I seem to remember that 2005 was a good year for movies and I had many opportunities to repeat this little dance of Entertainment Shoplifting. Sometimes, just because I could, I'd see a movie twice – not in row, but perhaps on consecutive days. Elizabethtown was such a movie. Crowe has the ability to create films in very much his own style, that sweep and roll across the reel, in a modern, laid back, version of The Great American Epic. His films may not seem like Gone With The Wind or How The West Was Won to you, but to me they’re all the same – it’s just that his have been affected by weed and a slacker edge. His characters are dense and his Art feels just like one extra-long, Southern Rock Song, complete with a 15 minute guitar solo and duelling harmonicas. At the time, I think what I enjoyed the most about Elizabethtown, was how much Kirsten Dunst's character (try saying that 7 times in a row), reminded me of my girlfriend at the time. Sure they were both blonde, but there was so many more similarities that ran further than skin deep. We were going through one of those periods where we were breaking-up and then reuniting so often, that it was very hard to tell if we were actually together or not. This just exacerbated my Pining-Projection onto Ms Dunst.
She's gone now. Not Kirsten. My ex is gone now. Shit, that sounds like she's dead. She's not dead. 'We', are just no more. Haven't been for years. Took me ages to get over that one, but I'm now successfully free and clear. As Connor Oberst sings: 'There's nothing that the road cannot heal.’. Now that road has healed, I can think back upon her, me, us and those days and be warmed by the memories and not emotionally chilled by the past. So, as I flicked across onto Film4 last night, nostalgia, so often the arbiter of my actions, forced a leave to stay.
Early on, there's a telephone conversation scene between Orlando Bloom and Jessica Biel, who was his girlfriend, but recently exed (is that a verb?) him. She clearly has better things to do than talk to him and is in a hurry to terminate any desperate pleadings that may ensue from his direction. She ends the conversation abruptly, with this line:
"Take care of yourself."
Damn! That’s exactly the final goodbye I received from The Blonde. Not just the once. Every time we spoke in that post-break-up-month (before we didn't speak again for years), she'd end conversations with that line. It became, to me, her catchphrase. Boy, how I hated it. I don't think I'd heard her utter that parting even once throughout the relationship. Now it comes out? It wasn't like she was from Savannah or something, and it was a lexicon provisional to her vernacular. It just suddenly appeared from nowhere and became entrenched in her mannerisms, like how a newly un-closeted, male flight-attendant, might suddenly develop a slight lisp.
I took it as a dig. As if she was saying: "Now that I'm not there to take care of you, you’re going to need to take care of yourself. And, in case you forget to take care of yourself, I’m going to remind you, every time we meet." Perhaps, I read into it too much. Perhaps, she was just trying to grow into a new parting that could satisfy the urge to show me a certain level of tenderness, but not the depth of emotion once expressed by lovers. Perhaps, I was projecting a more general and widespread anger towards her, onto the narrower target of a catchphrase. Perhaps, I should have never lent her that money and then wouldn't have had to keep meeting up with her to collect repayments. Perhaps, I should have drank more, gambled less and started swimming obsessively, much earlier. Perhaps. But then, perhaps, I may have never come to understand the power of the phrase one chooses, even casually, for parting.
Most people don't think about how they close off a phone call or email. I do; now I do. Since that "Take care" business, I'm certain that on some subconscious level, the last words or letters that people hear or read from you, have a profound impact. Certainly, alot more than any greeting can impart. Personally, I take this theory way out on the ledge when it comes to written communication. If it's a business email that is requesting an action , I sign off with "Thanking You in Advance’. If I believe the receiver will probably not execute said action request, I drop the capital letters, as a sort of Fuck You (‘thanking you in advance’ - see the difference). If it's a friendly note, I drop the 'Ash' at the end of my name and simply go with 'Hershy'. If I really do care for and about the addressee, I will always just sign the letter 'H'.
For some reason, lately I've taken to signing off emails and texts to my friends with 'Much Love'. I don't know where this newly acquired habit came from and it feels so removed from a parting that would befit me. It sounds almost like an acid-casualty, former hippee, waving you goodbye as you leave his Mystical Crystal Shop. Something that'd emanate from San Francisco, circa 1984. It also feels like an exaggeration, like using words to overstate a genuine emotion. Leaves the reader questioning you intentions and motives.
Why do that?
What a wanker!
Better lose that catchphrase, before I turn into The Blonde.
