Hope (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lingeringhope) wrote2015-12-01 12:40 pm
lingeringhope) wrote2015-12-01 12:40 pm
Entry tags:
ic inbox
[Hope's voice is clear and clipped.]
If you would like to leave a message, you may do so here. I can't promise to respond. I have many demands on my time, and this sort of thing is far down the list. Still, if you would like to, you may.
If you would like to leave a message, you may do so here. I can't promise to respond. I have many demands on my time, and this sort of thing is far down the list. Still, if you would like to, you may.
Re: [Video]
[He's not precisely sure how but he is a born optimist. It will get done.]
How many memories would you like?
[Video]
Re: [Video]
Well... I'd like to give you the memories if that is alright.
[A smile]
You see I always like to make sure I give whatever is owed up front. [Being a young man during the Depression will make someone uncomfortable about open ended arrangements] Though certainly I am happy to inspire hope in as many people as I can manage. So really I'd like to do both.
[Video]
[But he appreciates the thought.]
Whenever you are ready.
Re: [Video]
[He taps his fingers against the top of his leg as he considers where to start]
The first is May 8th, 1945. That day...that's important because no one, or at least no one who was alive when it happened, will ever forget it. It's the day the war ended. Our country alone lost over 400,000 people. Five years of fighting. But on that day it was over. The fighting stopped and the prisoners were being set free. In New York- [A pause] - that's where I am from- people flooded into the streets. Dancing and hugging and kissing. It wasn't just relief, you see. It wasn't just that it was over. It was that the world seemed like it was going to get better. We were stepping into a new future. Everyone talked about it. We boys, yes we had gone off to the fighting, but we'd also crossed the see. We'd seen, a lot of us for the first time, that there was a bigger world out there. And now that the war was over, we could go there, we could become something we'd never dreamed of before in places we'd never even heard of. The world felt...well it felt open and bright that day. Like there was sun for the first time in over a decade.
[He takes a low breath in. His chest feels full when he remembers that. He feels like a young man again, if only just for a moment.]
The second would have to be the day my new neighbors moved in, James and Catherine. You see I live alone, I've always lived alone ever since I moved out of my parents house and sometimes that, um, sometimes that's not a very nice feeling. But when Catherine and James moved in to the house next door, and when Catherine came over to introduce herself, I realized that maybe it wouldn't have to be that way. My little corner of our neighborhood might have a friendly face or two on it for me. It wouldn't be so lonely anymore. I realized that I might even have friends if we ended up getting along with each other. Wouldn't that be wonderful?
The third is when I first saw a movie in the theater. It was a Charlie Chaplin, I remember that very well. The Vagabond. I was 11 and my father took us for my mother's birthday. I had never seen such a thing before, all of the orchestra playing along as Charlie was up there scurrying from one scene to the next. That day I decided that I so much wanted to become an actor, I wanted to tell stories just like Mr. Chaplin. And I swore that day that I was going to. Because if a person could figure out how to make pictures move on such a big screen and if a little Englishman could use them pictures to tell stories, then maybe I could too.
[It never happened, of course, but that hope had burned in his chest long into his adulthood, and even now there is still the small flicker of it that flares up when given the opportunity]
For the fourth, hmm. The fourth one is Rockaway Beach. I have many memories from there but the most important thing is the horizon. If you walk along the beach at just the right time, the horizon turns the most beautiful shade of pink and that pink gets washed up on the sand and it looks like the sand is glowing. And when the waves are just right, the pink looks like it is making a trail for you. All the way out into the distance. You can't see the end of it because thats where the night is starting. I've always felt whenever I see it that if I were to follow it, I could go anywhere.
[He suddenly looks bashful]
I know that must sound silly, but it always takes my breath away and it makes the day just that much better. I love to walk there and think of all the places I'd visit.
And the last memory will be from here, if that is alright. If it isn't of course I can give you another one from home, but just the other day I met the most curious young man. He's got hair that goes every which way and he's something of a time traveler. He's very kind... unfortunately not very good with a washing machine....but anyway. When we were speaking he said the most wonderful thing. I told him that I'm much too old now to do anything very exciting and he said "the age of your body doesn't matter, what's important is the age of your heart".
[Well, ok, he said it in a much weirder way than that, but Delmar is paraphrasing].
And I thought that was a simply wonderful way to look at life. And it made me hope that maybe yes...yes I can do all those things I've always wanted to do. Or if not at least it won't be my age that is stopping me, only my fear.
[Video]
Where do you want the items you have requested?
Re: [Video]
Well, would it be alright to have them go to my apartment for now? And then perhaps to the bakery once I can get everything up and running?
[Video]