mild endings

here's what i realize lately: that some endings are neither "live-happily-ever-after" nor "i'll-meet-you-once-every-ten-years" type but milder, more compassionate, a bittersweet kind like the 85% cocoa lindt chocolate i tried last week. but i find that this kind of ending could be just as beautiful. if "live-happily-ever-after" exists only in fairy tales then this one must be the second best choice available here on earth.

1. marie antionette (film) by sofia coppola

i fell in love with sofia coppola's previous film "lost in translation" (it's so beautiful i loses words to explain why - sometimes beauty could only be felt not explained) and since then i'm always after her works. my friend, who lent this film to me, said it's pretty boring and historical. i don't like history either except if it's in the form of story. and thanks to my history lesson in high school, i know the horrid account of french revolution and how they end up guillotine-ing the poor antoinette. if that's the story of the film, i thought, i don't think i'll like the film at all. i'm not in the mood for stories about poverty and revolution. true, this a grand theme and important too but it's just not me. in fact im NEVER in the mood for that. so i could simply skip this film but i don't think that a person who has delivered such a delicate "lost in translation" will betray her audience with the story of people marching, rioting, killing, and cutting others' heads.

and in fact she doesn't. her film features a story about a young woman who happens to be the dauphine and queen of France. but above all, she is presented as a human being with her doubts, worry, sadness, and jealousy as well as her spirit, joy, and struggle. life is not perfect for her but she does her best to live her life, she watches sun rise, she has fun with her friends, she even falls in love. i read critics who accuse this film lacking in the essential thing because it touches almost no politics at all but i don't think i will like marie antoinette as a political figure. this film presents her as a person with whom i could truly symphatize.

but the french revolution is of course inevitable. it comes at the end of the film but coppola somehow decides to end her story when antoinette was taken away from the Versailles with her huband and children in a carriage to be moved to Paris. history tells us that she would still spend a long time in Paris before finally guillotine-d. and i think coppola is very compassionate to end her story there. i don't think i could stand seeing antoinette being executed because throughout the film, i have symphatized and like her a lot. so antoinette looks at the palace she left from her carriage window and she said to her husband, "I'm saying goodbye." it's a perfect ending.

2. villette by charlotte bronte

i have avoided reading classic for as long as i can remember, thinking they are exhausting and i might not have the strength and intelligence enough to finish and i hate not finishing what i have begun. but after scouring almost all the contemporary cheap easy-reading novels in the library, i'm running out of choices and challenges. i turn to classics. starting with anne bronte's "agnes grey" because it's short. unexpectedly, i like the story and i like her writing style. i move on to "tenant of wildfell hall" by the same author which turns out to be so uncannily like a warning for me. and then comes the time to leave anne and acquaint myself with her elder and more celebrated sister, charlotte bronte. i choose "villette" because jane eyre is way too famous and somehow excessive popularity turns me off.

it's is exhasuting indeed to read "villette". i think classics are not supposed to be read all at once. it's just impossible. reading classic is like having a big three course meal where one has to set time aside, sit down, cut the food properly, put it into his mouth, chew and chew and chew and chew before finally he could swallow it and continue with the next bite. however, it does feel more fulfilling than the newer easier-reading novels i used to deal with.

the story is about a young woman, lucy, who is alone in the world and works as a teacher abroad in villette (supposed to be brussels, if we refer to her biography) and two other women, her student and friend, the selfish promiscuous Ginevra and the lucky pure Paulina. I suspect Charlotte has based lucy on herself, a plain woman who is lonely and in search of love. surprisingly, she is very generous with ginevra (paulina, the upright one, of course unquestioningly deserves everything - wealth, a handsome husband, happiness, etc and charlotte gives it all to her). I believe Anne Bronte would have punished Ginevra with a marriage to an ugly high-ranked man who makes her suffer terribly after her wedding; yet, charlotte allows her to elope with the good-looking and playful colonel de Hamal and though she is indeed troubled with debt etc in her later life, she never seems to really suffer and she always manage to get help in time. while for lucy, she is heartbroken once because the man she loves chooses paulina instead of her. then after a long and detailed process, she is in love again with M. Paul, another teacher in school - ugly but kind and generous man. Before he goes to West Indies, he provides a house so lucy can open her own school like her dream. and finally they confess their feelings for each other (after i read hundreds of pages). he is about to leave for 3 years for business and when he gets back, they're gonna be married. however, the last page tells us that on the day he sails back to england, there's a violent storm that wrecks the ships on the atlantic. Charlotte doesn't give a definite ending, though. I first thought she's really cruel for not even giving a chance for lucy to be happy but her words actually say [i quote it from the novel]:

"here pause. pause at once. there is enough said. trouble no quiet, kind heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. let it be theirs to conceive the delight of joy born again freas out of great terror, the rapture of rescue from peril, the wondrous repreive from dread, the fruition of return. let them picture union and a happy succeeding life"

let it be theirs, she allows generously. and somehow i think it is good enough.

