Friday, March 07, 2008

Not Patrick!!


Sad news. Patrick Swayze has cancer of the pancreas and his prognosis is terrible. Please, God, not the Swayzster!


I was 20 when I watched Dirty Dancing for the first time, 20 and emotionally stunted. My girlfriends insisted it was a must-see and so I sat through it and hated it. "This is garbage," I said, switching off the video recorder. They reminded me that I loved Bollywood and Dirty Dancing was nothing if not feel good escapism. Hmm, I see your point.

The truth is once I stopped being emotionally stunted I loved Dirty Dancing, and even more horrifically when I watched it again yesterday I realised how much I related to it. Naive young sheltered girl, irritatingly optimisitc, falls for an older man who is all wrong and who wins her heart by busting his sexy moves, thus discovering who she is and instantly getting demoted from her Daddy's Girl status.

I was a weird teenager and even weirder young woman. I even got told so by a guy who I took out with me one night and who expected that what I saw as an innocent make-new-friends outing would lead to a night of rampant passion.

At the close of the evening as we walked home, and I kept walking, he said "My place is this way."

"Well, goodnight then." I said, not getting the message. A conversation ensued on the footpath about morality and religion and when I was done, he said with a smile. "Bollybutton, you are beautiful but you are the strangest girl I've ever met." I understandably never saw him again.

I didn't make much sense. I was passionate about so many things and danced with no inhibitions, but when it came to my own desire, I wouldn't allow myself to question it, let alone other people. My mind was like a big house full of locked rooms which I refused to go near because they were full of things that I desperately wanted but refused to acknowledge.

It's really difficult explaining that to people who haven't grown up in a culture where intimacy is such a taboo, when they have grown up in a placewhere enjoying your lover's embrace is as normal and comforting as basking in the sunshine or a glass of cold water on a really hot day.

But my how I digress. Enjoy your own coming-of-age memories here. Get well soon Patrick!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't really like the Patrick as an actor but this is horribly sad!

Every time I hear of another "my generation" famous person dying or almost dying, it freaks me out.