Then vs. Now: Growing Older With The Village

The Village - M. Night Shyamalan (2004)

Something interesting I've noticed as I get older. Some of the films you really loved at different times don’t necessarily stay the same when you periodically revisit them. Many of them actually grow with you. Or maybe it’s that you grow, and the film remains a mirror for both the person you were and the one you're becoming. For me, one of those films is M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village.

But watching it again as a middle-aged person who's seen a thing or two, I don't just see a strange remote place for people who valued the old ways anymore. I find it impossible to ignore the way this is really a story about fear, illusion, and what it costs to live an isolated life behind walls. And that shift in how I see the film says a lot about how I’ve changed, too.

Back Then: A Candlelit Fantasy

I first saw The Village in my late 20s. Back then, I was still having a lot of trouble finding a place for myself in the world where I felt like I fit and was beginning to wonder whether I ever would. 

However, I found a lot of solace in stories about bygone times and other places. Modern life felt way too loud for me back then. Too fast. Too many computers and complicated shortcuts. Too full of people who failed to see the beauty in slow living and simple things. That version of me thought it would be wonderful to go back in time and just... like... stay there.

So, The Village scratched more than one itch for me at the time. The rustic wooden homes, the flickering candles, the soft clothes in muted hues. The whole thing looked like it had been dipped in beeswax and nostalgia. 

And the elders’ decision to retreat from modern life made perfect sense to me. Of course, they wanted to preserve the “old ways.” Who wouldn’t want to escape noisy cars, rude neighbors, and relentless technology in favor of vegetables straight from the garden and long evenings under lantern light?

I wasn’t entirely thinking about manipulation, or lies, or what it costs to live inside a bubble built on fear. I was just thinking, "Hell yeah, sign me up for this village Airbnb (minus the monsters)!" I was still searching for refuge more than truth. A place that felt safe and intentional, even if it was also a little suffocating. 

And The Village gave me that fantasy.

The Art of Doing Nothing (With a Little Help from Slacker)

Slacker - Richard Linklater (1990) Courtesy of Orion Classics

It's really no secret that most of us are taught to fear doing nothing. Idleness is suspicious. Productivity is the religion of the day. So, if you’re not grinding, optimizing, or “getting ahead” every second of every day, then what are you even doing with your life?

Me? I’ve always been on the other side of that equation. If ambition meant taking a straight shot across the field with a touchdown in mind, I would have been the person wandering around the edges, looking at dandelions and clouds instead. And for most of my life, I was told that made me a failure. A slacker.

Which is probably why finally getting a chance to sit down and check out Richard Linklater’s Slacker a couple of weeks ago – decades after it came out – felt like such a strange kind of homecoming.

Doing Nothing, Cinematically

If you’ve never seen it, here’s the gist. Slacker doesn’t really have a plot or any big, hairy point it's trying to make. There's no main character, no grand growth arc, no traditional payoff. It just drifts through a day in Austin, Texas, following one character until another wanders into frame a few minutes later, then shifting focus.

Most of the characters (if you can call them that) are, by conventional standards, “doing nothing.” They’re rambling about conspiracies, fiddling with art projects, spontaneously philosophizing, waiting for God only knows what, hanging out, talking about whatever. None of them are rushing to work or thinking about how they're going to reach that next rung on the corporate ladder.

And yet... it’s alive. Very much so. The whole film hums with this strange electricity, like the air between two people at 2 AM when you’ve both wandered way too far off the map of ordinary conversation.

It’s a movie that says, maybe nothing is something... if you look closely enough.

Where Are the Stories for the Rest of Us?

Why culture forgets us once we’re past our “prime," and why we’re not done yet

Earlier, I was scrolling through our extensive list of beloved movies to find something to put on in the background while I wrote today. A very specific thought popped into my head (and not for the first time). Maybe it's popped into yours before, as well, especially if you're old enough to have ever felt old a time or two before.

Have you ever noticed how almost every big, beautiful, culture-defining story seems to revolve around someone under the age of 30?

