Beasts of the Southern Wild

So I went to the cinema in the village hall.  It was cold, it was wet and I was tired.  It was all too tempting to stay in by the fire but I’ve made a pact with myself to do stuff.

I can’t just sit around waiting for things to happen.  Well, I can (and I do) but, equally, I’ve decided to go out, to do things, to go places.  And if it means I do them alone, then so be it. Because if you hang around waiting for other people, well, nothing much will happen. Will it?

I don’t mind doing stuff on my own and solo film-going is positively wondrous. It was something I did a lot when I lived in London, having developed a penchant for solo matinee trips to the Orson Welles cinema off Harvard Square in Cambridge during my American sojourn. I’d vanish for the afternoon to catch things like the Bergman season. Nice.

Anyhow, I liked the sound of this film.  Beasts of the Southern Wild. It’s about a girl called Hushpuppy who lives with her sick, depressed, alcoholic mess of a father in a place called The Bathtub, in the bayoux of Louisiana.  Life’s pretty well weird and tough enough for Hushpuppy but then Katrina comes and everything turns even weirder and tougher.  Anyhow, see it yourself - see what you feel.  

To be honest, I usually prefer a nice anonymous cinema but the Dulverton Film Club has one distinct advantage: a bar.

‘Hello, Jane. What can I get you?’

That’s the joy/problem with small town life – everyone knows who you are.

‘Bottle of red, please, Keith. Something not too heavy.’

We had a little debate and he passed over a bottle.  ‘How many glasses?’

‘Just the one.’ I grinned.  Ears pricked.  But, frankly, who cares? 

So I sat in the front row (cos a downside of village hall cinema is the lack of tiered seats and I’m not wild about getting a cricked neck from peering around the head in front) and happily glugged my way through the trailers and then a short called Glory at Sea (by the same collective responsible for Beasts) which, let’s be honest, had me in tears. 

 

And then Beasts started and…yeah, I cried a bit in that too. But the beauty of cinema is that it’s dark and nobody sees you cry.  Did I enjoy it?  No.  Enjoy is the wrong word.  It’s a strange film, dark and lorn and sad and fierce.  But I’m glad I saw it.  And I scribbled in my notebook, as I do. Can you scribble in the dark?  Of course. Sometimes I draw too.  *smile*. 

“The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right.  If you can fix the broken piece, everything can go right back to alright. But sometimes you break something so bad, it can’t be put back together.”

Yeah. That's about right.

So then…you need a boat. The right kind of boat.  “This boat will take you exactly where you need to be. It’s that kind of boat.”

So, what next?  I don’t know. Whatever comes up.  Whatever boat catches my eye.  

But more trips for sure and certain. Cos, much as I love travelling to amazing places in my mind, it’s time to get out there and see, smell, hear, taste and touch for real.  So, I’m making things happen.  Not Louisiana.  Not yet.  Next up is Austria.  Mountains.  Then…who knows where? I’m open to offers. Cos the world can’t come to you, but you can go out to the world. Right?  

She was gone, gone...

So. That was then. This is now. Well, sort of...  And today (well, three days ago actually - I'm writing this in the past for the future present) - I'm packing my bag again.  This time adding a passport.  I’m getting on a train this evening (let's just accept that it's this evening, right? Well, probably) and will spend half the night wandering around Gatwick, so if anyone fancies joining me for a vigil?  Then (God willing) I'll hop on a plane to Greece.  
Why?  Well...

You know how you meet some people online and just know?  Well, I have this weird idea that the Internet is a conduit, that it’s allowing us to meet up with our..what would you call them?  Soul brethren?  Psychic tribe?  Hell, I dunno.  But I do know that there are some people I meet online and just know…that we’re linked in some way.  I don't always get it right, of course. Sometimes I get it more than a bit wrong. When I say this to my friend Jane, she just raises an eyebrow and says, 'Random Twitter Guy' and we both fall about laughing.  But, hey, he was never one of mine - he was my offering to her. But, actually, I don't get it wrong that often.  And not with Kim.  At least, I don't think so. 


Anyhow, I met Kim (randomly) on Twitter and we shared a daft sense of word play.  Don’t know why but got talking a bit deeper than one normally would with a total stranger. Went on from there and now she’s one of a very very small handful of people I trust.  Yeah, I have trust issues. 

Anyhow, she runs a company called Serenity Retreat.  Based on the Greek island of Lefkada (just above Kefalonia) it offers ‘retreat style holidays for solo travellers on a spiritual or self-development path. It’s about finding some personal space to simply ‘be’.’    

It sounded (and still sounds)…delicious.  Not to mention warm. And, hey, Greece needs our support, right?  But – old story – couldn’t afford it.  Couldn’t even justify going away really…the bills are mounting, the credit cards are squeaking…you know the score.  But then I thought, sod it.  If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.  Let's give Fate another chance, huh?  So I fired off an email to a travel editor on one of the nationals.  
And he said…Yes.   
Huh?  I mean...HUH??? 
And the fee will cover my costs just perfectly.  But then I felt guilty about not even trying to earn any money in a week (like I have this crazy idea that, as long as I'm sitting at my desk worrying about not earning anything, it's okay?).  Until another very lovely editor I’d pitched it to said, sorry, I can’t pay for travel pieces (you probably don’t know this but the majority of the travel features you read in magazines are written by the staff who get a freebie holiday for writing up a piece) but how about if I commission you to write a couple of other features to make up the shortfall?  And I said, that’ll do nicely, thank you very much.  


And I did.  And so here I am/was/will be. And there I will be. God willing. Jeez, these scheduled posts are more worry than they're worth.  The tense-ion. :-)

Of course, if you wanna come too, just jump or hop or clamber onto a plane; or walk or swim or crawl or whatever... and I’ll see you on the beach. Hopefully being serene.  Ish.  :-)

Serenity Retreat: www.serenityretreat.co.uk

 PS. Okay, so I haven't quite gone, gone quite yet after all. Forgot to say... of course, you know where the title for this post comes from, right?  Yeah..our Syd...

This was yesterday, btw, and the day before that this pinged up on my screen and made me smile...another version of the same old song... Teenage White Riding Voldemort  hits the hi know? :-)  Sink row nicety, huh?

And now (yesterday) I really am gone...