Young Bela

I recently rewatched a movie from my girlhood. I had been stuck, going in circles around a closer time, a time filled with trauma on repeat seeking to harden me, jade me, but lately, I’ve been returning to a time when everything was new. It tracks. I’ve been transitioning to this new phase for a while and I am solidly here; slowly shedding the trauma and looking around in wonder, just looking not searching – I wouldn’t know what I am searching for – but finding things I thought I lost and things I never knew I loved.

This movie was the epitome of sensuality and discovery to my young, naïve heart, but years on, it is exactly what the movie is about. Age didn’t jade me. Heartbreak didn’t harden me. I see so much of me in that young girl who watched this movie looking back in dread that someone would catch her.

The soundtrack alone ties that young girl to the young lady I became and further on to the woman I am. It reveals a connectivity I never knew was there. The soundtrack is made of songs I would grow to love and sing and dance to, in an apparently unrelated time; It is all connected.

I often speak to younger versions of me. I complement them, I thank them, I hold them close and tell them all is right. Yet, it’s through this old movie that I feel closer to older versions of me. I am so grateful for who young Bela was. Poor thing felt so awkard. Hell! Everyone told her she was awkward, and she believed them. She didn’t know that she simply had other colorings; she still does, and that doesn’t make her awkward – It makes her the best of me.

The movie is Stealing Beauty (1996).