Books, movies, myths, quests, revolutions, coming-of-age dramas, mind-bending sci-fi, even the weird cult classics we pass around like secret candy – all starring people in their teens or twenties. Sometimes very early twenties. Occasionally, you might stumble across a “grizzled” 35-year-old, which is code for "already spiritually retired."

And I get it. Youth makes for juicy storytelling. It’s a time of life that's alive with epic firsts. First love. First heartbreak. First existential crisis. First realization that your parents don’t actually know what they’re doing. First world-class fuck-up. There's intensity, discovery, and mistakes with consequences. It's all very cinematic.

But as someone who's solidly not in her twenties anymore, I’ve found myself wondering more and more often:

What happens to the rest of us?

Do we just... fade into the background? Is it truly our job now to become quirky supporting characters or stoic mentors? Are we no longer allowed to burn things down and start over? Make epically bad decisions? Discover something about ourselves so transformative that it sends us into a new chapter of life?

Or do amazing things like that only happen when your skin still has collagen and your student loan grace period hasn’t ended yet?

The Butterfly Is Watching: Dream Realities and Strange Watchers

Earlier, I was rewatching the wonderful Hugh Grant film Heretic while finishing up a client assignment. I found my imagination lingering on the moment Mr. Reed brings up Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream — the ancient Daoist anecdote where a man dreams he's a butterfly, only to wake and wonder if perhaps he’s actually a butterfly dreaming he's a man. 

It’s a simple story on the surface, but it echoes in a way that’s hard to shake. Especially at this point in my life.

As I sometimes do when watching movies, I also started messing around on Midjourney and quickly wound up with a series of surreal butterflies on my hands. 

One in particular stayed with me — dark, elegant wings speckled with pale bands, and at its center a single, all-seeing eye. Not painted or decorative but real, watching, and sentient. That eye made me feel like I wasn’t just looking at the butterfly. It was also looking back at me from God only knows where.

Zhuangzi’s dream isn’t about confusion 

It’s about reality as a question and a concept, not a conclusion. We tend to think of life in absolutes –– waking vs. sleeping, real vs. unreal, human vs. non-human. But what if those categories aren’t as fixed as they've always seemed? What if a dream isn’t the opposite of life, but simply another expression of it?

What if some part of us — the part that just might be ancient, instinctive, unblinking — is always dreaming?

The butterfly from my render feels reflective of that part of me. Not the transitory flicker of beauty most people associate with transformation, but something older. It's a witness, a seer. Maybe it's even one of the animal guides I've been thinking so much about lately.

Lately, I feel like I’m standing between two worlds

One of these worlds I'm all too familiar with. It's the one that asks for resumes, recommends routines, and demands hard proof of absolutely everything. It only asks me to show up — not to shine, not to share, not to become. But I have so much more to bring than just presence. 

I find that world disorienting and always have. 

Then there are the days I have time to write in a trance or contemplate the bigger mysteries of life. When I'm lucky, the right words come from somewhere that doesn’t feel like me –– the second world. 

Returning from that world feels like haunting my own house, drifting through rooms that no longer recognize me.

So when I see an image like this butterfly with its wings stretched wide while it watches from a place beyond time, it feels like a message. Or maybe just a reminder. Is some other version of me dreaming this life? And if so, why this life and this imagery? 

In spiritual work, there’s a concept called the “watcher self"

This is the version of you that observes your thoughts without attachment. Maybe that’s the butterfly. The one who flits from realm to realm, unbothered by binaries like truth or illusion, because it no longer believes in them. That butterfly knows both its wings belong to the same body.

Or maybe the butterfly is God. Or the soul. Or the quiet hum of consciousness itself, resting on a branch we can’t quite reach. Maybe the dream is just as important as the waking. Maybe they need each other because they only exist in contrast to one another. Maybe they are each other.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. 

* This freewriting exercise is part of this month's incarnation of the Feast of the Wandering Pen, a lunar deep dive into identity and self-expression in all their many forms.

She Sees Everything: A Reflection Inspired by Beau Is Afraid

Some horror –– if that is indeed the right word –– doesn’t explode through your front door with knives, blood, or jump scares. It lives in the invisible corners of a person’s living, breathing life. It is the horror that comes along with being watched, judged, and found lacking by someone who was supposed to love you completely and unconditionally. 

