A few songs on my playlist come from the "Bridget Jones's Diary" soundtrack I bought after I first saw "Bridget Jones's Diary" shortly after I read "Bridget Jones's Diary" (!!!)
Listening to them has made me realize I hadn't seen it for a long time, so last night Thing Two & I watched "Bridget Jones's Diary".
Thing Two--my almost sixteen year-old headbanger--remember? The one who listens to his iPod in the car with ear-pieces firmly-in-ears because he can't stand the music I listen to ....in all fairness I'm not keen on whatever-metal-band-with-some-word-referring-to-death-in-its-name that he's listening to either.
So he shocked me by asking if he could watch it with me. During the movie we both laughed our heads off. BOTH of us, not just me. I've always related to Bridget. What woman doesn't? But I realized, watching my too-cool-for-school teenager as he laughed at Bridget in her ridiculous moments and quietly felt for her in her painful ones, that we ALL relate to her.
Doesn't it always come to this? Don't we all just want to hear that people, in particular that certain "top person" ..............that they like us "just as we are"?? In all our ugliness & shortcomings & failures??? That they see also our beauty & our strengths & our moments of grace?
Van Morrison, Someone Like You
Mark Darcy: I like you, very much.
Bridget: Ah, apart from the smoking and the drinking, the vulgar mother and... ah, the verbal diarrhea.
Mark Darcy: No, I like you very much. Just as you are.
Mark Darcy: I don't think you're an idiot at all. I mean, there are elements of the ridiculous about you. Your mother's pretty interesting. And you really are an appallingly bad public speaker. And, um, you tend to let whatever's in your head come out of your mouth without much consideration of the consequences... But the thing is, um, what I'm trying to say, very inarticulately, is that, um, in fact, perhaps despite appearances, I like you, very much. Just as you are.
We
all crave that kind of love. Don't we?
*****
No Amount Of Money
would I take
to sell away
the bowl of peach
blossoms, the snowy-
owl feather, the strands of hair you
tucked behind my ear,
the blunt stare
when I looked
which unnerved me but
sent small aches
to my toes and my fingers
and the tops of my ears--
the brush-moment
your rough hand cupped
my rib cage,
or the first kiss.
--LGW
