Magical Pants
Once a week, Wally and I go to a special screening of an upcoming movie for free. It's a secret website I log onto that is sponsored by the NY Times. The selection of movies are always superb...and for free, it would be outrageous NOT to go.
Tonight the movie was "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants". It is the movie adaptation of a book about four young girls who find a pair of jeans in a second hand store that fits them all perfectly. This leads them to conclude that the pants has a magical spell. So they will share it and since it the start of the summer and they would be separated for various destinations, they agreed that it would be FedEx'd between them with one week ownership intervals - to the conservative artist Lena who is vacationing with her grandparents in Santorini (envy, envy); to Bridget who wil be in soccer camp in Baja California, Mexico; Carmen, the narrator, who was to spend the summer with her father who divorced her mom when she was young; and back to Tibby who was staying behind in Maryland to film her documentary.
The story tackles the variety of growing up angst four young girls go through and how their relationship with each other had softened the blows. As I sat and bawled my way through almost two hours of tenderly intertwined stories, I found vignettes of my own life in each of them. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes almost tragic but like them, have found comfort in the love of friends and family.
Each one week that the pair of jeans spends with each girl somehow coincides with an important milestone. "The pants make miracles happen," they all declared.
I don't really own a REAL pair of jeans much less magical ones. I hate the way most jeans fit me, regardless what brand (yes, even the pricier ones). They are either too tight on my thighs, give me cameltoes, are too low that if I sit you'll see the string of my underwear or the waistline is just too loose.
I have, however many times found my amulet or goodluck charm in other forms. In particular, a rosary that my daughter had secretly stashed in my backpack on the day I left for the US which has for me special powers. Nothing I have prayed for, using her rosary was ever denied. Sometimes it took a while to be realized or sometimes in another way or form, but each sincere prayer always was granted. A person I kept running into when I was applying as cross-enrollee at DLSU, a silver dollar an aunt had given me a long time ago that I kept, and would you believe, a favorite underwear!
I think each of us find solace in putting faith and fate onto something we hope would steer us to our ultimate happiness - be it an amulet, a pair of pants or probably religion. It is a relief to think that the responsibility for how some grand aspect of our life can be controlled by something or someone ele other than ourselves. That way if there is failure, the blame is not solely ours. And it is not a bad thing. I think people who have faith - no whatever what form have better coping capabilities when life throw the punches.
And so I am the believer - in pots of gold at the end of rainbows, of making wishes on wells or falling stars, throwing coins at fountains and praying three wishes to the patron saint of each new church I enter. It has been a life of charm and luck, I can't complain. And now I will pursue my quest for the magic pants and hopefully it will hug my waist and sexy behind just right.
Believe.
Tonight the movie was "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants". It is the movie adaptation of a book about four young girls who find a pair of jeans in a second hand store that fits them all perfectly. This leads them to conclude that the pants has a magical spell. So they will share it and since it the start of the summer and they would be separated for various destinations, they agreed that it would be FedEx'd between them with one week ownership intervals - to the conservative artist Lena who is vacationing with her grandparents in Santorini (envy, envy); to Bridget who wil be in soccer camp in Baja California, Mexico; Carmen, the narrator, who was to spend the summer with her father who divorced her mom when she was young; and back to Tibby who was staying behind in Maryland to film her documentary.
The story tackles the variety of growing up angst four young girls go through and how their relationship with each other had softened the blows. As I sat and bawled my way through almost two hours of tenderly intertwined stories, I found vignettes of my own life in each of them. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes almost tragic but like them, have found comfort in the love of friends and family.
Each one week that the pair of jeans spends with each girl somehow coincides with an important milestone. "The pants make miracles happen," they all declared.
I don't really own a REAL pair of jeans much less magical ones. I hate the way most jeans fit me, regardless what brand (yes, even the pricier ones). They are either too tight on my thighs, give me cameltoes, are too low that if I sit you'll see the string of my underwear or the waistline is just too loose.
I have, however many times found my amulet or goodluck charm in other forms. In particular, a rosary that my daughter had secretly stashed in my backpack on the day I left for the US which has for me special powers. Nothing I have prayed for, using her rosary was ever denied. Sometimes it took a while to be realized or sometimes in another way or form, but each sincere prayer always was granted. A person I kept running into when I was applying as cross-enrollee at DLSU, a silver dollar an aunt had given me a long time ago that I kept, and would you believe, a favorite underwear!
I think each of us find solace in putting faith and fate onto something we hope would steer us to our ultimate happiness - be it an amulet, a pair of pants or probably religion. It is a relief to think that the responsibility for how some grand aspect of our life can be controlled by something or someone ele other than ourselves. That way if there is failure, the blame is not solely ours. And it is not a bad thing. I think people who have faith - no whatever what form have better coping capabilities when life throw the punches.
And so I am the believer - in pots of gold at the end of rainbows, of making wishes on wells or falling stars, throwing coins at fountains and praying three wishes to the patron saint of each new church I enter. It has been a life of charm and luck, I can't complain. And now I will pursue my quest for the magic pants and hopefully it will hug my waist and sexy behind just right.
Believe.