In this case, however, I'm using it in relation to something I saw in a movie once, that felt like a beautiful dream, which I have now attained, in a manner of speaking.
I don't love Before Midnight as much as I do because I appreciate the ways Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy beat each other up over the course of 109 minutes. I do respect that, and I do think they -- along with their primary collaborator, Richard Linklater -- have put their finger on something true about the way any relationship changes during its course, in ways you hope are not so bad that the relationship runs its course. I haven't seen the movie since 2019, but nearly six years deeper into my marriage, I'd probably appreciate those observations now even more than I did the first two times I saw it.
No, what put me into a state of love for the movie, which became more complicated as my relationship changed with the movie over the course of its running time, was the scene where Hawke, Delpy, and their friends talk and eat and philosophize over a beautiful outdoor table covered with food, the Agean Sea behind them.
In that moment, I wanted to have that dinner, with my friends, at some point. Preferably, hosting it.
I've had lovely outdoor dinners with a half-dozen people who care for and challenge and tease each other, growing ever more sweetly inebriated as the light fades from the sky. But never before have I had such a platonic example of that -- since we're already talking Greece and philosophy -- in my own back yard.
It's summer here in Australia, don't forget -- the waning days of summer, but summer still. And so it was we had a group of my wife's friends from high school and their partners over for dinner this past Saturday night, in celebration of my wife's birthday, representing four couples across seven people, my wife and myself not included. (One partner was an apology.)
It's not uncommon to see these people for dinner, as we do it a couple times a year. But only recently has it been possible to do it at our house. With my wife as project manager, this summer we have built a deck in our back yard. It took a long time and it was very hard in spots, but it looks really good now, and I don't even really notice the flaws, like the uneven ends of the boards in relationship to one another, or the few spots where the footing is a bit soft, giving way to a part of the frame that's less sturdy.
Then just recently we dressed it up with a new outdoor L-shaped couch (we had no such furniture before) and a new BBQ (the old one was about eight years old and rusted through). We even repainted some old chairs so they matched the BBQ. In short, the place looks really good.
Add in some Peruvian chicken, rice, salad and a pavlova for dessert, with wine flowing freely around the table, and even what they call "fairy lights" (outdoor deck lighting) strung up just earlier that day, we sat around this table, chewing the fat and slinging the shit, until my wife got enough sense about her to drive us indoors at 10:30 so as not to disturb the neighbors. There our guests stayed until after 12.
Perhaps because they've had children with them in the past, some of whom were coerced into coming even into their late teens, this group has never stayed out that late. Me, I'd like to think it was the outdoor eating environment at the perfect temperature that we'd created, by the sea -- a few blocks from the sea, but by it nonetheless.
In my sweetly inebriated state, I said something about being glad they were all here and that it reminded me of a scene from a movie. I probably should have kept that part to myself -- nothing like curdling a moment by calling too much attention to it and seeming to care too much about it -- but I received nothing but warm good vibes in return, and we carried on as if I had not just said something embarrassing.
Ethan and Julie and Richard might have been proud.
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