Latest thoughts and influences

So, Carter had a long weekend with Graham and his parents for the holiday weekend. In fact, he is still with them right now. To avoid boredom and sadness, I stayed at my sister's house all weekend. We saw some movies, hung out in downtown Seattle, and watched TV. Then, spent the day watching shows on Netflix. Yeah, I know, real healthy, but Arrested Development doesn't get released every day on Netflix, right?!

Anyways, the movies I watched this weekend had a great effect on me. We saw the new "Great Gatsby" in the theater on Friday night. My sister's co-worker asked her why she was taking me to a movie about a big liar.. but I didn't really think of it that way. I read The Great Gatsby in 11th grade, and had to analyze the symbolism in it a million different ways. The story read differently to me this time around, although I wasn't reading it. I felt sorrow for Gatsby, that he felt the need to gain a huge amount of material possessions in order to impress the woman he loved. Also, the green light on Daisy's dock was one of the most obvious symbols in the novel and movie, symbolizing envy, jealousy, desire, unrequited love.. something that Gatsby was living for but could never obtain in reality. When watching that movie, I felt Gatsby's pain and desire. I felt that strong desire for a normal life, a love that will last forever, for a man that I love.. but, unlike Gatsby, I have had a chance to live that life that I've always wanted.. but, I want it even more now that I've had a taste. Almost never has a movie invoked such strong emotions in me before, until I watched "Anna Karenina".

So, I'd heard about the story by Tolstoy, about Anna's suicide at the end, but I'd never heard the whole story. I had no idea Anna was married and had a family, and yet she chose to indulge an obsession and have an affair. Spoiler alert, but she abandons her family, goes crazy, and commits suicide at the end. One quote that really stuck with me was by Constantine Levin. Levin says: “Impure love is not love…. Sensual desire indulged for its own sake is greed, a kind of gluttony, and a misuse of something sacred which is given to us so that we may choose the one person with whom to fulfill our humanness.” (This apparently is in the movie, but not the novel.) He was discussing admiring and envying another man's wife. As a married, aging woman, I sometimes still feel the need to have other men think I'm attractive just to validate my ego and pride. I see how someone like Anna, although her marriage was passionless and boring, could fall into moral transgression by having someone young and attractive like Vronsky pay attention to her. This movie really made me realize how important marriage and family are to me, and how my attention needs to be on those things instead of my outward appearance.

This also made me think about Gatsby's obsession with Daisy. He just couldn't let go, even though she was married. When I was a young 17 year-old in high school, I was rooting for Daisy and Gatsby's love because it seemed more pure and genuine than Daisy's relationship with Tom. However, now that I'm married (albeit separated), I was quite upset that Gatsby had the gall to pursue a married woman. I strongly believe that the structure of society is within the family, and to challenge that stability just to satisfy lust and desire is something I cannot comprehend (and my thoughts also agreed with Tolstoy's feelings on the matter as well).

Anyways, I know this isn't my normal blog style, and that this is a little long and rambling, but I just felt like writing about it..