Fragments from a fragmentary mind

Synecdoche, New York
I went to see this movie yesterday.
I came out feeling sad and confused.
I am not sure if it was good.
Or bad.
Or what the deal with Diane Wiest was.
I don't know what happened.
I cried a bit.
But that's not my judge of a good movie.
Since I cried in Titanic.
And wept buckets in My Girl.
I wouldn't call either of these movies good.

In my [real] world
Una has just laid the hand mirror down on the table.
She has put her reflection to sleep.
She is whispering.
She has to be very quiet.
Because she doesn't want to wake up.

Where we live in the [real] world
Fred: We live in a cottage.
Oh.
No we don't.
Mama: Well we do live in kind of a cottage.
Fred: Cottages don't have computers.

On the other side of the [real] world
My sister has had her baby.
He was born small.
Less than two pounds.
27 weeks gestation.
He weighs less than a bag of apples.
He is rallying.
He breathes for himself.
She is learning to be a mother
to a baby
who lives in a hospital.
His name is Joseph.
When Fred talked to my sister on the phone
she misremembered his name
and said he was called 'Jesus.'
And though he is nearly 2 weeks old
I think of him as 29 weeks
as though he is still
within.

The trouble with batteries
The trouble with batteries
in the [real] world is that when you leave the car lights on all day
because you left the house before seven and it was dark
and there was fog
and then you parked at the train station
and you were in a hurry
because the train was already there
so you grabbed your bag and ran
when you do that
and you come back after nine pm
and it's dark and cold
and you really just want to go home
and sleep
the car doesn't start.
You know it's not going to start
because on the way home
somewhere between ivanhoe station and eltham
you had a sudden flash
of not remembering
turning the lights off.
but didn't you look from the station?
down at where you had parked?
surely you would have noticed...
You didn't look. Or if you did
you didn't notice.
Because the car won't start
so you call your husband
and he calls the neighbour
who sits in your quiet house with your sleeping children
as your husband drives down in the other car
and arrives twenty five minutes later to find you shivering
and angry with yourself
and jumpstarts the car
and then you follow his
warm red tail lights
all the way home
and its the most intimate thing you've done
with him
for years
perhaps because you went to see Synecdoche, New York
and maybe it was good after all
because its tranformed your thinking
perhaps not in the way Kaufman intended
or perhaps exactly that way
because life is not bewildering or lonely or inconsolable.
We are all connected up
red lights following red lights
even when we are alone
we can be with someone.