[voice-over] There's a reason we outgrow fairy tales. Let's face it: happily ever after is a crock, it's a con, a shell game for the sucker on the street. They're just words, pretty words, the equally empty book end to "once upon a time," but our lives aren't determined by some storybook, star-crossed destiny. They're not determined by what we're told is meant to be. Our lives are determined by dumb luck, the actions we take, and the courage we summon at our moments of truth. Unlike fairy tales, real life doesn't come with "the end" in gilded cursive on the very last page. Our stories never end. Happily ever after, for most of us, is really just the beginning. There's a million ever-afters in everybody's lives, because every time you think you've reached the finish line, the gun goes off again.
[voice-over] Everything's mythical when you're seven-years-old: fathers, mothers, Santa, God, the alleged protective powers of a gold medallion. It's not that certain things seem larger than life, it's just life seems larger, but the world keeps spinning and in a tiny thousand surrenders, or sometimes in one fell swoop, what you'd seen as truly miracle you learn is merely myth. The good news, if you can call it that, is that ultimately you find other myths to believe in, and other men as well. You see the myth for what it is: close up and in its bones, smaller and greater and more like you than you care to admit, and it nevertheless leaves you, always, every single time, sitting foolish on the doorstep awaiting its return.
[voiceover] Ask an artist how he knows he's finished with a painting, and odds are he'll say you never really know. I read somewhere Picasso used to touch up paintings on living room walls smudges on canvas he'd sold years before. Like his relationships, like all of ours, his paintings lingered unfinished, somewhere between not quite dead and pulsing with life.
[voiceover] Everyone always says life isn't fair. Bad guys get away with the goods and the good die young, but we carry on anyway, because what other choice do we have? In the face of unfair, we carry on, holding on and bracing ourselves and only sometimes forgetting that there's another storm right around the corner. But life, I find, is often more about the storms than the peace they seek to overwhelm. They lurk, ready, any minute now, to shake things up and take your breath away.
[voice-over] Nobody likes letting go. From our earliest moments, from birth until we're six feet under, our instinct is to grab, grip, cling to a finger, bottle, best friend, to a faded old racing form. Sometimes we hold on for dear life to the very things that keep us from living it, but that comes with an upside. It's the way we feel when we finally let go. The trick, I guess, is to not find a way around the curveballs life serves up, but to live with them; a halfway happy, uneasy alliance, and to search for new things to cling to, and when you finally find them to hang on just as tight. And around and around we go, holding on until the time comes to say goodbye, and like it or not, ready or not, you have to accept one universal truth: life is messy. Always and for all of us. But a wise man once said, maybe messy is what you need, and I think you might be right.
Take the Ford Mustang, for instance. It's named for a powerful and agile animal, qualities we also seek in an automobile. It's called transference.
Mary
Okay, what about my Probe? Exactly what image is that supposed to transfer? Because all I'm getting is a paper dress, metal stirrups, and legs akimbo. Exactly what was the thought process behind that marketing coup? Say, Bob, what's a metaphor for an invasive, somewhat humiliating procedure, because we really need something to compete with the Chevy Speculum.
In Plain Sight · 332 quotes
Mary
