Celluloid Lives

Eight hours long in a room full of strangers with familiar faces... Eight hours of being subjected to a friendly atmosphere that grew more macabre by the minute. I sat on my chair, locked up with a whirlwind of self-conscious thoughts that grew stronger over time and more and more horrific. I know these people… I love these people... then why can’t I for the life of me talk to them?  

The family had gathered in a little village in the south of the country to celebrate the 94^th birthday of the Madre familias. The woman had fought herself through two world wars, eight Popes and three Queens, and single-handedly raised a family of five children, all with nothing but her husband’s high income and the help of a battery of nannies and maids. Now she was being wheel-chaired into a room to be the birthday girl. We toasted her with a glass of pink champagne. Here's to you, Grandmother... love you!

After I had been sitting smiling in my chair, a diversion was created. The family was summoned into the next room to watch a computer presentation my uncle had made. He had transferred all the old celluloid films my parents had made back in the days when my older brother and I were still young & cute. Films I had not seen for the better part of 30 years. My uncle had put a score under it of music of the time: Sgt. Pepper, Jethro Tull, Van Morrison, Iron Butterfly and the likes. I watched from behind the back of my aunts who were dressed in black. 

And there it was… my youth in 8 mm, with In a gadda da vida blasting through the room. A psychedelic nightmare as well as a soft dream in faded colours. Two unreacheable kids jumping up & down on their beds without making a sound. A walk in a zoo, a giraffe in close up. There I was twirling on a merry-go-round, my face tense, pale, half happy. Laughing birthdays, people mouthing silent messages through the ages. Large cacti in our window sill... my grandfather, still alive, playing the piano in the room with the dark brown cork padded walls. I wore surrealistic swimming trunks while sitting alone in an inflatable orange swimming pool in the garden while all the neighbour kids were playing together in another pool two houses down the block. Different trunks while digging up my grandparents’ garden. All around, my hippy aunts swirled around in India dresses, the uncles wearing beards and straw hats, looking exactly like the cover of Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma. In the sun... in the sun. My brother tried to set up a folding garden chair, succeeding when the lights went low. The dog slept under the table. Mom had long red hair.