebuke of its barren and insipid ways quite seriously, documenting upon documenting the intricacies of all it lacked until I was breathless and spent. I am reminded of how painful it is to cut teeth, the need for the young child to perpetually bite down. Perhaps I too was an infant, sinking my budding incisors into a mother who would never know me, a faceless mother incapable of seeing my attack as anything but a tiny piece of a time-worn affection. In allowing me to hate it so, that crazy city gave me something I had never really had before. It gave me my voice.
Looking back I see it was a strong city, blessedly unmoved by my youthful disaffection. When I left the confines of her sprawl I sat like and exotic bird, perched happy and high in an air-conditioned rental vehicle carrying all our worldly possessions, while my husband followed closely behind in our low hot car. The poor man had grown accustomed to indulging his wife. But this time he didn’t so much mind giving her what she wanted. She was glowing now, the way he imagined she had always been meant to glow. Suddenly he could see everything was going to be OK. She was pregnant with his child. Of all the best things that had ever happened to them, none had ever been planned.
This was a beautiful read, Patrice. I fell in love with the ending. And I don’t just mean the moving forward to glowing new shores, but also the understanding of why you were meant to be in a place, you didn’t feel you belonged to. It felt forgiving, towards yourself and towards this moment in your life and your surrounding. – Maybe experiencing not belonging in our lives can push us towards truly understanding you we are and were we belong.
Such a lovely tale <3
*who we are
I wasn’t planning to write this piece at all, I’ve got quite a few others but it wiggled it’s way into my morning and wound up pretty much shoving all my other plans out of the way. I think what you say is so true, the experience of not belonging can truly clarify for us what we need to belong…thanks for reading it.
I loved the clip (hopefully, it goes without saying that I love your thoughts).
I’m glad you enjoyed it! The trilogy is just phenomenal…it’s hard to find at the video store though, but I see a lot of the movies are online so that’s good. S.Ray was, I think, like one the original alternative film makers in India. He was influenced by the French film maker, Jean Renoir, who did The Bicycle Thief. His first film, the first from the trilogy was internationally received, won all the awards. A prominent New York film critic at the time panned it for portraying the life of peasants…this is the same thing Slum Dog Millionaire was recently panned for by similar sorts of critics in India. This is not Bollywood.
Apu’s Trilogy is indeed not Bollywood. There’s another Indian auteurist with remarkable skills — Guru Dutt. You might like to watch some of his films, perhaps. How about Kaagaz ke Phool, if you find it?
I like the way you remember the path of your learning, and growth.
Thank you Priya. I am always interested in trying something new. These suggestions are helpful.
Before my daughter was conceived even, our youngest son told my wife that the baby in her belly was named “pepperoni” and that “she” was going to be “boo ti full”.
Oddly, some months later, we found ourselves with child again. We found that somehow without intent, these children were all spaced out by 3 years 3 months.
and that Pepperoni?
We’ve always chosen to be surprised at the gender of our children. After 2 boys we expected a third boy, and low and behold, after her birth we had to “repaint” her wardrobe with socially appropriate pinks. The little placard in the hospital nursery read, Zoe. Grace. “Pepperoni”.
Alas, each child’s birth also represents a chapter in our lives. Our first, now the initial vestiges of love, fulfilling the societal expectations. Our second, the continuance of a promise, even as the world spun faster and faster with less sensibility about it, and our third perhaps, an attempt at continuation of love bygone.
Each child born into a different house, each time trying to find that “glow” of something that was more than the discontent. The trouble is, the place of your heart is something we seldom look at, and fear changing too much. For our second child we moved to Las Vegas for 3 months… we’d intended on staying, but for all the benefits of a city built overnight in the dry dead desert, we found retreating to New England economically prosperous.
Your heart in your belly, it seems you found your voice, even if it was in stout disagreement with your surroundings.
Did you ever grow so weary of the ways in which you accounted your grievances that eventually, there was no other thing to do but to drive away? and take your heart, your voice, with you? I think that’s part of what you are saying above. That sometimes, we just have to live, and the simplest choices (but apparently the hardest choices as well), support life.
“that one must face reality, that one must live! The point of life is to live it.”
I do think we sometimes need to just say I’m moving along. BTW, your kids sound sweet, I really keep waiting to hear more about them on your blog. Now I’m even more curious. Funny how our children explain so much about us.
I do hope you get a chance to watch this trilogy sometime, I think it would mean a lot to you.
Yay. My local video store has “the world of Apu” on hold for me.
I completely agree about our children. I’ll have to share with you a post that probably won’t see the light of day where I talk a little more about them.
God do I love these kids (as they’re roller blading around me on this cold winter day).
I realized when I got a new camera this past summer that the hardest thing in the world to do, is not take pictures of the things you love… 10000 pictures later I’m still thinking this.
That’s great…I can’t wait to hear what you think. I just posted a not for the light of day post, major rant, i keep writing and erasing today. Rollerblading in winter…how fun!
A lovely reminder of how we are when we find ourselves in a “winter of our discontent”. The description of a teething child, in pain, and driven to bite down is a great metaphor for the contradictions we find in those moments of our lives. Those periods can seem barren at the time, and unbelievably rich with insight from a backward glance.
I will be “chewing” on the cutting teeth idea and the lessons about time for awhile. Thanks for planting those seeds.
” the need for the young child to perpetually bite down”–in that line lies the heart of our youthful discontent. So soon we children become the forbearing mother, wisdom and love easing the pain of that bite. The Circle passes through this article so smoothly, so smoothly.
I am pleased to pass The Candle Lighter Award to The Heartbreak of Invention. Your writing sheds a creative light that pushes me to think. You can read about the award at growthlines.wordpress.com. Thank you for being a creative voice!
Thank you so much!