We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say–and to feel–‘Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.”
– John Steinbeck
I think that’s why I resonated with movies so much when I was young. They made me feel like I wasn’t alone. A strange thought for a kid who came from a big family. But it’s harder to be seen in a crowd. And in our family, being seen was fleeting at best. Being heard was nearly impossible. With so many vying for to attention. there was only so much to go around.
Going to see movies became my refuge. My home away from home. I loved going by myself, too. That’s the other thing about a large family. Privacy and personal space are hard to come by. But alone in a theater, that’s my slice of peace. To this day, I love going to the cinema on my own.
And movies taught me things about life that people didn’t seem to talk about in the suburbs where I lived or in the Catholic elementary school I attended. For years, I spent many days of summer vacations going to the movies.
One summer in particular, when I was ten, I was gifted a book of tickets to Saturday matinees at the nearest movieplex. Double features, no less. Of course, movies were always double features in those days. There was Willy Wonka paired with Pufnstuf (I had a massive crush on Jack WIld ever since Oliver); The Blue Bird and Heidi (both Shirley Temple reissues from the 1930’s), Pippi Longstocking and Pippi in the South Seas, And various Disney offerings, including The Aristocats.
But there was one movie that summer that I became particularly entranced by: “My SIde of the Mountain.” It was the story of Sam, a 12 year old who runs away from home to live a self-sufficient life in the wilderness, with a raccon and a hawk as his companions. I was totally hooked. I had always imagined myself something of a pioneer & adventurer, and my best friends were the family dogs, add to that the solitude of the wild–this was my idea of bliss come to life.
Some weeks later, in the autumn, on a particularly stormy day at home with my endlessly quarreling siblings, I decided enough was enough. It was time for me to strike out on my own to live the wilderness, which in my case was the Colorado Rockies.
So I emptied the rock samples out of an old back pack of my dad’s (he was a geologist), and packed up a sweater, a coat, a blanket and some food. I wrote what I considered to be a thoughtful note to my parents–something about wanting to live on my own like Thoreau. I casually wheeled off on my mom’s sturdy British 1959 Phillips (with handy child seat perfect for the pack) as if going on a neighborhood jaunt, feeling very proud of my first foray into the unknown.
I used the ever present sight of the distant mountains as my compass and cycled west on side roads. Amazingly I managed to make it to the foothills by evening. I found a small stream next to a horse pasture and made camp–which basically meant laying out my blanket and putting on my coat.
Of course things never quite turn out like the movies. I had no matches, and no knowledge of how to build a fire, and it got cold and dark pretty quickly. For the most part, I spent a fitful night fearing I might freeze to death and putting on every bit of clothing I packed. By dawn, it was clear that I was no Sam and this side of my mountain was really cold, and despite the lovely horses that kept watch over me, pretty darn lonely.
Needless to say, I had traumatized my poor parents, the police were out looking for me, and on my first day back to school two day later, discovered that my fellow students had been praying for my safe return. Yikes.
Looking back now, I treasure it as an innocent and amazing adventure, an adventure that wouldn’t have happened save for a matinee on a summer’s afternoon.
And the film still holds wise lessons for any child who might see it today, lessons that any one of us would find useful and practical even in our adult wilderness…
Blooming Emma 