Time in reverse

Yesterday I went to see a matinee of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (which I found out later was a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Who knew?) Seemed like a dopey story idea, and I certainly had no idea that it would affect me so. Boo hoo hoo. :)

{Spoiler alert! Story details follow.}

The main idea of the movie is about a guy who is born old and gets younger as time goes along, and the relationship he has with a girl he meets. They were born a few years apart, and met around age 10-12 or so, only she looked like ten and he looked like 80. :)

Still, some chemistry was there, and eventually, as she ages and he gets younger, they meet "in the middle" and are together and happy for a while. Yet they couldn't make it work on either end, when she's old and he's young, or vice versa. It sort of reinforced the popular notion that people in love need to be about the same age, and that an age gap is a significant barrier to a relationship. On one level that was the message.

Yet, the story also made it clear that the connection between them was there at all times and at all ages, that the spark, the love between them lasted through the years. Even if they weren't together the whole time, they were still always connected, and each was the other's most significant relationship in life, though there were others as well, due to the peculiar circumstances. Hm. Anyway, an interesting story, and moving (at least to me.)

Several things struck me while I was watching, and I found myself sitting there in the theater alone with wet cheeks, reacting to ... oh, I don't know ... not so much the story as the images in it, the emotions in it, finding the characters on the screen acting out scenes that were somewhat familiar to me. Not the same thing, not in the same way, not for the same reasons, but.. it felt similar to something I once felt, you know?

Here's an example. Most of the movie takes place in New Orleans, and not in familiar settings to me; but parts of it take place in Manhattan, and in one scene the actors go around a corner and there in the background is...

the Chrysler Building. 

I've seen it in person several times on trips to New York, but every time I see the top of that tower, my heart thrills.

:)

I love that building - it's my favorite in all the world. This facade is masculine and yet so stunningly beautiful.

And so when I saw that scene on the big screen, I remembered the last time I had seen it.. and found the tears running involuntarily.


Two years ago this April, while already working here but before moving here, I was able to take a long weekend and head back to New England. I could just poke around, deciding at the last minute what to do, and seeing again (maybe for the last time) some of the very familiar places I had come to love, but from a different viewpoint this time - not as a local, but as a tourist. :)

Driving from Hartford to Boston to New York City to Hartford again, it was a wonderful trip, and a great time of year to go - everything was beginning to bloom. Jacket weather, mostly.

I kind of felt like I was acting as a tour guide... :P (yes, to myself, but still!) I loved doing things like:

After shopping in the Back Bay, relaxing in the Public Garden



braving the brisk Spring wind on a nearly deserted Cape Cod



strolling the romantic paths meandering through Central Park



lunching at the Waldorf and walking the busy Manhattan Streets.



It's a trip I'll always remember. Always. :)

So when in the movie, the Chrysler Building came into view... from almost the same angle as my photo above... time ran in reverse for me. For a while I remembered it all... and had to grab a napkin. ;)