Library of Inspiration: Brokeback Mountain

Thoughts of Brokeback Mountain were a trail mix left for another day. I meant to transcribe the mental notes at some point, but the day to day takes over and then…. Foolishly buying into the concept of time, we see no reason not to procrastinate, a surplus of tomorrows at our disposal. We mortgage opportunities in favor of fantasy. But just like that, a eulogy. As unexpected as any. To think back to when we huddled around a computer screen to catch that first glimpse of The Dark Knight trailer. The Joker looked spot-on from the nightmares of our Cesar Romero youths. The trailer was so compelling in its short, shocking tease.

A short shocking tease. Such is the blink-and-it’s gone trajectory of shooting stars. Like those that fall from impossibly low Wyoming skies down from the vast blue, before landing on the rolling hills of green. The brilliance that surrounds us, side by side next to the flow of a crystal stream … we look up just in time to catch the tail end of the magnificent glow. It disappears in a reckless instant. Humbled again.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

-Henry David Thoreau

When I was a boy, The Joker would appear out of nowhere, ever so suddenly from beside a tree or a bush, and he would laugh that crazed loon laugh, shattering a fragile psyche with ridiculous ease. The monstrosity of those nightmares shook my core. I was alone in a twin bed in a tiny corner of the world.

And then, somewhere along the way, life itself began to reveal its own trail of torment, and a newfound house of horrors. Like the concept of dying without living. What could be more horrifying? It isn’t easy, outrunning the muddy institutions and slippery slopes of morality. They are the fortress surrounding the untouchable city.

Annie Proulx knew exactly what she was doing in setting this story of forbidden love amidst the embrace of nature, far away from the eyes. Here, in a place not yet stained by the commotion and smog of city streets or the regurgitation of consumption, right or wrong has a way of defining itself. Everything is truth. The truth of the sun and stars and the miles of uninterrupted green. The thump of a lonely heart.

Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger): You ever get the feelin’ … I don’t know, er … when you’re in town and someone looks at you all suspicious, like he knows? And then you go out on the pavement and everyone looks like they know too?

Here, in the isolation of the wilderness—the land of absolute—armor is obliterated and true identity is gloriously revealed.

Jack: Brokeback got us good, don’t it?

There are brief moments of complete and absolute serenity. Total peace. But then, a realization returns that such tranquility is only a hiccup. Sundown.

Ennis: Texas? Sure, maybe you can convince Alma to let you and Lureen to adopt the girls. And we can just live together herding sheep. And it’ll rain money from LD Newsome and whiskey’ll flow in the streams - Jack, that’s real smart.

With each and every contorted, mumbled utterance from Ennis Del Mar that leaks like tiny droplets of blood from bitten lips, we are forced to die a thousand deaths right along with him.

Ennis: If you can’t fix it, Jack, you gotta stand it.

To live with the knowledge that life is precious and short is a tricky enough proposal. But to then be reduced to just trying to endure it, to just stand it….

Regrets are in the ashes that are raining down forever; Forever, a fresh blanket of sadness that is always beyond words.

-G