3. peter pan (film) by P. J Hogan

peter pan decides not to grow up because for him, life itself is enough adventure. neverland is enough for him. but wendy wants to grow up and she must come back to her world. when they have to part, wendy says to peter: "you won't forget me, will you?" and peter says: "Im peter pan, of course i won't forget" i thought it's very sad but then for them, it's perhaps enough. they can't be together because they choose to belong to different worlds so remembrance alone is enough. if you still remember me then it's enough. and they just can't be together, anyway. for peter to remain as her angel, he can't choose to stay in the same world as hers. i find it very sad though.

later i find out that J.M Barrie, the original author, has devised that when they part, peter promises to come back every year to take wendy to neverland to help him with spring cleaning. well, i would be quite happy with this ending knowing that they'll at least meet again. but barrie has cruelly put the afterword saying that peter forgets and when he does come back, wendy has grown up and married and had a child. so after all, the ending of the film is still much better compared to the novel.

"you won't forget me, will you?" and remembrance alone is enough

the unhappy endings

when i was younger, i used to believe in unhappy endings. the stories that i wrote then always ended in mysery and when my friends protested, i simply said that it was indeed the ending that made the story beautiful. my theory: when it leaves you with a bitter taste in your mouth, you tend to remember it better and then it will become a classic. that's just how this world works. romeo and juliet won't be quite what it is now if in the end shakespeare decides to marry them both and let them live happily ever after. it will slip into the category of another cheesy fairy tale. but, of course, one shakespeare can never do such a mistake. so, i wrote tragedies in his footsteps and punished my characters mercilessly. but then something happened in my life, i had always had a secret dream that i kept locked in my heart. it was an impossible one so that i didn't even have the courage to hope it might come true one day. but, unexpectedly, it did. in the most miraculous way that i could never figured out how until today. and then i started to change. i started to think differently. i started to believe maybe not all endings had to be unhappy ones.

still the fascination lingers. i read books, see movies, and find how some unhappy endings make the stories beautiful, perfect, sublime even. i collected these in my mind, ranked them, and these are the best three i ever encounter:

1. the english patient by michael oondatje. when i read this novel, i knew i was in an extra sentimental mood. perhaps that affected my impression of this book. i was in love with someone but we had agreed that what we had then was nothing but "a sandbox" moment. i knew the playtime would soon be over soon and then we had to get out of our sandbox and get back to real life. it was our agreement since the beginning. he kept it, i didn't. i read the english patient sometime after we made the deal. a task from the uni. i was supposed to analyse the issue of nationalism in the novel but i got more absorbed with the sad love story, perhaps because i thought it mirrored mine somehow. but it was the ending that really broke my heart. after the war, the man had to separate with the woman he loved (i can't remember their names now) but until years later, he could always see her. he saw flitting images of her - like he suddenly had a sixth sense. He saw her hair getting longer, saw her laugh, saw her grow , saw her with her children, with her friends. he couldn't hear her though, only images. and i knew exactly what he felt because, i thought, that 's how i would also feel soon - to miss someone so much, to be able to see that person from time to time but knowing that our chance had passed and would never come again. that kind of pain ... and then i cried. i cried until i couldn't breathe and i phoned him in his office and told him that i had just finished my book and how the ending made me feel terrible. i didn't remember what he said but i remembered calling him, i remembered telling him that, and i remembered feeling much better after talking to him. despite it cruelly foreshadowing my own (inevitable and obvious and stupid) unhappy ending, it remains one of the most beautiful endings i have ever read.

2. brand new friend by mike gayle
this one is more recent. i read it perhaps last month. it's a light easy-reading novel. a man moved from london to manchester to live with his girlfriend. he had a real (exagerated, i should say) hard time making new friends there. it seemed that no guy in manchester suited him. finally he met jo, a girl who's crazy about dirty dancing film. they immediately got on well together and decided to be friends. they hung out together in the pub, went to the movie, talked about music and films, until they fell in love with each other. somehow this guy was still very much attached to his gorgeous girlfriend and loved her to death. he couldn't understand his feeling to jo, thinking it must be a feeling that was not covered in english language. in the end, they decided not to meet each other again and separated. jo moved to london and became a writer. the last chapter of the book is about jo who, 2 years later, had published her first novel based on her own love-friendship story and answering questions in a book launch and talk. the last question came from a man who sat at the back, who, of course, turned out to be her ex lover-friend. he said his wife bought the novel for him as a father's day gift on behalf of his baby daughter. and he asked: "you create a happy ending for the two friends who fell in love in your novel. isn't sad ending more realistic for them?" and jo answered: "at first i planned to do so but then i thought this was my novel and my characters. i could do whatever i want with them and i think no one deserves to have a happy ending more than them." when the talk was over, jo tried to find him but he's already gone - apparently not wanting to meet personally. no, i didn't cry this time even though this obviously disturbed me and made my mood gloomy for days. it was really bitter. no one deserves a happy ending more than them - how much more ironic this life could be. I begin to think that some writers are totally cruel to their characters (forgetting that i used to be one of them, perhaps still am)

