Slowing Down Time with a French Movie

Julius woke up at 3:15 this Monday morning. This is how it’s going to be from now on. His new job at BP is in Houston. He comes back weekends and I stay here in New York, managing the estate, slogging through freelance articles and new story ideas, and eking an agent and a publisher for 85A. Before he even got to LaGuardia, he sent me three texts on my cell phone. Maybe I’ll hear from him another time after he lands and then we’ll have our nightly Skype session. These are all great approximations of being together in person, but approximations are only approximations.

Last week, we went down to Houston. The sidewalks look positively post-armageddon. Nobody but nobody walks down them. The city’s too freakin’ hot to step outside for any longer than it takes to rush to your car, which is probably why the architecture – besides the scattering of Chicago-esque skyscrapers downtown – doesn’t go far beyond strip-mall chic. Not even the tannest construction-working hunk can put in the amount of time and energy necessary to cobble together a metropolitan marvel in that sun. On the upside, since Houstonians don’t like wandering outside too much, the high-rises are stocked to the roof with amenities – workout rooms, cyber cafes, conference rooms, and rec rooms. Such buildings are also quite cosmopolitan, what with so many multinational corporations down there importing so much overseas talent. We got Julius an apartment in one such place, as well as a Lexus minivan for his twenty minute commute to work via the gargantuan freeway, where America’s dependence on oil is on full display.

But yesterday we went to see Oliver Assayas’ L’Heure D’Ete at Lincoln Plaza Cinema, here in New York. The film centers on how three siblings divvy up the estate of their widowed mother, an estimable painter and antique collector, after she passes away. The Musee D’Orsay takes an interest in her collection and, since none of the siblings is available to take occupancy of the estate, they sell the mother’s house and most of her assets. At one point, one of the siblings and his spouse follow an English-language tour through the Musee D’Orsay, which stops for a cursory glance at the mother’s antiques before moving briskly on to other points of interest. The son sees his mother’s vases – which for him are brimming with sentimental value – perched in an antiseptic glass case, stripped of the comforts of home.

I’ll admit that, though the cinematography was splendiferous, I found the movie to be pretty slow-going. When the credits rolled, Julius asked me what I thought about L’Heure D’Ete and, after taking a moment to ponder, I could only say, “Very French.” I didn’t know how else to put it. For better or for worse, French cinema builds its narratives far more subtly and patiently than American cinema – to the point where I wonder, after seeing certain French films, if anything even happened in the two hours I spent wearing out my buttocks in the chair.

But Julius set me straight. He pointed out how L’Heure D’Ete’s nuances were consonant with those of our own life in Brooklyn. He said, “After we both die, nobody will ever know how much life took place in our house. They’ll never know what we both thought and what we both felt and the value that we ascribed to our keepsakes, which are worth far more than any price tag could ever say.” Tears were starting to pool in his eyes like they do at the opera or like they did the first time I showed him Susan Boyle on Youtube.

I was considerably more stoic, “Well, that’s true. Nobody can live within our own subjective experience.”

“Yes,” he said, “But that’s what’s so sad. A century from now, nobody will ever care that Marquez used to sleep on top of the couch with his back paw dangling off the side. But to me…it means a lot…”

Dammit, he had to play the cat card! He got my eyes watering too. And leave it to the French to drive home the point of existential loneliness on a day when the music’s pumping and the horns are blaring from the Puerto Rican Day Parade on Fifth Avenue.

We walked over to Fiorelli’s for pizza afterwards and ordered a bottle of wine. It was about seven at night and I was still a little hungover from the triple bon-voyage dinner party that we hosted on Saturday night. Our friend Rolando is moving back to Paraguay, our friend Ian is moving to Pittsburgh, and Julius had already started his job in Houston. Yesterday morning, we heard that Kim Jong-il is threatening a nuclear attack on the United States, which some say that we can easily thwart while others are far more wary. Then there’s the unactionable meme in the blogosphere that the Mayans predicted that the world will end on December 21, 2012. (Scholars of the Mayan Civilization overwhelmingly refute this claim but many bloggers love the sense of importance that fear-mongering gives them.) None of that mattered much to me as we sat at Fiorelli’s, watching New York carry on in all its dynamism. If the apocalypse ever were to hit (and how many times has it failed to hit despite how many Jeremiahs throughout history have hailed its advent?), there’s nothing I can do about it. I can just remember how lovely life was while it was here, how adorable Marquez’s paw was draped over the couch as he took his twentieth nap of the day.

Julius called again while I was in the middle of writing this blog post. He says he misses me. We’ve barely been apart five hours and already we miss each other.

I have enough work to do to offset an overwhelm of loneliness. As for social life, I still see Mike Levine once or twice a week; Rachael still emails with more word from London almost every day; Johnjon is right down the street. I found a new Buddhist community right here in Brooklyn, where I feel a true sense of sangha and belonging and which also functions as somewhat of a support group for those experiencing impermanence. And, hey, at least I know the value of my own subjective experience.  Like the courtesan Garance said in Les Enfants Du Paradis (“Children of Paradise”): “I like my little life.”

Tags: cats, Houston, L'Heure D'Ete, New York, Oliver Assayas