Gone Baby Gone

For the most part I go to the movies because I'm an escapist. I far prefer the world of books, of films and of music. In short, my imagination. Or other people more imaginative than me. I've had my head in the cloud for a long time now and I've no reason to believe (or want) to put my feet on the ground anytime soon. So, I went to see Gone Baby Gone last week.

Looking past the obvious reasons for liking this movie (two hours of a Southie accent, Ed Harris & Morgan Freeman) I walked out of the theatre with a real sense of uncertainty. Not about the movie. I enjoyed it immensely. That is to say as much as you can 'enjoy' an incredibly uncomfortable film about child abduction. It's well written, well acted, well directed and it's a really engaging and upsetting story. It's all about taking the side of good or evil in a world that's increasingly spawning people so mixed with both that it's hard to tell what they're on.

There's been a lot of that for me recently. Questioning choices for the future, analyzing the present, gazing at the past. My dreams are here in the city, but my heart is on the farm back home. Just last month I took a trip to the town where I grew up. My folks moved back there a few years ago and my sister moved back there a few months ago. My girlfriend and I went on a little tour in and around my sisters new house. It sits beside a golf course which is the last piece of land between the town and the reserve (that's a discussion for another day because it, too, has been prevalent in the last few months). Just as you get on the reserve is an old, natural amphitheatre which has been there as long as I can remember. Not that it requires carbon dating or anything so dramatic, but there is a weight and quietude and stillness about the place that speaks of age. And patience. And clarity. On the way out I noticed a little sign posted at the entrance. It had a quote by John Burroughs on it that's stuck with me.

"I come here to find myself. It is so easy to get lost in the world."

I've carried those words around for a month now. They resonated forcefully after the movie and as I look to the year I have ahead of me. It is so easy to get lost in the world. The good parts and the bad parts. But the movie and the quote combined to have a distilling affect on my life. I've asked myself hard questions and I'm more and more certain that I am in the right place for right now. I am on the right side and I am doing the right thing. Who'd have thought that a naturalist and Ben Affleck would help me figure that out?