Nearing a half-century old, I wasn't in the mood to mope. 5 of this year, the day before our tenth anniversary, Jeff confessed he wanted the relationship to end and moved out in March. After a couple of lonely years, I met Jeff. The briefest of histories: I was married for sixteen years divorced in 1991. I noticed that he was over 40 and cute.Īt the time, I was smack dab in the middle of my six-week hunt to find a man before I turned 50. Maybe he was a foreman for the project and I could ask him when the bridge would be done. I was weighing if I had the gumption to cross, when I noticed a guy on one of the beams coming my way. All that was in place were the two main beams, over a foot wide, with thin wire stretched along the guide rails waist high on either side. These columns appear first in The Big Issue, which you should buy whenever you see a vendor, because it will change their day.Sunday, April 18, on a warm and windy afternoon, I jogged over to check out the progress on the pedestrian bridge the city was building at Caesar's Park (near Humboldt and North) about a mile from my flat. This has been a Public Service Announcement. Symbolism and metaphor is all around you. Either way, it’s good exercise and you might see a sunrise or a reflection or someone going for a swim. Sometimes it can be seen as progress or “a journey”. Sometimes, in cinema, walking for long distances can be seen as a symbol of running from your problems. ![]() If ever you’re feeling that life is too full of problems with not nearly enough solutions, and the problems are so uniquely your problems that you might indeed be the problem, find some comfortable pants, some walking shoes, and ”walk it off”. You know the phrase “walk it off”? That’s a phrase born and bred knee-deep in metaphor and symbolism. It’s funny how it can, sometimes, make you feel a bit free. See if you can spot a bird hurtling through the atmosphere. All without needing a midwife.īirds flying through the air are usually symbolic of freedom. You’ve undergone a rebirth and a cleansing, and (our old favourite) a renewal. Dip into some water and re-emerge into the universe. See, now you’re in charge of the narrative. Working on something that feels stuck? Distracted by the Internet? Overwhelmed by life? Find a blank page and a pen. They are, though, when you wobble the focus a bit, pretty gorgeous really.Ī blank page. Reflections are a symbol of all kinds of things in art and cinema, but mostly they’re a reminder that things aren’t as permanent or solid as we sometimes think they are. ![]() Wobbly reflections in a lake, the colours bleeding into each other, constantly moving, reimagined into a slightly different form. Reflections warped and translucent in a glass window. If things go awry, just make the bed again. Normally it’s at the start of the film before the protagonist’s entire life unravels but don’t let that deter you. Sitting in front of a fire, watching it, mind moving with the flames, you can see why. ![]() It slows down, becomes able to focus and drift at the same time. Something happens to your mind when you watch fire. Sitting in front of a fire, watching the flames curl and flicker, feeling the warmth of it - it’s good for you somehow, on a cellular level that a scientist somewhere might be able to explain. As symbolism for a new start it doesn’t get much better than this.įire. Maybe you are a dreadful morning person, and you never miss what is, let’s all say it together, the best part of the day. Maybe those dreadful morning people tell you you’re “missing the best part of the day” before they fall asleep, fully-clothed, face-first on their beds at 6pm just as your day is getting started. Here, then, is a handy guide to embracing the useful symbols and metaphors around you. Symbols and metaphors are there, though, if you look for them, and it can come in handy if you know how it works. We don’t tend to look at a body of water and think “oh goodness, I might die in this next scene. Now, in every day life, symbolism doesn’t come in handy nearly so much as you think it might when you’re studying cinema at university. Generally speaking though, things tend to represent death, birth, sex, the downfall of humanity, or freedom from the downfall of humanity. People have PhDs in this stuff for a reason. The shower as a symbol of renewal - although of course water can also represent death. Hooboy, we deploy those bad boys all over the place. If you go to an art gallery or read a book or pop along to the cinema or something, you’ll find that if there’s one thing humans can’t stop doing it’s deploying symbolism and metaphor.
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