One-liners can hook an imagination quickly. I heard one in a
new movie “My Old Lady.” It went
deep – eviscerating excuses I am prone to make:
When you follow your own heart,
you break someone else’s. (Matthias Gold, character in My Old Lady)
We bought tickets thinking we would see one thing, and realized
soon into it, the movie would not be a romantic comedy, salted with caustic
comments by a French Dowager
Countess. A reviewer, who did not like the movie as much as we did, wrote:
There are numerous other surprise
revelations, unveiled truths, and domestic connections to come in Horovitz’s
narrative as he swerves away from what feels at first like farce and heads in
the direction of intense melodrama as he examines problematic family
relationships resulting from damaging parental decisions and self-serving
behaviors. (Bill Wine’s Review)
As the movie took a turn into people’s personal pain, we got
a look at the cost of adultery that children end up paying. In the case of the
characters in this tale, it’s steep.
Sometimes, perhaps because of the season my life, I spend
time looking back – reflecting on who did what to whom, and how it all affected
me. (A.K.A. pity party) Seriously. I’d do better being sobered by how some of my choices may have influenced
people in my sphere of responsibilities!
I guess that’s why that one-liner snagged me. Following your heart hurt me – but my following
my own heart . . . well, those were the
days my friend . . .
Fortunately, a favorite fellow blogger closed her thoughts
with a poem that is sound counsel, and gets me energized:
It’s by the poet Hafiz:
Once a young woman said to me, “Hafiz, what
is the sign of someone who knows God?”
I became very quiet, and looked deep into her
eyes, then replied
“My dear, they have dropped the knife. Someone
who knows God has dropped the cruel knife
that most so often use upon their tender self
and others.”
Three little words – Drop
the knife! Shouted or whispered, they are worth remembering -- and doing!
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