my, oh my. it's been quite a long stint since we've talked. and now i have an ache in my left elbow, like i get when i haven't seen a friend in a long while . . .
i just thought if i did "that" i couldn't do "this." because this would take me away from that. but i'm back to doing a little of this and a little of that, because as it turns out that without this is so two dimensional.
and speaking of dimensions, i saw alice in wonderland last night! the critics are all kind of in a foul mood about the movie--turning tomatos into ketchup and griping because tim burton and johnny depp are so classically themselves and don't venture too far outside of the box.
but as far as i can tell, if you're tim burton or johnny depp you're already so far outside of the box to begin with that even an inch farther and you've lost us. (which the illustrious jj abrams has already taken care of on tuesday nights at eight pm central standard. and oh dear, have i just gone and mixed my reviews now? LOST bleeds into most thoughts these day.)
it's true i wasn't completely unbiased during alice and wonderland. being that it was my first 3D and all, i was practically drooling before the previews were over. still, i found the whole thing to be visually alarming and thought provoking. i was downright tickled by the new take on this familiar story.
it's about a girl (an alice) who is coming into her own, or perhaps uncoming into her own.
see, a fundamental question is being raised throughout wonderland: "is this the real alice? the one that was here before?" and everyone is kind of hoping it is, because that alice was the truest and bravest version of herself. and this alice seems to have lost herself in the process of growing up, and now she's quite unrecognizable to all of her wonder-friends.
and though there are dozens of charms i could pull from the Burton/Woolverton script, i particularly love the line delivered by the mad hatter when he begins to reflect on the child alice vs. the grown one:
"You were much more muchier the first time around" he tells her. "You've lost your muchness."
it sort of reminds me of a chart my roommate and i had in college to *blush* determine if we thought a guy was the one or whatever.
and at the top of the chart, above love even, was the category of "more." and if you "mored" someone it meant of course that you planned to marry him. it meant he was more than all the others who you might just easily love--as if just loving someone were easy, ha! (but what can i say, i was eighteen)
the point is, more was mystical.
a different dimension entirely.
a place of believing.
and dear friends, lately i worry i haven't been muchness or moreness of thisness or thatness.
and isn't it all so easy to lose our moreness and muchness with thatness and thisness . . . when we forget to wonder?
