crying on a carpet square
"There’s something that feels wrong about this moment, about watching this part of the film with all these people around me."
author’s note
The following passage is from the latest draft of my memoir-in-progress, “unless a seed” — the story of how God used something small to heal my heart in a very big way.
These excerpts are reserved for paid subscribers, which I would love for you to consider becoming for either five dollars a month or forty-five dollars per year! If you’re unable to upgrade at this time, you can still read a brief excerpt from this passage below :)
This is the earliest memory I have of watching my favorite film, but it is not my first time seeing it. I know this because the finger paintings I made of my favorite characters are dated from the year I turned four, and since the movie premiered in theaters that winter, it wouldn’t have made it to VHS until the following spring.
(Just in time for my family to take it on our summer vacation so I could beg my older cousin Bonnie to watch it with me every morning.)
I’m four years old, sitting criss-cross applesauce on a carpet square in a sea of my fellow preschoolers.
It’s close to the end of the school day, and our teachers have gathered us into a dark room to watch a movie. Since it’s the nineties, we’re watching it through a grainy, box-shaped television screen. The height of home entertainment.
My class showed up late to the party, so there are only about twenty minutes left of the movie. This doesn’t bother me since my family has our own copy on VHS, one I’ve watched and rewound and watched again so many times, I could recite every word by heart if someone asked.
What bothers me is that because I have seen the movie before, I know what is coming.