Beau Is Afraid, Ari Aster’s epic absurdist plunge into one man’s terrified psyche, doesn’t just address that horror. It dissects it.

What strikes me the most when I watch Beau Is Afraid is not the feverish chaos of Beau's world. It is the ominous presence of Mona, his mother. Mona is a woman whose love is weaponized, whose legacy is surveillance, and whose gaze never rests or shifts away from Beau. This remains the case even after her alleged death.

If you yourself have ever lived under the shadow of maternal control, then you know what it's like. Even when mother isn't in the room, she's present in uncomfortable and invasive ways. 

Beau Is Afraid doesn’t flinch from showing how love can become a trap –– how being raised to please someone else can result in a kind of emotional paralysis. And it absolutely nails how surveillance, even subtle, turns us into reluctant performers who are forever trying to get it "right."

The Devouring Mother

If you've read much mythology, then the devouring mother is a familiar figure. She appears to offer everything, but she also demands everything in return. Her love consumes. She defines herself by her children, defining them in the process, as well. When they inevitably try to leave or become people of their own, she takes it as the most profound betrayal.

Mona Wasserman is a modern version of this archetype turned all the way up to 150 percent. She is not merely overbearing. She is omnipotent. Godlike, even. A business empire bears her name. Her portrait looms, sucking the air out of the room. Her voice follows Beau through every nuanced layer of his myth-like journey. Even when he tries to escape, she is there, or maybe especially then.

A Soft Time Machine: Reflections on the Movies We Love

Garden State (2004) - Courtesy of Fox Searchlight

I think movies are like portals to a lot of us when we're children –– opportunities to step out of our little-kid lives with all their frustrating limitations for a moment and explore the world on a larger scale. Then we get older. We acquire adult worries and responsibilities. Society convinces us that escaping into our imaginations this way should be less of a priority. And we forget.

For some reason, I never quite made that tradition the way I was "supposed to."

Yes, I'm an adult. Despite deliberately avoiding certain types of responsibility, I've still managed to accumulate my due share with big, heavy adult-level worries to match. But I never stopped seeing movies as magic gateways to another version of the world that often made more sense to me than the real one did.

Garden State is one of many movies I feel that way about as a middle-aged adult, and I just so happen to have it on in the background as I write this. Like a lot of my fellow Gen Xers, I first saw this film in my 20s and processed it a certain way.

That version of me was still just getting started on her adult life. She was still the type of person who could feel entirely original again by doing something weird, spontaneous, and random. But she also wanted to be the type of woman someone would dive into a pool for, despite not knowing how to swim. 

I also recall relating to the feeling of gazing into an infinite abyss on a rainy day with a long, sprawling future ahead of me that was still nothing but a question mark. I loved knowing that you never know what's at the bottom of such an abyss. It could be anything, including something amazing that you haven't even dreamed about yet.

I notice different things about the film as a full-grown adult who's only a sneeze away from 50 at this point. My future isn't much of a question mark anymore, although that may just be part of the illusion that comes with "getting old." But I still relate to the idea of wanting something meaningful that you can't quite define, even if you don't have a name for it or know how to ask for it. 

Apparently, that's not something you ever outgrow. It just changes shape while staying two steps ahead of you. One way stories can grow and evolve with you, continuing to meet you where you are, no matter how old you become.

On the Origins of My Life as a Writer

Julianne Moore as Evelyn Ryan -- The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio (2005)

I've had people ask me in the past whether I always knew I wanted to be a writer because of how much I talk about loving what I do, but truth be told? Not really. I was considered gifted as a child, and I was good at a lot of different things. But for some reason, no one seemed to think writing was my most impressive skill. I did write a lot and enjoy it, but I got a lot more attention for being good at drawing and painting, so most of the authority figures in my life figured I'd grow up to be an artist.

