May 15, 2010- Groundhog Day

I watched Groundhog Day once a few years ago, and I was not a fan.  I love Bill Murray, but the endless repetition got on my nerves, and Andie McDowell has always struck me as a really insipid actress.  But my husband loves this movie, and I love him, so I thought I should give it another shot.
 
Andie still deserved a few good eyerolls, but this time I got past that and found something great underneath (D was thrilled that one of his faves would no longer be the object of my cinematic scorn).  Most people like this movie for its Buddhist transcendence and its quest for self-improvement.  But my sole intoxicating thought was- What would I do with all that unlimited time???

Poor Phil, tired of using his endless days to schmooze women and test his mortality, finally decides to spend it learning- he becomes fluent in French, masters the piano, becomes an ice sculptor.  He can only improve a little every day, but over ten years or so it adds up and voila! he's playing piano in a jazz band.

At first this made me feel hopeless.  I'll never have that kind of time- no use daydreaming about what I'd do with it.  I thought about all the things I would do if I had years- learn to play the cello, dream in Spanish, master the technical side of photography, craft a novel. It feels defeating; they all take so long to learn that if I haven't started by now, there's no way I'll ever get there.  And yet... a few hours a week for 10 or 15 years, and my daughter would come home from high school one afternoon and hear me playing Rachmaninoff.  "Yeah," she'd say to her girlfriend, "my mom plays the cello".  "Cool", the friend would shrug.

So many things seem impossibly daunting to start later in life.  I spend time instead learning things that are instantly gratifying and essentially useless, like how to make blintzes or use a new app on my phone.  But in reality I have all the years I need to master the bigger things- assuming my extreme clutziness isn't fatal anytime soon, that is.  What would I like to do with my time when I retire, in a gazillion years?  It would be nice to be really good at making cheese- salsa dancing- growing vegetables- snowshoeing- quilting.  And of course I can get there by then... the bilingual cellist is still totally possible to become- what a liberating thought!  If I just think long-term and imagine all the years I have in which to learn, it seems easy to start. 

So thank you, Punxsutawney Phil.  Anyone have a music stand I can borrow?