Today, while recuperating from the cold/flu fungus in our home, I watched "Parenthood" with Steve Martin. This is one of my all time favorite movies, as it so well captures the pain, humor, and trials that all of us face as we grow up together in families.
One of my favorite moments is near the end, when Steve Martin's grandma intervenes in a discussion that Steve (Gil) and his wife Karen (Mary Steenburgen) are having about how messy families are...
Grandma: You know, when l was 19, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.
Gil: Oh?
Grandma: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride.
Gil (sarcastically) What a great story.
Grandma: I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together.
Some didn´t like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. l like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.
The next scene is the perennial school play, and Gil and Karen watch as their youngest child charges on stage and disrupts and "ruins" the school play. As Gil finds himself, yet again, stressed out by the behavior of his kids, he suddenly envisions himself on a roller coaster, right there in the school play audience. Gil hates this feeling; the stress and pandemonium his kids create in this life.
But as the coaster ride goes on a bit longer, Gil realizes that all this school play chaos, is really the joy of life, as he turns to smile at his wife, and they share, for a moment, the knowledge, that in the midst of all this panic, they are right where they are supposed to be.....on the roller coaster...of life.
Grandma was right. I feel so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together. I am just like Gil.