I actually turned out to be one of those gifted kids who never really belong anywhere or gel well with anyone. I'm not what you'd call a team player, and I've always had a reputation for being downright weird. I'm nice enough, but I also don't necessarily like being around people. I'm introverted, highly solitary, and will typically choose to be by myself unless I get along unusually well with someone. I've also never really been what you'd call ambitious. I've always preferred to just stay home and hated anything that required me to be anywhere else for very long, including school and pretty much any traditional working environment.

I tried a few different jobs on for size in my 20s, including vet teching -- the job my mother wanted me to have. I also found most of the things I tried intolerable because of the weird hours and excessive overtime I was expected to put in. I spent most of my 20s working retail for that reason. I detested all the people contact and forced cheerfulness, of course, but the hours were at least flexible, and if I worked on commission, I could afford to pay my bills working only four days a week.

A Few Year's End Thoughts on Writing, Inspiration, and Ideas

With Christmas and New Year's Day having fallen on Fridays this year, I don't know whether I'm coming or going at this point. On the one hand, I don't really take vacations anymore, as it just doesn't make sense for my writing career right now. That makes the occasional long weekend extra important, though, and I've realized just how badly I needed some downtime these past couple of weeks.

Naturally, 2020 was stressful for me for all the same reasons it was stressful for everyone. But it's also been a very productive year for me personally. I never would have seen that coming at this same time last year, but it just goes to show you that you never know what's around the corner. It does pay to hang in there and keep trucking, even when you're sure you're not getting anywhere. 

In fact, the past twelve months have done something for me that I wasn't sure could be done after well over a decade of full-time professional writing. It gave me new reasons to get excited about sitting down to write, as well as new chances to do precisely the kind of writing I've always wanted to do as far as my living goes. I'm currently working on becoming my own version of Carrie Bradshaw, and it's been both fun and lucrative so far -- a winning combination if ever there was one. 

........

Our Christmas and New Year's celebrations were blissfully low-key. I slow-cooked a ham for Christmas and made pork chops with homemade mac and cheese, black-eyed peas, and collard greens for New Year's. I also baked for a change -- gingerbread for Christmas and sugar cookies for New Year's. I often forget just how special homemade baked goods can make a holiday, but I enjoyed them immensely this year -- both the baking and the eating. 

Seth and I spent our time enjoying being together, as well as catching up on movies and television we'd missed in recent months and years. We watched HBO's Chernobyl, which we just finished last night. We also watched an absolutely fantastic movie called I'm Thinking of Ending Things. It was written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, the same writer responsible for another long-time favorite of mine -- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. 

Reflections on Life After Watching Disney-Pixar's Soul

I finally got to see the new Disney-Pixar movie the other night -- Soul. Being the giant, overgrown kid-at-heart I am, I get very excited about new Disney films as a rule, but I was extra eager to see this one. Not only does it have a Black lead and contain many references to Black culture -- something I'm happy to be seeing in more media -- but jazz music is an integral part of the film's theme, as well. I've come to love jazz, especially as I get older and increasingly excited about different kinds of music.

I liked the film very much in general. Still, I especially enjoyed its primary message about the concept of life purpose and how it addressed many common questions people have on the subject. 

• What does it mean to have a life purpose?
• Is your purpose about your profession of choice or something else entirely?
• What does it really feel like to finally realize your most significant, dearest goals in life?
• Where do little pleasures and daily experiences fit into the picture?
• Is it possible not to have a purpose, and what happens if that's the case for you?

At nearly 45, I've managed to answer many of those questions for myself, but it took me a while. Joe was my favorite character, so I'd love to say I was just like him -- maybe a little misguided, but always sure of what I wanted to do with my life. I'm really the spitting image of Soul 22, though. 

Like 22, I believed that I didn't have a life purpose for an extremely long time, especially when I was younger. While everyone else my age seemed to know exactly what they wanted to do with their lives, nothing seemed to resonate with me at all. I did know I enjoyed being creative -- drawing, writing, playing piano, and the like -- but there was no way to turn those things into stable livings that actually appealed to me back then. I didn't want to put on a suit and design logos for some soulless corporate entity or settle for teaching schoolchildren about the things I wanted to be doing myself. I especially disliked the idea of having to commute to an office every day.

