The view from eight years

My goodness, Kate, how curious. I had no idea Christian Bale was an over-arching theme to my existence.

In 1992, I fell in love with the Newsies lead man because, you know, he could sing and dance. As a tiny little eight-year-old, I guess that equated to dreaminess. (Somehow at 24, playing high-tech dress up and destroying shit is now dreamy? Oh, oh, my apologies, it is his 'saving Gotham' and 'finding inner strength' that we gals just drool over, right?)

While everyone knows Batman holds the key to personal, social and moral revolutionary fortitude, it now occurs to me that Bale's 1992 character also struggled with his identity - calling himself Jack Kelly, a very constructed persona, vying for the West (aren't we all?? Goodness, it all just keeps circling, doesn't it? Um, down the drain?), and then getting arrested as the vagrant Francis Sullivan. And we ultimately love him because even once he seems to scab out, Jack comes around and saves the day leading his street boys against Pulitzer. Like Batman, his actions, those smooth late 19th century moves and sweet songs, make him who he is, not the name in front of him.

So, I'm a lawn-reader and a writer of poor prose and a walker and a yogi and a listener because those are some of the things I do. Mattering not what might motivate why I put myself in a 105 degree room with sweat running down my arms, the backs of my legs, the back of my neck when in dandayamana-janushirasana? Why my feet are my main mode of transportation? Why I pay such close attentions to the words spoken by others?

What else can Christian Bale teach us? I suppose a marathon movie-viewing is in order. Research. Education. And daydreaming, if we must.