Thinking About How Orpheus Turning To Look Back At Eurydice Isn’t A Sign Of Mortal Frailness But A

“For some time, Hollywood has marketed family entertainment according to a two-pronged strategy, with cute stuff and kinetic motion for the kids and sly pop-cultural references and tame double entendres for mom and dad. Miyazaki has no interest in such trickery, or in the alternative method, most successfully deployed in Pixar features like Finding Nemo, Toy Story 3 and Inside/Out, of blending silliness with sentimentality.”

“Most films made for children are flashy adventure-comedies. Structurally and tonally, they feel almost exactly like blockbusters made for adults, scrubbed of any potentially offensive material. They aren’t so much made for children as they’re made to be not not for children. It’s perhaps telling that the genre is generally called “Family,” rather than “Children’s.” The films are designed to be pleasing to a broad, age-diverse audience, but they’re not necessarily specially made for young minds.”

“My Neighbor Totoro, on the other hand, is a genuine children’s film, attuned to child psychology. Satsuki and Mei move and speak like children: they run and romp, giggle and yell. The sibling dynamic is sensitively rendered: Satsuki is eager to impress her parents but sometimes succumbs to silliness, while Mei is Satsuki’s shadow and echo (with an independent streak). But perhaps most uniquely, My Neighbor Totoro follows children’s goals and concerns. Its protagonists aren’t given a mission or a call to adventure - in the absence of a larger drama, they create their own, as children in stable environments do. They play.”

“Consider the sequence just before Mei first encounters Totoro. Satsuki has left for school, and Dad is working from home, so Mei dons a hat and a shoulder bag and tells her father that she’s “off to run some errands” - The film is hers for the next ten minutes, with very little dialogue. She’s seized by ideas, and then abandons them; her goals switch from moment to moment. First she wants to play “flower shop” with her dad, but then she becomes distracted by a pool full of tadpoles. Then, of course, she needs a bucket to catch tadpoles in - but the bucket has a hole in it. And on it goes, but we’re never bored, because Mei is never bored.”

“[…] You can only ride a ride so many times before the thrill wears off. But a child can never exhaust the possibilities of a park or a neighborhood or a forest, and Totoro exists in this mode. The film is made up of travel and transit and exploration, set against lush, evocative landscapes that seem to extend far beyond the frame. We enter the film driving along a dirt road past houses and rice paddies; we follow Mei as she clambers through a thicket and into the forest; we walk home from school with the girls, ducking into a shrine to take shelter from the rain; we run past endless green fields with Satsuki as she searches for Mei. The psychic center of Totoro’s world is an impossibly giant camphor tree covered in moss. The girls climb over it, bow to it as a forest-guardian, and at one point fly high above it, with the help of Totoro. Much like Totoro himself, the tree is enormous and initially intimidating, but ultimately a source of shelter and inspiration.”

“My Neighbor Totoro has a story, but it’s the kind of story that a child might make up, or that a parent might tell as a bedtime story, prodded along by the refrain, “And then what happened?” This kind of whimsicality is actually baked into Miyazaki’s process: he begins animating his films before they’re fully written. Totoro has chase scenes and fantastical creatures, but these are flights of fancy rooted in a familiar world. A big part of being a kid is watching and waiting, and Miyazaki understands this. When Mei catches a glimpse of a small Totoro running under her house, she crouches down and stares into the gap, waiting. Miyazaki holds on this image: we wait with her. Magical things happen, but most of life happens in between those things—and there is a kind of gentle magic, for a child, in seeing those in-betweens brought to life truthfully on screen.”

A.O. Scott and Lauren Wilford on “My Neighbor Totoro”, 2017.  

I wonder how many per mutations I am from my daydreams? Michael Faudet once wrote "I am hopelessly in love with a memory. An echo from another time, another place." I would modify this to "I am hopelessly in love with a memory I dont yet have". How many decisions, or indecisions, a moments wembling, a pause, a misplaced stutter, getting caught in traffic red when it should have been green. A vain attempt at times to scry into futures yet unseen. Has my own ambition tripped me up from my own success? Some other version of me is also on this couch right now, somewhere. and there is laughter his rooms. McAlpine would sing "Somewhere I lost all my senses, I wish I knew what the end is. Over and Over, I am watching it all Pass... I wish I knew what the end is" Dostoevsky would say, "I am not angry at him. I know his thoughts. His heart is better than his head." I am not angry at him; I knew what the end is

A car just came by and illuminated her face for nothing more than a breathe but in that moment I saw her. In her a beauty that has never before been rivaled or matched. My heart paced faster and my eyes watered and all I wanted was to have my hand on her face.

The artist is so real for making this

That woman in the photo is my Mother and that child is me. As you can see I am momma's son. I share her eyes, her hair, and her sense of humor. If you have ever laughed with me. You have laughed with her too. She is the presence who has always had my back. Even if she did not always agree. My Mother. Who had me at 13. Her life barely beginning , already committed to loving someone as small as me. I was a premature baby, very tiny. She was my first best friend, who probably cried more than I did on my first day of school. She wasn't able to finish her schooling but she went back and got her G.E.D. so no one could ever say to her "You Failed, You Didn't Succeed" she set her kids up with a model, and something to try to achieve. They say the love between Mother and Child is sacred, being known and loved by her I'd have to agree. There is no sacrament I could give to her that wouldn't be trinkets compared to what she gave to me. My Mother, who held me and called me precious. She, herself, however is something I will always treasure. Thank you, Mom. I love you dearly.

The faintest whisper of rain, and a distant clap of thunder. It is here that I find my peace. Underneath the weight of pressure changes am I released.

I would take clouds of grey, and rainy days if it meant she was my sunshine’s ray. I would take all the thorns of those briar rose if it meant she was the one I could love and hold.

 She is my delight, my joy, she is my comfort, my piece of mind. She is all the things that are good and Devine.

I love her.

Do you think that Eurydice ever forgave Orpheus? I know I would. I can't help but think we all would look back. Maybe it's just the way we are born? Already gripped and snatched into worry, fear, anxiety and uncertainty. But Apollo gave his Son the gift of a Heavy Heart. And the Courage that comes with it. Even Eurydice made the mistake to be distracted and wrapped up in the clouds, only to be bitten by what's on the ground. But how could you not be? The songs of creation that made even trees dance and boulders sing, the beats were to her name. Eurydice. A Muse to the Highest Order and Element. Orpheus was always meant to lose. Because his Love for Eurydice would always compel him to look back, and his Failure only Proves that. I could Forgive them.

It was already dark, but with clouds like that I'd say it made it even darker. It had stopped raining earlier in the day, so I figured that they were just passing through to whatever destination clouds go when they leave you. But at 12:53, a streak of lightening flashed across the sky, and in that moment it seemed the clouds had remembered that they were saturated, heavy with water, and it started pouring. The temperature was so low it became ice on the ground in an instant, and it brought the whole outside company to a halt. I smiled knowing you were at your house in bed, warmer than I was in that moment. "Frozen Lightening" I thought, what a sensation. Something similar, Id say to what it felt like to touch your hand.

As got out of my car and bolted for the front door I prayed I wouldn't drop my keys because it was just pouring rain. Every inch of me was already covered by the time I got the door open. I realized I was laughing as I went to go shut it. I thought of you and your smile as I slid down the door frame and god do I miss you.