Into The Wild-ish

Just saw the movie Into The Wild, written and directed by Sean Penn.

I got the movie because of my love affair with the Yukon. It seemed like it would be a scenic reminder of its beauty and danger. Well, it was that, and much, much more. It was haunting and brilliant and ridiculous. It was hard to watch as it pushed my coming of age in the Yukon story, the one I lived. Mine had nothing to do with battling the wilderness to survive it, but embracing a place so isolated and raw that I instantly understood Truth on a whole new level. Like Chris, I, too, felt like I could drown my pain in the realness of the Yukon river and that my connection with nature - the first connection with nature I had ever had - would make every previous and painful deceit, neglect and abandonment instantly okay. For these reasons, I understood the story.

But my intuition tells me that on some greater, deeper level, he went out into the wilderness, not to survive it, but to allow it to take him away forever from all the pain his life held for him. I am not sure I believe what he did was a facing up to the deepest wounds of his soul, but a running away from. To me, it was a romanticized version of suicide. The kind of suicide that screams at the world, I am not afraid to die! With the fear of death so predominant in most of us, this act suddenly is seen as heroic. But heroic is the exact opposite. Like Chris would have done, I quote one of my favorite writers, a man who knew the Yukon well, Robert Service. "It's the keepin' on living that's hard".

Many people feel he did want to live, including my husband. But he was bright and must have known that to go into Alaska without anything, not even skills, was to welcome death. Perhaps he was arrogant enough to think his journey was noble enough to keep him alive or idealistic enough to think that if he didn't have it in him to live with no help, than he didn't deserve to keep on breathing.

Why his story haunts me so much, past its parallels with my time in the Yukon, I haven't quite figured out. I suppose a movie is a great piece of art when you can't shake it and when it leaves you digging even deeper into your own box of demons.

Vancouver is getting sunnier and thus a little more enjoyable. I lindyhopped last night and I had a blast. But it wasn't as dramatically wonderful as I thought it would be. Leon and I both saw our exes which left us even happier to have each other and today we are heading back to North Vancouver. I precede into today hesitant, cautious. The movie has left me feeling a little left of center.

Part of me just misses my own bed.