Astonished
Sometimes you see things that just blow you away. I have been debating whether or not to enter this in my blog at all; but it's been 4 or 5 days and the incident keeps eating at me.
A few nights ago I went to the movies with six or seven people I know, all grad students. One person had smuggled bottled beer into the theatre. It was offered to all of us, and some of us took it. I was not one of the ones that did.
I am not a prude. But there are some things that I've never seen before and that just stop me in my tracks. This was one of them; I have never seen anyone smuggle bottled beer into a theater. I've seen people smuggle bottles of coke improved with rum into the theater...but whole bottles of beer? You cannot disguise what a beer bottle is, silhouetted in the dark of the movie theater. It is apparent what is being drank. I politely declined the bottle and went on about my business--eating gummi bears and watching the movie. But it kept eating at me. I was sitting at the end of the row of friends and I kept fighting the urge to turn my head and see exactly who was drinking and who wasn't, but I didn't want to look like I was staring.
It's not like we were seeing Bambi or anything; there weren't any kids in the theater and it was the late-late show. But still...I felt an ouchy double-standard thing working at me, the type that I haven't felt since I was a kid. I know these drinkers of smuggled beers. They only did it because it was fun and a tiny little rule-breaking risk, the kind that can be really fun. But for me, it was different. I heard the voices of my girl friends from home, all of us slamming on the beer-drinkers for various reasons, speculating on their characters and personal lives.
A voice inside says, "Maybe you should loosen up." But that's not really it; that's a voice that speaks to muffle the other voices...the ones that say, "Maybe you are a snob." But actually, those two layers of thought are blanket for the most truthful one, the one that says, "It is okay to be astonished by this." That little risk, that little silly thrill that my pals partook of the other night is the kind of little thrill that I would never participate in, and I cannot, not here, explain why.
Sometimes you see things that just blow you away. I have been debating whether or not to enter this in my blog at all; but it's been 4 or 5 days and the incident keeps eating at me.
A few nights ago I went to the movies with six or seven people I know, all grad students. One person had smuggled bottled beer into the theatre. It was offered to all of us, and some of us took it. I was not one of the ones that did.
I am not a prude. But there are some things that I've never seen before and that just stop me in my tracks. This was one of them; I have never seen anyone smuggle bottled beer into a theater. I've seen people smuggle bottles of coke improved with rum into the theater...but whole bottles of beer? You cannot disguise what a beer bottle is, silhouetted in the dark of the movie theater. It is apparent what is being drank. I politely declined the bottle and went on about my business--eating gummi bears and watching the movie. But it kept eating at me. I was sitting at the end of the row of friends and I kept fighting the urge to turn my head and see exactly who was drinking and who wasn't, but I didn't want to look like I was staring.
It's not like we were seeing Bambi or anything; there weren't any kids in the theater and it was the late-late show. But still...I felt an ouchy double-standard thing working at me, the type that I haven't felt since I was a kid. I know these drinkers of smuggled beers. They only did it because it was fun and a tiny little rule-breaking risk, the kind that can be really fun. But for me, it was different. I heard the voices of my girl friends from home, all of us slamming on the beer-drinkers for various reasons, speculating on their characters and personal lives.
A voice inside says, "Maybe you should loosen up." But that's not really it; that's a voice that speaks to muffle the other voices...the ones that say, "Maybe you are a snob." But actually, those two layers of thought are blanket for the most truthful one, the one that says, "It is okay to be astonished by this." That little risk, that little silly thrill that my pals partook of the other night is the kind of little thrill that I would never participate in, and I cannot, not here, explain why.
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