Flying Solo.

It took me long enough, but I finally watched Toy Story 3 this past Saturday. I couldn't find anyone on short notice to come with me but I also didn't want to put off watching the film, so I flew solo and attended the 4:00 matinee showing at a nearby theater. You'd think that I'd save a bit of cash by going to an early show, but since I'd opted to watch the 3D version, the ticket still ran me $10.50. This actually didn't surprise me anymore and I figured I'd be paying even more for a later show, so I shelled out the money and was handed a pair of 3D glasses along with my ticket.

pick a seat, any seat

I was the first person inside Auditorium 1, a fairly-large split-level theater. It seemed like the upper level would be the best place to watch so I climbed the stairs and picked the center seat in the second row. I settled in with my $4 box of Mike N Ikes (in clear violation of my diet, but hey it was a Special Occasion) and a few minutes later the local advertising spots and pop culture trivia video loop began playing. Around the same time, small families and couples began trickling in below. After a while it became apparent that I was the only person who was there alone.

I've been going to the movies by myself for several years now. I think the first one I watched solo was The Others at a downtown Seattle theater, when I decided to just go spontaneously after work. It was interesting to be out watching a scary movie without being with friends or a date -- people to share the experience with. But I still enjoyed it regardless. Riding 20 miles back to my apartment at 10pm on a non-express bus, however, was somewhat less enjoyable. But I digress.

Is there still a stigma about going to the movies by yourself? I don't really think there is, but at the same time I'm not aware of any friends who do this. (At least, they haven't explicitly offered this information.) People rent and watch DVDs at home by themselves all the time, but I think there's some kind of social mechanism that generally inhibits us from doing certain activities by ourselves. Movie-watching is the obvious example, but eating at sit-down restaurants and going to concerts/shows also come to mind. I don't know anyone who does these things solo on a regular basis (or at all, to be honest).

What gives? Are we conditioned by social norms to do certain public things in groups? I guess that might have started waaay back in pre-school or kindergarten, when we were encouraged to perform activities with other children. In grade school all the way up to high school, I know that it wasn't necessarily desirable to be considered a loner, that it was considered weird to eat lunch by yourself. Not so much in college thankfully, but I can only conclude that society still unconsciously upholds this stigma to a certain extent in the "real world."

Which is unfortunate, really.

Okay, so: In the continuing effort to expand my own horizons, I will go to an upcoming concert/show and eat at a restaurant by myself, just to see how it goes. In actuality I probably should've done this years ago. I mean, I don't want to miss out on what might be a great experience just because no one else is around to come with me. The city is full of things to do -- if I end up doing some of those things by myself, that's okay with me.

By the way, Toy Story 3 was excellent. I shed tears and dammit, I'm not ashamed.

Revisitation.

As an adult, I have often known that peculiar legacy time brings to the traveler: the longing to seek out a place a second time, to find deliberately what we stumbled on once before, to recapture the feeling of discovery. Sometimes we search out again even a place that was not remarkable in itself -- we look for it simply because we remember it. If we do find it, of course, everything is different. The rough-hewn door is still there, but it’s much smaller; the day is cloudy instead of brilliant; it’s spring instead of autumn; we’re alone instead of with three friends. Or worse, with three friends instead of alone.

- Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

It's amazing how some writers can perfectly express a feeling. This passage (taken from a novel I'm currently reading about Dracula, no less) does this to a tee, at least for me. Kostova refers to the sense of rediscovering a long-ago-visited place. As a fellow traveler frequently afflicted by wanderlust, I can completely relate to what she's written. I'm sure everyone has experienced this feeling as well, whether it's going back to your old grade school or visiting the bookstore where you and a significant other first met. You want to try to match the emotions and experiences you've kept locked in your memory, to refresh them, and to give them new meaning. Because perhaps you've been feeling melancholy, or you want something old and safe to hold on to as you tread uncharted territory in your life.

But upon arriving, you find that things aren't quite the same. The school looks dated; the strong, comforting steel of the playground equipment in your memory has been replaced by bright plastic monstrosities. The swingset used to be over here. The bookstore strangely doesn't hold the same allure in real life as it did in your mind. The wrong music is playing overhead, and it wasn't this bright before. So it pushes you the tiniest bit off-balance, and your memories become slightly discolored.

And at the same time, you have changed. You've grown older, hopefully wiser, definitely more cynical. You realize that everything changes with the passage of enough time, and absolutely nothing stays the same forever. The best thing you can do is take those new memories and filter them through the sentiment of the old.

Maybe it's the shorter days and cooler, cloudier weather, but lately I've been feeling more introspective than usual. I've been attempting, with mixed results, to instill an sense of stillness and calm in my life in reaction to the whirlwind that has been 2009 so far. The traveling I have been doing the past few weeks wasn't to distant physical spaces, but to memories and experiences in my mind of when life was simpler. I know things have changed; I have changed. And I'm not trying to "go back to how it once was" because that, in the grand scheme of things, is impossible. But there's the next best thing. And that's to go forward in the best way possible, with a sense of purpose, awareness and gratitude that past memories have served well to guide me thus far.