Returning to my roots

I recently watched Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea again with Miriam. It was really good - actually, I think it was good for my soul. Sometimes, things that we love when we're younger don't quite live up to our own hype when we re-experience them later on in life, but this was definitely not the case watching the Anne movies.

I realized something as I watched them. I think one of the reasons that I love the movies so much is that I really relate to Anne. I identify with her. There are just certain things she says, certain things she feels, and decisions that she makes that I just jive with. This was particularly true in Anne of Avonlea. This movie was actually a combination of books 2, 3, and 4 of the series. Because of this, they took some artistic license and melded many of the stories and characters together for the plot of the film. It is actually a pretty extraordinary achievement, because I don't feel like they disrespect the spirit of the books at all, but they actually create their own take on that particular time of Anne's life, and create their own story in the process. This isn't really true of the first one, because that one follows the book for the most part. Anyway, one of the big things that Anne of Avonlea the movie focuses on is the idea of home that you don't really find in the books. But it's something in Anne that I so strongly empathize with. There's a scene where Pauline (sister of Anne's Kingsport suitor) comes back from a wedding, and she starts talking about how she and her cousin walked around their old house and revelled in their old memories, and Anne just has this look on her face, and I feel like I can understand everything she's feeling at that particular moment. And when she unexpectedly meets Gilbert in Kingsport, and goes home and looks at her old pictures of Green Gables and of Matthew and Marilla, I felt like I understood. That's how I feel sometimes. It's not just that Anne has that nostalgia for home - it's that the nostalgia is intertwined with the simplicity of her "wholesome Island upbringing." Home is a place of simplicity, where the rude ambitions of city life hold no sway over the peacefulness of enjoying the beauty of God's creation, and sharing tea or a meal with those you love.

Actually, I think in many ways, this movie informed my view of the world when I watched it during my high school years. Those are certainly impressionable times, and I think it formed that paradigm in my mind. As I watched the movie now, at the age of 26, it had that hint of painful sentimentality, as I realized the profound influence it had on me growing up, and how I long for such simplicity in my own life. As she speaks with Morgan Harris in one of the climactic scenes of the movie, she tells him "I can't explain it ... I just need to go home." Me too.