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Ain't No Party Like a Gatsby Party[/caption]My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.
Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.
My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.
Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.
(Song of Solomon 2:10-17)
We sat across the aisle from each other with our familes as the Fr. read us this reading, not yet joined together in marriage. Shyly peeking at each other out of the corners of our eyes, blinking quickly so we didn't have tears streaming down our faces.
It was as close to Claire and Leo as we could get without a double suicide and a million candles, which was probably for the best as we're more middle aged than teen aged now. Still, I hear the soundtrack now and I'm immediately seventeen again in the back of C.'s white convertible with my girls, our hair is in our faces, tangling together as we sang at the top of our lungs, wearing torn jeans with striped stockings peeking out with scooped neck bodysuits and flannel blowing in the wind. The world was big and fathomless and we were fearless. Death hadn't touched us yet, though it would soon.
It felt like Baz understood us, how feeling anything made our hearts feel like sparrows ripping out of our chests. Everything was still bigger than life all the time because everything was new. It didn't matter if our parties actually looked like a two story glitter covered masquerade with live musical performances and fishtanks to fall in love through, it felt that way to us. All the time.
I suppose it's appropriate that we would see The Great Gatsby at the age we are now, close to the protagonists age with Leo (aging with us) intoning on the scene, I was thirty. Beside that realization their importunities were dim and far away. Before me stretched the portentous menacing road of a new decade, making the three of us uneasily side-eye each other as we get closer to the half way mark of the decade. The party scenes were just as big and epic as R+J, the soundtrack just as amazing and the end was a softer sadness, though just as sad in its own way as evidenced by the sobbing teenaged girls behind us.
But at 34, it wasn't the end that made me cry as I'm old enough now to see how it's not just about who lives and who dies but how complicated it was to get there. No one's hands were clean in the process. No, it was a relatively innocuous set of scenes in the middle of the movie after Daisy, Nick and Gatsby have tea and they go to Gatsby's house and spend the day together drinking, dancing, swimming and tossing hundred dollar shirts all over the place while Lana del Rey sang, I've seen the world/ Done it all/ Had my cake now/ Hot summer nights mid July/ When you and I were forever wild/the crazy days/ city lights/ The way you'd play with me like a child/ Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful/Will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul/I know you will, I know you will/ I know that you will/ Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?
Tears streamed down my face. Feelings no longer constantly threatened to constantly rip from my body as they once did but the sparrow in my heart stirred again in that moment as it beat itself against the inside of my chest. Do you remember what it was like to feel this way all the time? Do you remember when you thought it would always be like that? Late nights, surrounded with everyone you loved, laughing and fighting and fucking and crying? It's so finite, isn't it? But you know that now, don't you? You know those things are as finite as Daisy and Gatsby happy and carefree together, just happy to be near each other. Before they wanted too much.