I don't know if this is weird for anybody else, but I have a very strong connection to just about every member of my immediate family. I have a Mom, a Dad, a Brother and a Sister, all of whom are still living in Iowa, while I stay here in my Grandpa's Basement (which is as of this writing, in the room down the hall on the main floor). I am not as close to my grandfather, mostly because he has been a lot more accepting of the grumpy-old-farmer role in the past 10 years or so than that of a grandpa, but he's still a member of my family and I care about his well being, even if helping him can sometimes be a hindrance (though that problem has well subsided these past few months). The point being that My Family is a very big part of my life, and for some reason today had me wanting to be participating in that more than in a very long time. Just at this moment, I think it might have something to do with the year anniversary of me being "moved out." And now I'm homesick out the wazoo.
12 months, 1 year ago today, I unofficially moved from a big house on a forgotten corner of Keokuk, Iowa, and while I've had many opportunities to go back and forth between my homes on vacations, I always knew that at the end of the day, I was supposed to be out on my own (more or less). But sometimes, especially today, I become inexplicably homesick, remembering all the things we used to do together, thinking of all the times when we worked together to make the family work, as dysfunctional or out-there as some may have called us, we stuck together, and we were proud of it.
Every Sunday night, after a morning of church, a nice, quiet lunch, and possibly a nap or two in between, we watched a family movie. Usually it was between Mom and Dad on who's choice it was, but almost always we had to come to a consensus of what to watch before we sat down to watch it (occasionally adding another 45 minutes to the running time as a result). It would be anything from an episode of Doctor Who, to a musical from the 60's, to some cheezy sci-fi movie my dad found online, to the Phantom of the Opera movie, to to just a good old fashioned family-centric movie from something like Pixar, or Miyazaki, or whatever. Whatever it was, it was either a movie we had already seen, or we had known that we would enjoy the experience. My brother usually baked some brownies to perfection, along with the occasional popcorn or pudding, and I don't think ever once have we watched a movie without throwing off a few good riffs at the movies expense, even if we loved the movie beyond measure. It was a very communal experience, almost telepathic in terms of knowing who would make a good joke next, and knowing throughout the course of the movie when to laugh, when to gasp, when to sing along, and when to get teary eyed. Video games were what I did when I wanted to either be alone or be with my siblings. Movies were what I did when I wanted to be with my family.
Now, movies are a luxury to me. The last movie I saw in theaters was The Hobbit, and I never got a chance to see it the second time that I wanted to on the big screen. Movies on dvd are now what I watch when I want to fall asleep with a familiar tone filling my ears, or occasionally when I genuinely feel like I need to feel a certain experience at any given moment, like Wizard of Speed and Time for a desire to get back into making movies, or Batman Begins because I want to see batman. The only problem is that these aren't special moment's anymore, and I whole-heartedly blame Satellite TV. If there was one thing that I would choose not to ever have in a house that I live in, it's 24-hour television. Not only because lots of the stuff on there is as stupid as bag of hammers that got dropped on an idiot, but because it saps all of my desire to watch any of the stuff I'm NOT paying a monthly fee for. Now, if I was to loose satellite, I would be sad about a couple of things, NCIS being one (I never would have though I would have liked that show until I decided to spend a few hours with my grandpa watch
ing a marathon), the HUB being two, and the occasional run of classic Twilight Zone and other pre-2000's cerebral-sci-fi short films as a tie for third. EVERYTHING else about what I currently have access to sucks the life out of me wanting to watch all of the amazing things I already have a hard copy of. The biggest problem is that it's Right There, and the fact that it's so much a part of my grandpa's daily routine, that the only way I'll escape it is if I move out, and the only way I'll move out is if I can get a job that can support both an apartment and going to school.
But sadly, I digress. (losing steam can do that to a writer only doing one draft) The main idea here is that going to the movies used to be an event for me, because it almost always involved at least one other member of my family coming along, and a part of that shared experience made the whole better. Now, this weekend I am going to go see a double feature of Jurassic Park, one of the iconic movies of my childhood, and Iron Man 3, the first wave in the most recent set of movies designed to split both children and childless adults from their money in equal measure. All by myself. With only my thoughts and my internet connection to console me after it's all said and done, and if I'm lucky I can spout all of my thoughts at my family over the phone, which is fascinating if they've seen the movie, but possibly grating if they haven't.
Being a Fan from your Grandpa's Basement means having to appreciate the stuff that you love on your own terms, but still... Sometimes you remember when you were surrounded by likeminded people who you could talk with for hours about how fun something was that you experienced together, and regret the times when you felt like that wasn't enough. At the close of writing this, I decided to do something I don't think I've ever done before: Offer a chance for anybody in my local peer group to accompany me to the movie. I don't know if anybody'll be able to show, but making the effort is what makes the difference. In closing I want to tell my Family who may be reading this that I love them very much, and that I want them to know that I miss them probably as much as they miss me. I thank them for all they do, and I don't know if I could live without them. :)
