It’s not that I don’t like chickflicks. I do. I really do. Some of them. When I’m in a certain mood. And want to have something on in the background. A rainy Saturday, curled on the couch, doing busy work–that’s the perfect moment for You’ve Got Mail. Don’t let my apparent indifference toward the genre fool you. To call them exceptions wouldn’t be adequate.
Two men changed my life forever. I’ve never met them before. Never will. And I know remarkably little about their personal lives–their feelings, thoughts, ambitions. Explicitly, that is.
Walt Whitman and Miles Davis introduced themselves to me in the most peculiar ways. Ways that have one thing in common.
I never saw The Notebook in theaters, and I don’t think I would have actively pursued a viewing of it. Coincidence led me to it one night in high school. After that night, I felt like I’d seen part of myself on a screen (though it wasn’t until junior year of college that I could have told you why) I don’t know who the movie’s writers were or who directed it, and I haven’t read a Nicholas Sparks book. All I know is they’ve read Whitman.
Miles Davis and I had a similar encounter, except much earlier. In Runaway Bride, “It Never Entered My Mind” plays on two occasions. It only took the first for me to fall in love with Miles. I was ten when that movie came out, and I bought his greatest hits cd.
I think they would have been friends. I can just picture Walt talking and Miles, unsure if he is digesting the significance of every single word, just sits, both amused and transfixed. And Walt just wanting Miles’ deliberate calmness. Two of the most intentional, organic creatures. Oh, yes, they would have been friends.
Thank you, “chickflicks.”




1. pre-set timers on coffee pots=getting to smell coffee the second you wake up