SOMEWHERE IN TIME

I was preparing to settle down for a night of junk food and College Football. I was looking up the Odds for the game online and generally trying to lose myself in the process.


I wandered into a site that led me to an advertisement for the new film called "Somewhere". Sofia Coppola, Stephen Dorf, The Chateau Marmont, Dakota Fannings little sister. It all seemed like an interesting combination.


From there my mind did a little jump to a memory of an old movie with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour called "Somewhere in Time".

I loved that romantic old film. I went to see it with my first serious girlfriend who I was madly in love with at the time.


Perhaps a little sad, but........before I knew it I was watching it again online. 30 yrs later ..Stagevu...


One of the things that struck me, seeing it again, was that the message seemed so clear this time. I will elaborate on that.


Warning: What follows might be crazy and on the maudlin side.



The story centers around this young playwright who after celebrating the successful opening of his play in 1979 is visited by an elderly woman. She looks into his eyes, hands him a beautiful old watch and says "come back to me". Then she just walks away satisfied.



What follows is a bitter sweet love story. He becomes obsessed with a photo of the same woman when she was young. She is incredibly beautiful, with a subtle depth to her smile.


He has to figure out how to go back in time in order to fulfill their destiny. He does. When he first sees her back in 1912 by the water, she says to him "Is it you?". Oh man.


They literally only have one day together. The happiest day of their lives. The day of a lifetime. Ultimately to be taken away. It's crushing.


RACHMANINOFF RHAPSODY on a theme of PAGANINI OP.43 variation xviii is played over and over again in the background. Playing on the viewers mind and on the characters minds.


I won't give away the ending, which may be interpreted as uplifting. Although you will have to fight back the waterworks to get to that realization.


The reason that this resonates so much with me is not really about watching another movie. Yes, sometimes it has that bad 80's look to it and the usual over the top acting. However, Time has a very powerful message.


Perfect moments exist and then they are gone.


I don't want to be presumptuous or condescending to some of my younger friends when I talk about age. When I was younger I certainly felt equipped emotionally to deal with life.



The thing that you realize when you get older is that..... certain moments and the magnitude of the feelings attached to those moments will never repeat again in this lifetime.


You will have other moments. Different moments. More refined and deeper moments perhaps......but those moments on a sunny day..... laughing and kissing the woman you love out in a field (or whatever it was). These moments don't really exist anymore. They are gone.


They were perfect. They are perfect. They live on in memory but we forget so quickly.


The other issue we have with such memories is that we keep trying to recapture them. Impossible. There is the ultimate let down, but most of us still have to try.


It's so difficult; because society is saying we have to move on with our lives, sometimes against our will.


Be responsible. Take a course. Pay the mortgage. Bring up children. Bury our loved ones.


We try to be better people. To do the best we can with the challenges and learn. To help others cope along the way.


In the end, I would give it all up, just to be back there again one more time. To be able to stay there on that dock, on that sunny day with her. Forever. I wouldn't need anything more. Play that music again.


That's not reality though. Reality is harsh and less forgiving. Now, some of us take medications so we don't have to deal with these types of realities. (I am not taking any for the record, so instead i write this and you have to take the medication)


I don't want to be depressing. We might have many more of these special moments, and time will stand still for a second while we are living them.


It will stand still long enough for you or me to say the right thing. To really get through to that person. To let them know why this matters. This moment matters more than they can possibly know. Why?


You may never see them again and they are going to have to learn how to forget. We are programmed to forget and to move on. It must be for some sort of misguided survival purpose.


If you are having one of these surreal epiphanies with somebody now... Hit yourself. IF IT ALL SEEMS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.. Realize it. Speak about it. Hold on to it. Laugh about it. Thank a higher power for it.


I suppose the film did have an impact on me again. I am having flashes of special moments bombard me all over the room here...It was all in their eyes.


I should move on. It's definitely more healthy. Isn't there a football game on TV.
Turn the sensitivity button off Rick.


RICK