3. pirates of the caribbean - at world's end
talking about writers' cruelty, this is the latest in my collection and immediately boosts up to the top three. having experienced the adventures, fights, misunderstanding, etc, etc, elizabeth swan and will turner finally got married in the middle of the pirates' war only to be separated several minutes later because will is stabbed and cursed to be the captain of a ghost ship. so, he should roam the ocean for ten years (i was not clear why but my friend told me that he inherited the task of the previous captain, which was to help the souls of the dead make their journey to heaven or something) and then he could come to the land for one day. it's unbelievable!!! what's their fault that they are doomed to wait for ten years and then are only given a day to be together? it's totally unfair. how much crueler a writer can be? what's more disturbing is that, of all the people i watched the film with, none finds it as disturbing as I do. they are more fascinated by jack the monkey, the pirates, and the visual effect while i went home and had bad feelings for the next 48 hours. i wonder if sentimentality is perhaps out-of-date now.

nothing but gratitude

i guess i just have to write this down though it's been a very long time

the good thing did happen the next day ... not at 11 as promised but at 7
perhaps 7 is the new 11 ^___^
or simply it might be 11 somewhere else on the globe though it's not in mine
well, whatever the reason is, miracle does take place once in a while
oops, in my case, it's quite often actually
just got e-mail from london yesterday that i'm accepted!!!
and without interview ... isn't it cool or what?
(i know a friend of mine who will gladly answer: "what" =P )

but really, i was scared to death about this PhD interview
i know i depend on my writing skill more than my speaking
coz naturally im just a pathetic speaker =(
and i knew that i didn't know that much, actually
so i knew that it's gonna take lots and lotsa miracle to help me pass the interview

and i waited forever to be sent my interview schedule
nothing came ...

then this e-mail arrived and i was told that the interview was not even necessary
they have decided to accept me - just like that ...
... oh God
of course not coz my proposal is super brilliant or anything in the line =P
but coz a lecturer there had helped me revise my proposal and given me a very generous reference
then they assumed that it's equal to an interview
but the fact is she never interviewed me, she was the one who gave me the answers to my questions

so when i read the e-mail yesterday, i got speechless
"God ... it's way too good."
then i started to cry
and my heart is so full of gratitude to Him that it almost bursts
nothing but gratitude ...
and on my way home, the evening sky was as red as fire -literally- so beautiful that i had no choice but to stop at the little nook near the airport and watched the floating red clouds and the amazing blend of colours in the sky and waited till everything grew dark

i know He's just been celebrating with me ^___^

the smell of rain and a very good thing which will happen at 11 in the morning

i got an e-mail today, the one that you should send to a number of people so a very good thing will happen at 11 o'clock in the morning (which morning is not clarified, though). i usually delete such e-mails coz i think it's kinda blackmailing and blackmailing is a crime. but it's different today coz the one sending it is a very good friend who happened to be working in the same computer room. i said: 'Oh, you send me an e-mail?' which is quite hillarious in itself coz we WERE, in fact, sitting next to each other. so i opened her e-mail dan this is the story that i got:

it's about a premature baby girl who was born three month before her due time. so she was totally tiny, weak, fragile and the doctor said there was almost no hope. the parents didn't give up, though. they kept praying and hoping and refused to let go. for the first two months she was too fragile to be touched but miraculously she grew stronger and bigger. after two months, she could be carried in her parents' arms for the first time and she kept growing up to become a pretty and healthy little girl.

when she was five years old, her mom took her to watch her brother play baseball in the field. it was about to rain and suddenly this girl said: 'Do you smell it?' Her mom said: 'Yes, it's the smell of rain.' But the girl repeated her question: 'No, do you smell it?' Her mom said: 'Yes, i think we all will get very wet. It smells like rain.' The girl said: 'No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest.'

and this is the best part of the story: her mother then realized something she had actually known all along in her heart. it was that during the first two months, when the baby was still to sensitive to be held, it was God Himself who had held her on His chest and it was His loving scent that she remembered.

the story ends there. i was stunned. it was exactly another version of my angel sketch. only this is a much better one. and i wonder: have i been looking for the wrong angel all along? maybe it's not only an angel after all ...

the second angel sketch

basically the same storyline but i try to use different perspective here. also, i love the bus stop under falling leaves as their meeting point, and the idea of an angel who takes the bus is lovely coz it's so down-to-earth ^^:

I am alive now because of miracle. My mother told me once and also my grandparents that when I was a baby, a very heavy block fell right upon me but somehow I survived. Only slight scratches. You even laughed afterwards, said my mom who was there, running out of the burning church with me in her hands, running away from people who suddenly attacked and burned our church on a Christmas Eve mass.