"Christmas Means Family" Is a Full-of-Shit Statement

Clark Griswold is still my spirit animal.

Now that November's over and December is officially here, we're officially in the process of shifting gears at my house. That means the Christmas lights are lit on a nightly basis, and we've officially started our yearly watchings of some of our favorite holiday films. Last night's pick was one of my personal favorites -- National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. 

The older I get, the more I think I relate to Clark (Chevy Chase) on a level I never did when I first fell in love with this film. I keep holidays very low-key these days for all sorts of reasons, but I'm usually the person in my household that does most of the planning for holiday celebrations. I put together the menus and do all the cooking. Back when my living situation allowed for it more, I used to get pretty into decorating my apartment and trying to make it feel like a magical place to be for the holidays. Sometimes I'd go overboard or fail to plan ahead well enough and wind up shooting myself straight in the foot, just like Clark, but it's probably not too hard to understand why.

Growing up, I was a very idealistic child, and my home life failed to measure up in many ways. My parents stopped loving each other at some point when I was a little kid but made the "honorable" decision to "stay together for the kids" anyway. I don't know who they thought they were fooling, though, because it was pretty apparent that neither of them was about that family life. My dad openly dated other women and was home as little as possible, even around the holidays. My mom more or less just gave up on domestic life -- hated to cook, hated doing the mom thing, and hated keeping house. Each of my parents bad-mouthed the other to my brother and me non-stop, so that was fun.

End of November Thoughts

Stéphane Audran in Babette's Feast (1987)

How we're about to put another month in the can, I really couldn't tell you. It feels like just yesterday that Halloween was approaching, and I was still planning out my November. Now it's already time to start thinking about Christmas, and my little mind is blown. It's true what they say about time as you get older. It just goes faster and faster until you're just dizzy from it. 

After today, there are only three more days left of NaNoWriMo. I'm definitely starting to run out of gas at this point in the event and will probably be happy to get back to normal, but I'm so glad I did this. It taught me a lot about how even a busy person can make room in their schedule for something new if they want it badly enough. I also really surprised myself as far as how creative I still can be. I'm thrilled with some of the stories I came up with. Some even have the potential to become very good longer works with a little patience and TLC.

At any rate, I'm definitely going to finish. I'd better! I ordered my official 2020 Winner shirt and everything. And despite not being expected to ship out until mid-December sometime, it showed up in the mail today. I feel a little silly admitting how excited I am about wearing it when I cross the finish line and hit 50,000 words on Monday, but what the hell is life for without a little childlike excitement from time to time. I've planned well enough that I'll be coming out of the event with a finished book, as well -- very exciting.

On Independence and Self-Discovery

"Are you happy, or are you pretending to be happy?"

We watched this movie a few days ago -- Swallow. It's about a young, pregnant housewife named Hunter (Haley Bennett) who's struggling with certain feelings. This is a life she once thought she wanted, and that would make her happy, but -- as can often be the case -- the reality isn't quite measuring up to expectations. Her husband doesn't take her at all seriously and barely sees her as a person. Hunter especially doesn't seem all that thrilled to be pregnant. It's clear she feels like the walls are closing in on her and that something's got to give soon.

One day, Hunter gives in to an odd, sudden urge she has to swallow a marble. For reasons she can't quite understand, the act makes her feel empowered, possibly for the first time in her life. She eventually swallows other objects, some of them quite dangerous. Before she knows it, she has a full-fledged habit on her hands, her husband and in-laws find out, and strife ensues. From there, the film becomes about Hunter's struggle to feel like an important player in her own life and chronicles her attempts to get there. The film was really very good and gives you lots to think about.

Much about Hunter's situation reminds me of how it felt to be married to my first husband, Greg. I was very young at the time -- much younger than Greg -- and I didn't have the luxury of being a housewife (although that is something I thought I wanted.) I definitely didn't develop the urge to swallow marbles and thumbtacks. However, Hunter's feelings of inadequacy were very familiar to me. Like Hunter, I was surrounded by people who considered my feelings and needs to be unimportant compared to everyone else's. I disagreed. 

