It's been a strange few days. I spent most of Saturday just lounging around the house cooking this and that and doing a little housework. Once I'd created my very own version of an Italian meatloaf and whipped up some risotto, I decided to settle in and finally watch the Netflix movie that had been laying around my house for several days, Sylvia. I had been putting it off, because a person has to be in just the right mood to enjoy what promises to be at least a slight downer. I was also a little anxious because much lesser things (like being out of freezer pops) often have the power to drop kick my mood into blackness. The movie itself was ok...not great...but on the ok-plus side, and it was good enough to make me do something I thought I'd never do...re-read The Bell Jar.I was a late comer to the book, being somewhere around the age of 21 before picking it up for the first time. The timing couldn't have been worse. I was probably my most self-absorbed, self-pitying, all-about-my-self self at that point in my former life. I plunged into it so empathetically at the time that I could feel the character of Esther deftly creeping into my pores like second-hand smoke. I began to worry incessantly about everything...normal things like my future, my daughter, my farce of a marriage...and not so normal things like the possibility of having an inoperable brain tumor or wondering who would love me if I suddenly got both legs severed during a head-on collision. Hence, the idea of reading The Bell Jar again was a difficult decision regardless of the fact that I'd just bought a backup copy of it. But read it, I did, and although it held my interest, the depressive effects of it seemed to have faded like so many hot water washings. I was able to look upon Esther not as a sister trudging through societal misery but as a daughter grasping for hope.
As I finished it last night, I coincidentally flipped on the TV to find the documentary The Bridge. Although I've not stopped thinking about the movie since I finished it, I have yet to find the words to describe it. Simply put, it is the story of the Golden Gate Bridge, this nation's most popular suicide destination.
- Since it was erected in 1937 the Golden Gate Bridge has assisted in the deaths of over 1,000 people.
- The first, 47-year-old Harold Wobber, plunged to his death a scant three months after its opening.
- It is estimated that there is a jumper roughly every two weeks.
- Chances for surviving the four-second fall from the bridge are slim. Most of the deaths are caused by multiple blunt force injuries from hitting the water at roughly 75 mph.
- Bones snap like twigs and ribs and back bones compressed with such force that they grind internal organs into guacamole.
The difficult thing to take about this movie is that the director caught 19 of the 24 jumps of 2004 on film. And between snippets of the victims pacing back and forth along the bridge's walkway, their families and friends speak of the interminable depression suffered by their loved ones. It is one of the most difficult films I've ever watched, and I warn you that it is not one to be entered into lightly. It will affect you, and like me you may wonder if watching it was really in your best interest. But it might make you wonder if a kind word here and there is really that expensive a gift to give someone poised on the edge of the end.
Namaste