That’s a miracle, everyone would say then. Such a tiny baby, such a big heavy log. And the fact that I was completely ok. My grandpa said that’s because an angel guarded me. He said every child has a special guardian angel who will watch and protect him. Or in my case, her.

And so I live. Healthy, fine, rather emotional sometimes, a bit rebellious, but generally fine. And I didn’t think much about that story. Maybe they just made it up, my family, because they kept repeating the same story every time I behaved badly. ‘You must be thankful and stop behaving this way,’ they always said.

But I never behaved badly on purpose. I wasn’t the type who rebelled intentionally or created problems merely to seek attention. It's not my nature. As I had said before, I was completely fine. I had a good family, a good job, and a good fiance. Everything’s fine. At least, until he came along.

So suddenly. I had never expected to meet such a man. Never. Even in dreams. He appeared suddenly in my life. It was a warm summer afternoon and the leaves were falling like rain. From the tree tops. From the branches. From everywhere. And leaves of different colours covered the whole street like carpet for a guest of honour. As I was crossing the carpetted street to wait for the bus home, I thought: 'Who might be coming today?'

The bus stop was empty except for a man who was sitting alone at the edge of the bench. He was still very young. A student, perhaps. Tall and lean and cute. He had kind eyes and his hair was curly. He smiled when he saw me, 'Looks like fall, doesn't it?' I tried to remember where I might have seen him before but I couldn't. 'Yes, and isn't it beautiful?' I said, sitting at the other edge of the bench. I could smell his distinct scent - a nice mix of sage, basil, and rosewood - and somehow it made me feel happy and serene. To sit here, looking at the falling leaves and breathing his scent, I thought life was just perfect.

Until today, I never knew where he was going or where he came from. I didn’t even know his name although we talked for such a long time. But I did remember the extraordinary story he told me.

‘Once an angel was given the temporary task to be a guardian angel of a baby girl. It was nothing like joining the battle against evil or protecting the stability of the whole universe, so he wasn’t very happy at first. He couldn’t wait till his five-year responsibility was over. However, as he took care of the baby day by day, he came to love her more than anything else in his life. When five years finally passed and he had to leave his little girl, his heart was completely broken. When he couldn’t take the pain anymore, he decided to ask God for a chance to go back to earth and find the girl he loved. And his request was granted.’
He stopped but I knew there must be more to it.
‘On what conditions?’ I asked.
‘Even if there are condition, he wouldn’t change his mind.’
‘So there’s no condition?’
He didn’t answer and just smiled.

He never gave me the answer because his bus came and he said he had to go. ‘So what happened in the end?’ I asked with tears suddenly blurred my sight. I felt that I knew the ending already. It wasn’t a happy one and it made me feel very sad. I saw that his eyes were also wet. He said nothing but touched my palms very gently. His hands were warm and they washed away my pains gradually. ‘My time is up. Don’t cry, little girl, I just want to make sure that you’re happy,’ he whispered before getting into the bus and gone.

And suddenly I remembered where I had heard it before: ‘Don’t cry, little girl, I’ll come back to the world. I’ll go and search for you and when I find you, I’ll be with you as long as you live. I’ll love you and protect you and warm your cold hands, I’ll cheer you up and I will do everything to make sure that you’re happy.’

Now I remember his face. Dimly. Hidden somewhere in the most secret part of my brain. Memories that may not be recognized, that must be shut up. It was the face that I saw when the log fell down on me. The face to whom I smiled after my mom took me outside the burning building. It was him. My angel. The one that grandpa always talked about. I should’ve known him. I should’ve recognized him immediately.

I had lost him once but I wouldn't lose him again today. ‘Taxi!’ I ran to the street and jumped into a cab, ‘This is urgent! I need to get to the next stop of bus 43 as fast as possible!’ The speed of the taxi blurred everything around me but I wasn’t afraid. Now, I remembered and I wished I would catch him at the next stop or the next or the next.

another promise

in faith i choose to believe today that this is THE sign and that YOU grant me that permission and so YOU will be with me all along the rocky path that i have chosen

not like this ^^

Lois Lane: You know my um... Richard. He's a pilot. He takes me up all the time.
Superman: Not like this.