"If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?"
I've been watching one of my all-time favorite movies,
Out of Africa. I know it will haunt me for days, now that I've watched it again. The music, the amazing flying scenes, the tender relationship between Denys Finch-Hatton and Karen Blixen, the incredible beauty of Africa, the Ngong Hills...it all gets into my sub-conscious and doesn't let me go long after the credits roll. That, to me is powerful story-telling. The kind I aspire to write some day...
I love the quote above which comes very close to the end of the movie. Whenever I hear it, I wonder the same kind of thing for myself. Will the places I've loved remember me? Will I have done enough to be remembered at all? I don't mean it in an egotistical way, only that I want to fill my life with enough meaning that it will have meant something that I lived. Perhaps, in the long run it's the living well, not the remembering afterwards...
"If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?"
I've been watching one of my all-time favorite movies, Out of Africa. I know it will haunt me for days, now that I've watched it again. The music, the amazing flying scenes, the tender relationship between Denys Finch-Hatton and Karen Blixen, the incredible beauty of Africa, the Ngong Hills...it all gets into my sub-conscious and doesn't let me go long after the credits roll. That, to me is powerful story-telling. The kind I aspire to write some day...
I love the quote above which comes very close to the end of the movie. Whenever I hear it, I wonder the same kind of thing for myself. Will the places I've loved remember me? Will I have done enough to be remembered at all? I don't mean it in an egotistical way, only that I want to fill my life with enough meaning that it will have meant something that I lived. Perhaps, in the long run it's the living well, not the remembering afterwards...
3 comments:
"I want to fill my life with enough meaning that it will have meant something that I lived"
Well said.
The stories or "songs" of an individual or of a family are important. I can imagine a unit in English class where students could explore how to unearth these stories and present them.
Sunny--that's what it's all about, isn't it?
Morning's Minion--Oooooh! I love that idea!!! I know exactly where I will do that! Thanks for sharing!
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