My wife and I rent movies through Netflix. We set a list of movies up in a queue, and they’re mailed out to the house one at a time as we return movies we watch.
I have to set it up to see The Big Lebowski, a guy film that I’ve never seen before.
Why?
Because of Under the Tuscan Sun. Because of death.
Oh, why haven’t I ever seen it before? That movie that’s like a rite of passage for guys?
That, I’ll get to later.
So my wife and I watch Under the Tuscan Sun. I can’t sit still when we watch a movie together, so on rare occassions I’ll exercise in the room. But usually I’m flipping through a book, magazine, or notebook, or I get up to work on something in the office promising to finish the movie later on.
Under the Tuscan Sun? all the guys (all one of you) reading this say. And not The Big Lebowski? Or some other manly film?
Well, no. We share the list and while we could set it up so that I get guy films and she gets girl films, I find that I like stuff she likes and she likes stuff I like. She did watch Supertroopers with me and I did watch The Notebook… but let’s not dwell on that.
So. Under the Tuscan Sun.
It’s interesting enough that I make it through the first half of the film. Eating dinner through it helps, but when I’m done I’m up and working on projects in the office. That’s where T– finds me.
On gmail chat he says, Are you still on?
And I’m always on, so I listen. He tells me about his friend who passed away last Friday. It was sudden. He was 39. And T– is broken up.
He’s upset that life could end for a good guy that he just spent time with, a good friend and an old friend. He’s upset that death was unexpected for a healthy guy, a guy who just recently helped him through a medical problem. He’s angry that his own words can’t seem to express the loss of his friend, the loss of his control. And he’s really using his words because he’s talking to voice recognition software, which is turning his words into text, and the text becomes the smallest slice of grief that I witness.
I’m too chicken to pick up the phone. Just call him.
Instead he sends me two reference. One is from the West Wing, where Sheen is furious with God and talking to Him in a cathedral. The second reference is The Big Lebowski.
I haven’t seen it.
It’s midnight, his friend is dead, and I haven’t seen the film he’s referencing for me to understand how he’s coping.
There are many things I don’t share with folks because I’ve been pretty sheltered. Watching The Big Lebowski is on that list.
So I have to move the guy film up the queue (it was in the 53rd position when I moved it up). I have to remember to return a film to Netflix so that it can come to me. I have to sit still (sit still!) for it’s entirety. I have to understand this.
Because I am not a good friend, and I don’t reach out, and I stay safely behind my computer screen.
I will watch this movie.