09 November 2011

"Answer the stripe question!"

Gotta love a good kid's movie, no? I know I do.

I'm grateful for my favorite kid movies.


I adore the movie Toy Story.
Anne of Green Gables.
Many of the Disney Classics: Peter Pan, The Jungle Book (to which I know the words to every song), Robin Hood, Mary Poppins.
I love Winnie the Pooh, but only the ones narrated by Sebastian Cabot and where the animation includes the turning of the pages.
The Grinch
Charlie Brown
Up
Willow
Princess Bride
ET
Harry Potter & the Sorcerers Stone
Is Wizard of Oz a children's film? I think it is.
I could go on.


The two specific movies that prompt this post are Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc.


Nemo was a huge hit before I sat down to watch it after it came out in DVD. The marketing was through the roof. This, for me, is often an indication of something I should avoid. But somehow I ended up watching anyway. I cannot remember whether I watched it alone. In bed. Or any other details except that as I watched it the very first time, my chest tightened. And it was just a tiny bit hard to breathe.


Do not mistake me:
The voices of Albert Brooks (one of my all time favorites) and Ellen DeGeneres were incredible.
The animation was wonderful. Amazing. In these respects, for me, the hype held up.


But at the point in the movie when the lovely wife and mother fish has been killed along with all but one of her baby fish eggs and this damages the father so deeply and so profoundly that he was, from then on, never the same person or parent again, it hit me like a truck.


I feel the strong urge to paste all the Marlin and Nemo quotes here that pierced me when I watched it. That pierce me still, every time.


I am Marlin. The forever scarred parent who no longer trusts the world or his own abilities to look out for and truly protect her child. Her first born.


My first child appeared to be healthy when he came into the world. But before he was two day old he had gone into congestive heart failure and was being rushed to Children's Hospital.

I could write a long blog post, a good number of long blog posts about that experience. In fact it seems I cannot write about this enough to really heal and recover from the event itself.
But today I mean to speak to the damage left behind.


In every single scene where Nemo's Dad does everything within his power to protect his child, even to the detriment of his child, I relate. I relate so strongly in fact, it physically angers me. I want to defend and argue for that parent who knows nothing but fear.


When Nemo is excited about his first day of school, but Marlin reminds him that he should not be so excited because the ocean (their world) is not a safe place. I understand and even agree.

MARLIN - All right, we're excited. First day of school, here we go. We're ready to learn to get some knowledge. Now, what's the one thing we have to remember about the ocean?
NEMO - It's not safe.
MARLIN - That's my boy. So, first we check to see that the coast is clear. We go out and back in.And then we go out, and back in. And then one more time--out and back in. And sometimes,if you wanna do it four times--
NEMO - Dad..


Marlin tries to talk Nemo into waiting to start school in a year or two, no hurry. He's terrified that something beyond his control is going to happen to this kid. If he turns his back for a second, DANGER DANGER. So he tries to keep him close. Shelters him. Monitors and controls his every activity.


Observing my parenting with this child over the years, you might find yourself calling me over protective. But I just call it FUCKING TERRIFIED.


I never managed to get from under that fear. My son is now twenty-four years old. With two small boys of his own. It's easy to look back now and think 'what was I so worried about,' but we never knew if he'd live another year. There was never a point at which any of his doctors looked at his father and I and announced "We're out of the woods." Never happened.


I wish I'd found a way to breathe all that time. It takes a lot of your energy to hold your breath for that long.

I wish, I wish, I wish I'd been able to do it differently. But I could not.

I am Marlin.

Nemo: Dad, you're not gonna freak out like you did at the petting zoo, are you?
Marlin: Hey, that snail was about to charge.

But instead I wish I was Crush, the turtle Dad Dude. With Squirt, the kid Dude.

[Squirts falls off the back of another turtle and off the current]
Marlin: [freaks out] Oh, my goodness!
Crush: Whoa. Kill the motor, dude.
Squirt: Whoa! That was so cool! Hey dad! Did you see that? Did you see me? Did you see what I did?
Crush: You so totally rock, Squirt! So gimme some fin. [They slap fins]
Crush: Noggin'. [bump heads]
Crush, Squirt: Dude!

I am grateful for a seemingly silly movie that can, as it entertains me on a purely superficial level, also remind me deep down of some personal truths.

Marlin: How do you know that nothing bad won't happen?
Dory: I don't.

No comments: