Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay
BBM is 3 Years Old This Month. How Are You Doing, Friends?
CellarDweller:
--- Quote from: southendmd on December 16, 2008, 03:36:43 pm ---Today is my Third BBM Anniversary.
--- End quote ---
Happy anniversary, big brother! ;D
ifyoucantfixit:
My third anniversary wont be here until Jan. 5th. I went with my precious Kelsey. I
waited until then because we had agreed to go together. I suppose that my life will never
be the same. I was so connected to this film, and its characters I could not even recover. I
felt like I was Ennis, I cried so much my family wanted to have an intervention. They thought
I was losing my mind. I had always been the strong and stable person in my family. But I just could not stop crying. Day and night. I returned to watch the movie seven times in theatre.
It didnt help me, if anything it just got worse and worse. I was a mess. I grieved so much that
I thought I became Ennis.. I dont know yet though if it was for Jack I grieved, or it was Ennis.?
I know that I started to go to youtube and get every piece of video on there. The trailers
the interviews, etc. I was like a crack addict looking for a fix. I could never get enough of it.
I memorized the script as I continued to go. Hunted down the soundtrack, it was a two day
search to find one. For after all, we were ahead of the curve, in our addiction. Later on the
cd was easy to find. They just had no idea that it was going to become the cultural phenom,
that it became.
I found my way somehow to wranglers, and brokeback slash, and started reading Madlori's
fanfiction Human Interest. I felt like I was a drowning victim that had been thrown a life
preserver. From there I found Louise's story too, and she told me about Bettermost. There I
met people with the same " itis" that I had. I felt like I had really found a home. This is a
place, and people that had the same ideas that I had. I have met so many wonderful Brokies,
and gone to so many places, to find friends and fellow Brokies. It has been quite a ride. I will
never be the same person, that I was before I watched that film. Still in my opinion the best
movie I have ever seen....
southendmd:
Jack and Ennis are never very far from my thoughts: I wake up to them every day (beautifully framed posters in my room), Kerry's Heath portrait postcard at the bedside; I wear a gold and a silver cowboy hat around my neck to represent their individuality. The Brokeback calendar greets me every morning on the fridge. I drive the BBM-mobile to work.
BetterMost is always on my computer. I have 1963 license plates from Wyoming, Texas, even Alberta, and now Massachusetts--my birth year-- (interestingly, all black and white) on the wall.
BBM has become the constant background of my life. Although life goes on, and changes continuously, Brokeback is there for me.
I have lovely friends, a fabulous co-mod, loyal ABC players, a new little Brother (!) and people far-flung that mean the world to me.
Thank you for all this.
Front-Ranger:
My Brokeback journey began in October 1997. It was then that I read the story published in The New Yorker. I was devastated by it and hooked, and smitten with the two lovestruck cowboys Ennis and Jack. It was the first issue of The New Yorker that I kept long-term, in a drawer by my bed. That and two other issues are the only ones I’ve kept. The one with the shadow of the Twin Towers on it and the one with the poet Sylvia Plath.
Shortly after that, I went into the hospital for several days to have a fibroid tumor removed and while I was recovering I read the novel Postcards by Annie Proulx. That was also similarly moving, and helped me understand my parents, both children of the Depression, better.
But I remained mired in my own depression for eight more years. Every day, I trudged to work, and then came home, read a little, drank a lot, went to bed, and then arose to repeat the same thing over again the next day. Every year things would get a little more depressing. When I thought things could not get much worse, the 2000 election came along, and my husband informed me that he was a (had been all along?) Republican. I cried all weekend.
You would think I would be happy to hear that a movie was being made of the story I had secretly read over and over. But no, I was not. In fact, I was pissed. I thought they would make a mess of it, and how could a movie be made of a short story anyway? Who was this Ang Lee character? I had seen several of his movies, but since they were so very different, I didn’t connect them together. Then, when I found out that the teen heartthrobs Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal would star, I said, that’s it, I will never go to this movie!
The Denver International Film Festival, where Ang Lee and Annie Proulx made an appearance, came and went to glowing praise, and my resolve started to crumble. Then, my daughter read an article in the newspaper about how Brokeback Mountain had crossed over into the mainstream, and was making a major impact changing people’s minds about homosexuality. She was interested in seeing the film and knew I had read the story. So, as a Christmas present, she dragged me to the theater in Boulder, Colorado, where it was showing.
I left the theater in a daze. The movie was such a different vision from the story. It was actually more hopeful and life affirming. The landscapes were so stunning and the love story so tangible and visceral, that it woke me from a 12-year slumber!! I realized that it was time for me to seize life and live it because life is precious and to be cherished. I realized that my life is valuable and that I am not meant to be a drone or a robot. As I was going out of the theater, I looked around me at the other people, and saw them through new eyes, as human beings with actual feelings and thoughts, and something to contribute to human kind. It was an amazing awakening. My daughter actually had to take my arm and help me navigate through the crowd!
Several viewings later, I made my way to IMDB and then to BetterMost. That summer, I met serious crayons and LauraGigs and couldn’t get enuff of Brokiedom. I was suffering from Empty Nest Syndrome because my daughter had gone off to college leaving me with two sports-crazed men (my husband and son) so I was lonely and in need of a new mission. The next October came around with the exciting opportunity to actually see Annie Proulx speak at the Casper Literary Festival in Wyoming. I was so excited also to be going to Wyoming. I hadn’t been there since I was a child, even though I only live one hour away from it!! I met and picked up ptannen at the airport and we sped up to Casper (with a short detour on my part when I had to return to work for a couple of days). There I met not only Annie Proulx but also horsewrangler, EDelMar, brokebackjack and Katrina, and several other Brokies. It was a fitting start for an odyssey that I hope will never end!!
Later, on New Year’s Eve, serious, EDelMar, and I were in a coffee shop chatting about the movie, and EDelMar turned to me and said, “Instead of just talking about the story, why don’t you live it?” That became my New Year’s Resolution! So very shortly after the New Year, I found myself actually climbing Brokenback Mountain in Wyoming! On snowmobile, because it was early January! I also visited Lightning Flat and Ten Sleep on that trip. Then, in February, I surprised myself again…I traveled to Bay City, Michigan! In the dead of winter! After that momentous trip (the best Oscar Night I have ever known!) I traveled overland back to Denver, visiting Lightning Flat and the “Twist house” yet again.
In May of that year, I had the honor to host (along with six other Brokies) about 85 people attending the second Brokeback BBQ, held in Estes Park, Colorado. I went to Alberta to see the filming sites and to San Francisco for the Castro showing.
While the social events were wonderful and energizing, another transformation was happening. I threw off my depression, my health problems, and my ennui. I threw away the high blood pressure pills I was taking; I did not need them anymore. I even began to enjoy outdoor pursuits such as camping, hiking, and mountain climbing. My soul and my body are rejeuvenated, and I feel much more hope for the future. I am a Brokie; always will be. There ain’t no reins on this one!!
KristinDaBomb:
Thank you Meryl. :]
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