Closure As the Fog Settles In

The mini movie marathon continues…

Today has been the very first Friday in four years, five months and twenty days that I have not worked. I promise that from now on I will simply round that off to four and a half years.

It has been six days since I worked my last day and I felt like it was truly over. But it was not until today that I felt true complete closure. It happened this morning when I went to see the owner of the now defunct business to collect my last paycheck and turn in my key to the building. The final paycheck had little impact on me. After all, it’s just money. It was when I handed over the key that I felt closure ripple throughout my body like a small earthquake. It now really is all over.

Instead of four keys, my key ring now only has three keys on it. It’s amazing how much lighter my pants are. I had to stop twice on the way home to hike up my pants. Of course that might have something to do with the fact that I’ve lost 7 or 8 pounds in the last few weeks. (Without trying, I might add.) I usually lose weight when I’m happy and gain weight when I am anxiety ridden. This now I cannot explain. I might need to buy a belt.

Anyway, this intense closure I experienced today was surely the bright spot of the day. And there was not much brightness to the day. It was a dark and gloomy day.

When I got up this morning after yet another night of very intense dreaming I looked outside and I could not even see the house across the street. That is how thick the fog was.

In the town in which I live on the Great Plains of Turtle Island fog is not very common. We’ll have fog perhaps 2 or 3 or 5 times a year. (Never 4.) The fog always happens in the early morning and it is usually burned off by 9 a.m. But today the fog lasted all day long! That is something I have never witnessed in the almost 8 years that I’ve been living here. The fog never cleared and the sun never once poked through. I felt like I was teleported to London or Seattle or to Longview, Washington (officially the foggiest city in all of America).

I happen to be an extremely solar person. I simply cannot go 48 hours or more without sunshine without experiencing life-threatening mental, physical and spiritual effects. I am the very opposite of a vampire. Like a flower that no longer gets any sun, I begin drooping. And it’s not pretty.

But I tell myself that it is just one day. Of course, the local official weather bureau says that today’s fog and drizzling rain is merely a precursor to yet another winter snowstorm that will be blowing in tomorrow. (It will be the eighth winter snowstorm of the season so far and it’s not even officially winter yet!) So there is a chance the sun may be absent tomorrow, too. (Somebody call the men in white coats!)

But I’ll deal with that tomorrow.

I am discombobulated. There, I said it. Seriously, I am all fucked up. Since I stopped working I cannot tell what day of the week it is. I can’t tell what time of day it is. My eating schedule is all off. My sleep schedule is all off. My bathroom schedule is all off. My writing schedule is all off. My meditation schedule is all off. I am a hopeless cork bobbing in the waves in the middle of the ocean.

After lunchtime (I didn’t eat lunch because I wasn’t hungry) I should have gone out job-hunting. But that would have entailed shaving (my neck) and showering. But I don’t shave and shower in the afternoon. That’s something I do in the morning. (Did I mention that I am discombobulated?)

And besides, a job is the very, very, very last thing I want. I don’t want a freaking job. I want to focus on my career.

So at 3 o’clock in the middle of the afternoon I found myself having dinner and a movie (by myself). Those who have read my recent article, Eat, Pray, Laundry, know that that is what I’ve been doing all week. I don’t know why I started this mini movie marathon. It just happened.

Those familiar with this mini movie marathon I’ve been having know that I went through all my dvds and watched the ones that I knew would be very moving. Well, today I remembered that I have another box of dvds in the closet that I forgot about. I went through this box and found two more movies that I know would have the same impact.

I picked one and it is a movie that came out a few years ago called, Beginners, starring Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, the incredibly hot and talented French actress Melanie Laurent, and a Jack Russell dog. Oliver, the main character played by the extraordinarily talented Ewan McGregor, finds out for the first time that his dying father (played by Christopher Plummer) is gay. All his life he never had any idea his father was gay.

Essentially, the movie is a very intense love story between a man and a woman. The man is grieving over his dying father while also trying to come to grips with the news that his father is gay while also inheriting his dying father’s Jack Russell dog who becomes very possessive; all while simultaneously falling in love with an incredibly beautiful woman, who, of course, comes with her own baggage. Needless to say, Oliver becomes very discombobulated.

Through it all the man and woman somehow manage to find love. It may be very sad at times but the movie is beyond beautiful! It’s all about people beginning new paths in their lives.

Can I pick ’em, or what? Why are all my favorite movies love stories?

By the way, the part of Arthur, the Jack Russel dog, is played by a very talented dog actor named Cosmos. Seriously, the dog should have won an Oscar. The dog did not have many lines but, since the dog couldn’t speak English, every one of the dog’s lines appeared at the bottom of the screen as a subtitle. Why don’t all movie makers do this? Dogs are people, too. What they have to say is important. In the movie, the dog’s lines were some of the most moving lines of all. I really loved this aspect of the movie.

So once again, I picked the perfect movie for today. Beginners was so good that I have since totally forgotten what I had for dinner (always the sign of a good movie).

So how long will this mini movie marathon last? Well, I’ve only got one more movie that I want to see. I can’t keep watching movies for the rest of my life. It will soon be time to go beyond closure and start thinking about beginnings. I am in the process of becoming a beginner.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved.

Read my first movie marathon article at The Junction here: