sliding doors
Do you remember that movie? Early nineties maybe, with that actress whose name I don’t remember. I do remember that I like her and that she’d be a lot prettier if she gained thirty pounds.But I remember the mediocre movie because I liked the premise: a woman running into a station alternatively just makes or just misses her subway. And then the story splits, and you follow her through the two different futures that unfold depending on whether she made the train. She catches her cheating boyfriend - or doesn’t; loses her job – or doesn’t; gets a stylish new haircut or, conveniently for the movie viewer, doesn’t. All because of one second at the subway.
I think about this movie a lot. It’s embarrassing, really. I think about it in small calming ways all the time, like when I get one red light after another. Green lights and maybe I’d get hit by a bus, I think. Green lights and maybe my wallet would have fallen loose from my bike rack. Green lights and maybe I wouldn’t exchange smiles with the biker next to me, who will turn up at the conference I’m going to next week, where we will talk for hours and fall madly in love. The sliding doors world seems swimming with possibility and impossible to judge.
I have the job I have now because I was able to show up for a second round interview on two hours notice, two days after Christmas, on a day when a snowshoeing trip fell through. I started dating the guy I’m dating because of how good he was to me when I sprained my ankle, which happened because for one time ever I decided to play a single kickball inning at first base instead of third. I live in Portland at all because on the day I decided to stay in New Orleans I got an email from a guy who found me on Craigslist and offered me a room in his house, even though I couldn’t get there to meet him first, and I didn’t have a job, and I couldn’t afford the rent. Who does that?
And it’s possible, of course, that I would have gotten the job anyway, fallen for Operaman over some other thing, come to Portland eventually with or without a place to live. But sometimes – like when I’ve been grantwriting for six hours and need to send my mind somewhere distracting and curious – I like to think about how each little thing got me right here, to this place I like quite a lot, and how differently that might have gone. And how the brown socks I pulled on this morning, and the way I ducked into the Ethiopian place for lunch instead of getting falafel, and whether or not I answer my phone which is right now ringing, sends my life out into some unwritten unknown all out of my hands. The odds of almost anything in particular happening are really next to nothing.
posted by tortaluga @ 2:55 PM
4 Comments:
When I was little - maybe 12 - I used to imaging that every possible instance of life, where any intersection of choice or chance occurred, caused a split where another version of me, in another universe would have a different outcome (like getting hit by the car that narrowly missed me when I crossed the street).
Turns out I was probably right:
http://www.tenthdimension.com/
It is also said that Ganesh puts these obstacles in your life to prevent misfortune or to create fortunate encounters.
Lastly, they played that movie (With Gwenyth Paltrow) on the flight home from South Africa. It was 1997.
how do you possibly remember what movie they played in the plane home from south africa ten years ago? also, we were in south africa ten years ago!
more on ganesh to come.
good entry. But I still hated the movie.
First, David - how many 12 year olds think like that? Amazing.
Second, Jen - you never answer your phone.
Third, why is all the planned shit so much more boring?
Last, you know I always imagine my life like the truman show.
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