On October and the Mineral

We lucked out for a change this year. It's the 20th of October and that disgusting Indian summer weather we normally get in the fall still has not arrived. By now, it's probably safe to say that we're out of the woods. Usually if you can make it past Halloween without it hitting, you can trust that there are no more surprise heat waves just waiting to descend on you that year. Honestly, our entire summer was really pretty mild. Just a few way-too-hot days here and there, but that's it. Good.

I've been feeling incredibly lethargic and fresh out of fucks to give regardless though and that's been the case all summer. We already don't really do much or go out very often, but we didn't even go to the fair for Labor Day last month. That's... like... the one going-out thing I've been good about actually doing every year and I skipped out on it for the first time in a while. That means I never really did my hair or spruced myself up from an appearance standpoint either. I look and feel disgusting lately as a result. Kind of like a cave person, or a potato, or something along those lines.

I feel disappointed in myself because of that, but I'm also realizing I'm past the point where I'm willing to just beat myself up all the time because I don't meet some imaginary standard I've decided to inflict on myself for no good reason. I will always want to do better and be better where my mental health is concerned, but I've also learned to give myself credit for the things do accomplish, even when things are really bad. When I remember to do that, everything sort of comes out in the wash.

On Getting Organized for Spring and Contemplating Feminism

I don't know if it's because I sometimes get inspired to organize in the spring or what, but I finally got Google Calendar set up a few days ago. I'm not using Elance, or Upwork, or anything to deal with any of my main clients anymore. Unfortunately, that also means I no longer have a preexisting organization system that keeps me in check as far as deadlines. Instead of continuing to try to hold onto everything by memory, I thought I'd take the opportunity to actually figure out a proper system for keeping work stuff organized instead. You know... the way someone that isn't a child disguised as a 40-year-old would do. 

Now I see why respectable people do maintain day planners and appointment calendars. It's a hell of a lot easier to remember something's coming up when you have a visual representation of your life to look at than it is to just try to store it all up in your head someplace. I even created other calendars in addition to the main one I have for deadlines -- one each for deliveries, astrological events I want to remember, personal occasions, and a couple of other things. I even set up sharing on the ones that are actually relevant to Seth's life so that he can also take advantage. It's great. I feel so fucking together. Like I actually accomplished something useful for a change!

What the Before Sunrise Trilogy Taught Me About Relationships

Jesse and Celine in Their 40's -- Before Midnight

Anyone who knows me well already knows how I am these days in regards to the way romantic relationships are depicted in movies. I'm going to be 38 years old on my next birthday. At this point in my life, I've been in several relationships, some of them OK and some of them not so OK. I've already been married and divorced. Eventually, I'll wind up married again, this time to my dear partner of going on nine years. Suffice it to say that the idealistic little girl that could actually watch a Disney movie or a romantic comedy and totally believe that she was looking at a realistic depiction of actual love is long dead and buried thanks to cold, hard reality.

I suppose that's why I've always felt unusually invested in Jesse and Celine, the two characters from the Before Sunrise trilogy. They felt and still do feel real in a way other movie couples just don't. I finally got a chance to see the latest installment (Before Midnight) last night thanks to the magic that is Netflix. As a result, I find myself realizing that these two have probably taught me more about the reality of not only relationships, but also goal-chasing, personal development, and the process of growing older than anyone I know in my actual life. (We creative types can be pretty solitary, yo. We need to take our learnin' where we can get it.)

I wasn't stupid in my 20's. I was just young.

Like a lot of people that are fans of the series, I've actually been growing older right along with Jesse and Celine. When they met on the train in Before Sunrise, I was just a little younger than they were at the time. I still saw the world the way they did. I was idealistic and optimistic. I pretty much took it for granted that my life would eventually fall into place more or less perfectly and that any professional life I might ever have would find me doing something fantastic and unforgettable. I definitely still assumed I'd wind up part of some perfect couple that looked nothing like the middle aged German couple Jesse and Celine see arguing on the train. In other words, I had a lot to learn.