Note: this post is disturbing, so you may not want to read it. It is also a spoiler for the movie “Inception”.
I picked the wrong movie to see tonight. From the previews, I thought “Inception” was something like Matrix. From the two short reviews I read, I thought it might be the movie of the decade. It was a very well done movie, but not the right one for me to see tonight.
The part I didn’t know was the the lead character’s, Cobb’s, wife had died and he was haunted by her memory – more technically, he was tormented by a guilt-induced mental projection of her when he went inside other people’s dreams.
The movie is a fascinating examination of dreams vs reality and the function of memory. Not coincidentally, these are all things that I pondered since Anita died. Directly after her passing, I often wondered if I was in a dream, or how I would know if I was. I have clung to her memories and pledged to “write them all down” so she will never fade away. You could say my struggle was very much the one of Cobb in the movie.
At the end of the movie, he confronts his wife (projection). Here is the climax! She tells him that he wants to stay with her. He replies, ”I wish. I wish more than anything. But I can’t imagine you with all your complexity, all your perfection, all your imperfection. Look at you. You are just a shade of my real wife.”
That statement kicked my butt because I realized that, I too, was trying to mentally hold on to Anita and recreate her in my mind. But there she is just a shade of her real self.
Then the end of the movie left you wondering if you were watching a dream or reality. The last 20-25 minutes made me very uncomfortable, so when it ended I rushed out of the theatre and into the parking lot. Then returned that familiar feeling of not being able to discern dream from reality. Begin mind f@#!.
Coupled with the realization of not being able to accurately recreate Anita in my mind, I tore away from the theatre sobbing. I probably shouldn’t have driven. I was hyperventilating and disoriented. I had the sudden urge to visit the graveyard to try to get a grip on what was real. So I drove there, at 11:30 at night, sobbing “God help me” over and over.
When was the last time you were in a cemetery in the middle of the night? It’s creepy with people having put these little lights near many graves, so there is a bevy of ominous glowing lights near the ground. I leapt from the van and went over to run my hand along the headstone. I read the front, then the back. It was real stone, real silk flowers, real dirt and sticks atop the grave.
But I couldn’t stay so, still sobbing, I drove off, still bewildered. I felt like I had no one to call, plus it was late at night. I just needed someone to tell me we were in the real world. I remembered a friend who was up late. Thank God for that. By the end of our short conversation, I was already feeling more grounded. Nothing like real people to bring you back to reality.
It’s taken over an hour and a glass of wine, but my mind is finally coming out of the haze. Nothing like three kids and a trashed house to snap you back to reality. I don’t know what I will take from this. That will have to wait until the morning.
