This morning, my daughter woke at 4 a.m. She was shouting from her room, “Mommy! Daddy!” There’s nothing terribly alarming in this. It’s how she summons us whenever she wakes. She doesn’t get out of bed and wander around, and for now, I prefer it that way. Given also, that it’s still dark at 4 a.m. I’d rather not have her stumbling about in the hallway upstairs, tumbling down the stairs. I opened my eyes and saw it was 4, and since my son hadn’t woken during the night, and I wanted to keep it that way, I leaped out bed and rushed down the hall to see what was wrong. Generally, we tell her to only call for us in case of emergencies, like if she feels sick or needs to go to the bathroom. We’ve had to make this clear, because sometimes she calls for us simply because one of her stuffed animals gets lost in the dark, and my wife and I don’t see this as a valid reason to summon us past her bedtime. There have been plenty of nights when we’ve rushed upstairs after putting her to bed, only to hear, “Can’t find Care Bare,” as a response to our query, “What’s wrong?” Yes, to you, dear reader, it sounds cute. And it might be the first time it happens, but after repeated offenses, it becomes grating.
“After you go to bed,” I’ve tried explaining, “it’s our time. Mommy and daddy have things they need to get done and we can’t come running up the stairs every five minutes just because you’ve lost your Care Bear.” Some nights it seems this explanation has been more effective than others. So I go to her room last night at 4 a.m. and opened the door and stood there. “What is it?” A shaggy head of brown hair emerged from a pile of stuffed animals. She looks at me in the hall: “I want socks on…” Heavy sigh, from me. I opened her dresser drawer where the socks are, and I brought them over and put the socks on her feet, but all the while I maintained a tone of exasperation. “This really isn’t a valid reason to call me at 4 a.m.” I told her. “Do you need to go potty?” I asked this because the last time she woke in the middle of the night to ask my wife to blow her nose, my wife put her back to bed without going and our daughter wet the bed. So I asked, and we went, and I put her back to sleep. “Don’t call me again until it’s light outside,” I said.
As far as these things go, it could have been worse. I went to bed at 10:45. And I consider 10:45 to 5:45, which is the wake-up time I’m aiming on weekdays, a decent amount of sleep. Also, my son slept through the night, which is a major bonus because my wife didn’t have to get up and feed him and when she’s well rested and happy, it makes me happy too. I should probably get a bit more rest too. But I hate going straight to bed after the kids. I need some time to myself. For the past few weeks before turning in, I’ve done voice recording for chapters of my novel. Last night, I decided to skip this, and watch I Knew Her Well, an Italian film from 1965 recently released by Criterion Collection. I developed a head cold last Monday, and though I usually shake head colds in a matter of three or four days by using zinc, water, and plenty of sleep, I’d mistaken this one for allergies, which let it get a toehold, and doing voice recording the last few days has been difficult, given that I end up coughing every few lines and having to go back and re-record various lines. I did the eleventh chapter on Monday night, and it took me a full hour to record what ended up being a 26-minute track. Then too, I have a few more movie holds waiting for me at the library. New stuff like Room and Noah Baumbach’s Mistress America that I won’t be able to renew since there are other people waiting for them, so I decided to knock out I Knew Her Well, which is also from the library and has a queue that won’t allow renewal. For the most part, I try to watch everything Criterion puts out, and their description (a kind of inverse La Dolce Vita with a female protagonist) piqued my interest.
The movie was good too. Rather than do one of my formal reviews. I’ll run through some passing thoughts here. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s great or a masterpiece, but it’s unique. By and large, it reminded me of an experiment short story. The narrative is episodic. The protagonist Adriana Astrelli is a small town Italian woman who has dreams of being an actress. She goes through various love affairs, meets with supposed talent scouts, goes to parties, attends boxing matches/fashion shows. We see what she does, but there’s very little intimation of her interior states other than through the pop songs she listens to. And it had me interested for a good hour and twenty minutes or so. But this became repetitive, the scenes became predictable, the malaise a bit too over the top (though I understand this was the style at the time…aside from loving Fellini, I’m also an Antonioni fan). And yet still I was with the film up until the last shot where Adriana, returning from a late-night party, pulls her wig off and jumps off the balcony of her apartment to her death. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. It made no sense to me. Perhaps some might argue that suicide is inscrutable, that reasons for it are never clear, and it can sometimes come out of the blue, but it felt tacked on and tacky to me. Like the writer and director needed to figure out a way to end it and came up with this to do it in dramatic fashion. Personally, I think I would have preferred it if the shot right before the suicide, where she’s standing on her balcony with the curtains billowing and the camera pans in, had just faded to black instead of enacting this dramatic desperate move, but what are you going do? The film is what it is. I’m glad I watched it, but while, having seen L’Avventura or La Dolce Vita, I was moved to view them again every few years, I Knew Her Well isn’t the same caliber, and it’s likely a one time watch.
Tonight it’s back to recording. I only have three chapters left, and the experience has been fruitful. I’ve told my writing group that I planned to get my final draft to them by late-May, and it’s tracking that way. At this point, I’m actually getting really excited for someone else to read it. I think the book is good. I hope I’m not wrong.
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