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Someday, Ciro and I will enter a magical land where there is money for food and plenty of time to sleep. It sounds like a fairy tale, I know. Still, I believe it is there, waiting for us.
When Ciro and I first got together, a co-worker of Patrick's asked whether he was tempted to enact vengeance upon us. Patrick thought about it for a second and said that, no, it was enough that we were both gourmand insomniacs. Show up early in the morning, and you get to see us pale and bleary, perhaps still awake, attempting to coax a feast from a handful of cheap ingredients. This is not a life Patrick would ever want.
I've always thought of Ciro as the night sky; he's always thought of me as the moon. We've both spent years skirting the edges of systems, driving alone in the dark.
As a child, you suspect that behind the world you live in is another more real, more beautiful world. Maybe you are an adopted princess, or an alien. Maybe if you hold on to the right plastic bag, it will waft you to Narnia. I played hundreds of hours of video games in case I was needed to defend the Earth.
You grow out of this fantasy. You realize you are too like your parents to be adopted. You realize that adult decisions are not arbitrary and mysterious - that you wouldn't really like eating cake for every meal, wouldn't want the stress of being an astronaut, or king, or restaurateur. You travel, meet a wider circle of people, gain an understanding of how things work. You grow up. Perhaps you still enjoy the metaphysical; perhaps you dream of a different life. Nonetheless, the life you live is yours. It results from your choices. It's not a mistake, not a conspiracy by your so-called parents.
I've spent my adult life knowing that Neverland wasn't a fantasy, and being told that it was - sometimes lovingly, sometimes angrily. If I fail, I was always wrong about the possibility of success. If I succeed, it is only the Romie exception. I ask too much. I frighten people. I've spent my life surrounded by beauty that I've looked at alone.
I've told Ciro he's my Tinkerbell. He doesn't know what I mean by this; he sees Tinkerbell as small, perky, unspeaking, delicate and gossamer - entirely unlike him. I don't know how to explain that she is arch, entitled, co-owner and creator of a magical world built to serve two outlandish people - people who fly, fence pirates, swim with mermaids, live in hollow trees, stay up all night wearing Indian headdresses. Tink isn't swept along in Peter's dream; the dream of Neverland is her own, co-discovered in Kensington Gardens. The lost boys and Wendy come and go - Peter and Tink stay straight on 'til morning.
It's the same thing he's said to me; I just use different metaphors.
I love him. Our life (ours. never thought I'd be able to say that and mean it) is everything I ever said I wanted and everything I wanted but was silent about. We skate around wood floors on cardboard boxes, walk through sprinklers late at night, bounce light off a silver reflector until the shot is perfect, angelic, an ideal balance of warm and cool. We look at child drawings of ancient floods; we add harmonies to songs about libertines. We sit at a table of poems and food, coffee and avocados, and between them, the eternal city.
I am greatful. I am also triumphant.
My parents have never met Ciro. All three were at my wedding reception years ago, but so were dozens of others. Mom wore a kimono and sang a song; Ciro made a beautiful toast after a series of other people's bad ones. This interaction is the closest they ever came to speaking.
Thus, their entire relationship is based on their appearances in my films. This has given an accurate picture of Dad as a good-natured gun slinger and international spy, and Mom as the ominous incarnation of Death, who is never without lipstick and a cocktail. Ciro has come off more haphazardly because I never asked him to play himself. Instead, he is an invisible mad scientist; a suicidal man trapped in his own fantasy life; a sergeant in a Twilight Zone sleep experiment; a fugitive on the run; a noir hacker; a man who hates Christmas. If I'd known at the time that these films would introduce my parents to a future son in law, I would have been more careful to put him in some comedies.
When Ciro and I first got together, a co-worker of Patrick's asked whether he was tempted to enact vengeance upon us. Patrick thought about it for a second and said that, no, it was enough that we were both gourmand insomniacs. Show up early in the morning, and you get to see us pale and bleary, perhaps still awake, attempting to coax a feast from a handful of cheap ingredients. This is not a life Patrick would ever want.
I've always thought of Ciro as the night sky; he's always thought of me as the moon. We've both spent years skirting the edges of systems, driving alone in the dark.
As a child, you suspect that behind the world you live in is another more real, more beautiful world. Maybe you are an adopted princess, or an alien. Maybe if you hold on to the right plastic bag, it will waft you to Narnia. I played hundreds of hours of video games in case I was needed to defend the Earth.
You grow out of this fantasy. You realize you are too like your parents to be adopted. You realize that adult decisions are not arbitrary and mysterious - that you wouldn't really like eating cake for every meal, wouldn't want the stress of being an astronaut, or king, or restaurateur. You travel, meet a wider circle of people, gain an understanding of how things work. You grow up. Perhaps you still enjoy the metaphysical; perhaps you dream of a different life. Nonetheless, the life you live is yours. It results from your choices. It's not a mistake, not a conspiracy by your so-called parents.
I've spent my adult life knowing that Neverland wasn't a fantasy, and being told that it was - sometimes lovingly, sometimes angrily. If I fail, I was always wrong about the possibility of success. If I succeed, it is only the Romie exception. I ask too much. I frighten people. I've spent my life surrounded by beauty that I've looked at alone.
I've told Ciro he's my Tinkerbell. He doesn't know what I mean by this; he sees Tinkerbell as small, perky, unspeaking, delicate and gossamer - entirely unlike him. I don't know how to explain that she is arch, entitled, co-owner and creator of a magical world built to serve two outlandish people - people who fly, fence pirates, swim with mermaids, live in hollow trees, stay up all night wearing Indian headdresses. Tink isn't swept along in Peter's dream; the dream of Neverland is her own, co-discovered in Kensington Gardens. The lost boys and Wendy come and go - Peter and Tink stay straight on 'til morning.
It's the same thing he's said to me; I just use different metaphors.
I love him. Our life (ours. never thought I'd be able to say that and mean it) is everything I ever said I wanted and everything I wanted but was silent about. We skate around wood floors on cardboard boxes, walk through sprinklers late at night, bounce light off a silver reflector until the shot is perfect, angelic, an ideal balance of warm and cool. We look at child drawings of ancient floods; we add harmonies to songs about libertines. We sit at a table of poems and food, coffee and avocados, and between them, the eternal city.
I am greatful. I am also triumphant.
My parents have never met Ciro. All three were at my wedding reception years ago, but so were dozens of others. Mom wore a kimono and sang a song; Ciro made a beautiful toast after a series of other people's bad ones. This interaction is the closest they ever came to speaking.
Thus, their entire relationship is based on their appearances in my films. This has given an accurate picture of Dad as a good-natured gun slinger and international spy, and Mom as the ominous incarnation of Death, who is never without lipstick and a cocktail. Ciro has come off more haphazardly because I never asked him to play himself. Instead, he is an invisible mad scientist; a suicidal man trapped in his own fantasy life; a sergeant in a Twilight Zone sleep experiment; a fugitive on the run; a noir hacker; a man who hates Christmas. If I'd known at the time that these films would introduce my parents to a future son in law, I would have been more careful to put him in some comedies.
