Glue

I woke up this morning with a scene from Before Sunset in my head.

Which is funny, because this weekend I rewatched Before Sunrise, the film that comes (I apologize) before this one in Linklater's trilogy. But I have not hit play on Before Sunset in almost a year. So how? Why?

Well, a good answer could be because this is my favorite movie in the trilogy, duh but that would not do for a newsletter issue. So instead I have been asking myself what makes some stories linger.

Did you cry in Toy Story 3? It's alright, almost everyone did. But why? I am not sure the same elements that make a story important to us, something that we will remember, are the ones that trigger emotional reactions like crying or laughing out loud (or just getting very angry) but they do have some connection. Strong emotions are retained as memories in our brains for reasons I am several PhDs away of even explaining. I remember the stories that triggered big emotions in me, but they do not show up as frequent as the stories that I know taught me something.

Of course I cried and cry every time I watch Before Sunset, I mean, geez. Can you not cry in that movie? And of course remembering Andy's toys accepting their fate and embracing each other to face doom made me sob, but that memory does not wake me up in a Monday morning and leave me thinking for the rest of the day.

And there is this incredible thing about the human body and how it keeps taking care of itself. Hunger triggers headache, stress triggers lack of sleep, and so it goes. What if we keep conjuring these stories - even the ones you lived yourself, like stories you have been through in your childhood - as a mechanism to answer questions our language center is yet to factor into words?

What if those stories are healing wounds you don't even know you are bleeding through?

Mondays, am I right?

-Maíra