Here to Forever
“Life would be so wonderful, if only we knew what to do with it.” - Greta Garbo
Courtesy of Upsplash
Remember when I said I’m addicted to classic movies? I have a lot of favorites: Gidget, Splendor in the Grass, Imitation of Life (1959), Red Headed Woman, The Awful Truth, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Philadelphia Story, The Wizard of Oz, The Lost Weekend…I’m sure you get the picture. But the reason why I love classic movies so much is because life today seems to be so complicated.
I know that during the years some of the pictures I listed were made, significant historical events were happening such as The Great Depression and World War II. But daydreaming in black and white has become a favorite stress reliever for me. It has been since I was 12 years old and discovered Turner Classic Movies. I was suffering from anxiety due to familial issues I wrote about previously (reference my post The 90s) and insomnia. The first film I ever watched on that channel was the silent classic Nosferatu. Yes, the story about the demon vampire. I was hooked and wanted to watch more. It felt like I was transported to a world that was better than the one I existed in.
Siri, play “Here to Forever” by Death Cab for Cutie…
“Oh, these days, it’s so hard to relax. You gotta hold a gun to my back to make me smile. And the only way I seem to cope is by trying to hold on to hope if just for a while…”
At one point it was very hard to smile. I had moved away to St. Louis where kids were mean and then came back to San Diego where kids were mean. My mom was working the night shift so she couldn’t be with me. I was alone, depressed and eating all of the snacks she bought in one sitting while watching TV. Escaping into classic films was the only thing that brought me joy besides music. I weighed 130 pounds in the sixth grade; to put that into context, I weigh less than that as an adult woman. To this very day, I have a phobia of being anywhere near 130 pounds because of the trauma of being a latchkey kid.
When I struggled to sleep at night wondering what hell I would encounter at school the next day, I found myself daydreaming about being in a Charlie Chaplin movie. Later, I would find out I was more like Gidget once I started venturing to the beach after meeting my best friend in seventh grade and dropping the extra weight I had put on. If you’ve never seen Gidget, it’s about a 16-year-old girl who worries she’ll always be overlooked by the boys at the beach because she’s not like her manhunting girlfriends. That was most definitely me. As Loverboy would say when giving Gidget surfing lessons, I was: “Flat as a pancake, well almost anyways”.
“It ain’t easy living above. And I can’t help but keep falling in love with bones and ashes. Bones and ashes. When the color’s too bold and bright, I’m daydreaming in black and white until it passes…”
I’m now 34-years-old and still can’t stop daydreaming in black and white. When I post things to Instagram, I’d rather share my favorite classic films than pictures of myself. Maybe that can be chalked up to insecurity and not feeling sexy. My mother recently told me that I look “wholesome”. As I stated before, I’m Gidget. I’m no manhunter.
In those movies, the guy would work to sweep you off of your feet instead of into their bed. Well, maybe not in the pre-code Hollywood films. Women like Norma Shearer, Jean Harlow and Barbara Stanwyck were sexually liberated bad asses. When Chester Morris tried to take Norma Shearer to task for sleeping around like he was doing in The Divorcee, she told him in so many words to go fuck himself. Those were sexually explicit for the 1930s even though all you would see is an ankle or collarbone.
“In every movie I watch from the fifties, there’s only one thought that swirls around my head now. And that’s that everyone there on the screen, they’re all dead now…”
I can relate to Sandra Dee, but I wish that I was more Norma Shearer in The Divorcee or Barbara Stanwyck in Baby Face where she breaks a bottle over this guy’s head after he tries to grope her— then promptly goes back to sipping her drink. She’s a bad bitch.
All of these actors and actresses are long gone; Their legacies live on. We’re fortunate enough to be able to watch these films as they have been archived and preserved. I feel fortunate to have been exposed to them at a young age even if it was through loneliness. They’ll always have a special place in my heart and be my calming refuge in the middle of a storm.