I don’t think it is much of a secret that I enjoy movies.
So I won’t jab on about that much in this article.
Rather than that, I’d like to recount my recent experiences in a certain cinema.

I must start by confessing that I don’t go to the cinema as often as I used to. Which has a lot to do with my hatred for translations and the re-dubbing of movies.
The second part however, has more to do with the atmosphere.

I just think it’s cold.
Even when I went into to the cinema in Ireland and England it was the same. It’s like watching a movie all alone. Just the screen is bigger.

I remember when I was a child. People applauded at the end of a good movie. Laughed when it was funny. Or screamed in shock or awe. Whatever was more appropriate.
Now, it’s just silent. No one dares to disrupt the silence with laughter or applause. They all just sit down, scoff at the popcorn and leave once the credits roll. ( Also a practice I don’t particularly like )

But as I pointed out in the very beginning. I recently had the great pleasure of experiencing something else.

My search for a cinema that would show the movies as they are supposed to be seen ( read: in their original language ) led me to a small venue about 30 kilometers from where I live.
Not having much of an alternative choice I went for it. And the moment I set foot in that place, it was clear to me just how different that place was.

It had none of that hyper modern art decor or slick interior design. Just an old fashioned table to sell tickets and a small bar to sell snacks.
Posters of old movies hung on the wall. The Metropolis one stuck out to me most.
And the most important thing of them all. The people were talking. To each other.
The atmosphere was one of knowing everybody and being known by everybody.
And to a certain extend that was actually true. I knew why these people were here instead of some other, bigger cinema. And they probably knew why I was there too.

After the second person I was not even surprised anymore to find that the people with whom I had talked to in English for the duration of us standing in line turned to the women selling the tickets and asked for two adults in perfect German.

The movie had not even started yet and it was already the best evening I had in a long time.

And once it started. The crowd did not disappoint.

They cheered to the characters on screen.
They laughed with them.
They held their breath in shock at the suspense.
And they let out a small frustrating laugh and frown at the infuriatingly, audience screwing ending before bursting into applause.

I think I might be going there again soon.

Incidentally, the movie I saw was Inception. This should explain what I meant with the ending to anyone who has seen it. If you have not. Fix that.

Therapy can be a remarkable thing. Too bad I don’t have any. I certainly could use it these days.

To say I am a wreck at the moment could be considered an understatement in the same way that “the ocean is kind of big-ish” would be.
My life is a complete mess of broken stairs and self rearranging highways to nowhere.
I keep skipping back and forth between impossible to follow leads and plans I accumulated over the past 4 years and a new direction, free of bounds and restraints but uncertain, unfamiliar and unsafe.

My sleep schedule, which was messy at its best, is completely gone to hell and back. My eyes are completely red with thick dark underlines and I generally look and feel like a drug victim who simultaneously suffers from 3 weeks of withdrawal and overdose.

It’s been building up over the last 2 months or so and finally exploded. These last 2-3 weeks have been some sort of aftermath and time for me to pick up the pieces and decide where the glue should go.
And which to toss out.

But it took until now that not the situation, but I, broke down.

It’s surprising that I did not have a mental meltdown ever before in my life. Because usually I’m somewhat of a psychological piniata.
But it came suddenly, surprisingly and after about 60 hours without any notable sleep or productivity. Ok. So maybe not “that” suddenly and surprisingly.

But the point is. I found myself, without a clear memory of exactly what line of thought brought me there, in an empty room, screaming at the wall without making a sound.
I didn’t even know what to say to it. I just wanted to scream at it. Preferably without it hearing me.
The things on my mind at the time deemed it appropriately for me to shout and bang my head against said wall. So I complied.
While breaking out in tears and grinding teeth.

When the irony hit me, I began to laugh. Hard.
Here I stood, completely loosing it for once. Feeling the rush of emotions like I can truly say I never did before. But they were all wrong.
Was I not excited about how I might have a chance at completely reworking all that was wrong with my life so far? About not being held back by choices I made as a completely different person, half a decade ago?
Why then was it far more befitting for me to shout and curse without a single sound at all that I had lost or possible would lose as a result of actions so tiny I had hardly any control over the sum of them?
Why, after all of this, did it bother me the way it did. Had I not made peace with it already?

Apparently not.
All that I worked and hoped for… all this time. Presumably gone. For good.

And so. I laughed. And with this, my head cleared and began to formulate this very entry.
Among other things.

For the first time in months. I feel like I can think again.
It’s like some giant sticky goo has been removed from my eyes, ears and brain altogether.
The accumulated weight of it all is, at least for the moment, somewhat lifted.

There might be a way for me after all.

Don’t bother to try and understand this. This is one for me and me alone.

… you should listen. Sometimes, literally.

The music I like the most always had a habit of entering my life via strange and unexpected circumstances. This is a little tale of the latest example.

What intrigued me initially about the store was that they had some VHS tapes in the window. As well as good ol’Vinyl records.

I was curious.

They had a special sale. A CD for a pound. Sometimes a bit more, but never higher than 4 pounds.
I spend more money in that single store than in a complete week of living in england.

Standing out amongst the CD’s I bought there however was one I never heard before in my life.
It wasn’t the only one. I packed a lot of stuff I did not know. But with all of them, I had at least some idea what they were about.
Not this one however. I just bought it. No reason. It just happened.

I still do not know exactly what spurred me to take it with me. The “one pound” factor might have helped. But why this instead of one of the dozens of others? No clue.
The cover isn’t that interesting and you can not, in any way or form, guess what kind of music it is.
But maybe that was exactly the point.

When I asked the owner as to what sort of music it was, he just told me that it’s rather popular and well known. And that I should have heard it before, most likely without realizing that I did.

Instead of checking for this however, I did not listen to it for weeks. The other CD’s I bought just took over. In fact, I almost forgot that I had it.

That is until yesterday.
During a conversation on Teamspeak, someone mentioned a musician.
This was not all that surprising. Seeing as I asked around for some recommondations.
He described to me some of it, and told me that I ought to know some of it already. Perhaps without realizing it. It was supposed to be rather popular and well known.

When I asked him for an album title I was struck by a bit of lightning.
Didn’t I have an album with a similar title? I reached back and grabbed it.

There it was.
And I listened.

So I randomly grab one CD, out of a hundred. And I get reminded that I have it by pure chance.
And it turns out to be this.
A song so long forgotten that I did not even know it existed anymore. A song I heard exactly once. One and a half decade ago.

The music I like the most always had a habit of entering my life via strange and unexpected circumstances.
But I sure am glad to hear it once it finally does.

Maybe the next big musical thing in my life will fall out of an airplane and hit me in the head. It would at least be consistent.