Windows

looking into windows

In 2015 I watched Todd Hayne’s Carol and was entranced. Entranced in the same fashion I was by my mother’s friend’s Chanel lipstick creeping out of her pocketbook and being applied liberally while still actively participating in conversation. These things, these markers of womanhood, had a chokehold on my being.

My brother, an actor and film school dropout, asked me how much I had loved the movie before I even told him that I did. I thought he had made the assumption based on Hayne’s airtight production of Manhattan in the 50s: coiffed hair, burning cigarettes, red nail polish, and fire-lit homes. Before I could concur that I did, indeed, love the film, he made the point that the entire thing was about windows. Windows looking out, windows looking in, and windows into one’s desires, their truest selves, their darkest secrets. Sure, there are plenty of window shots, enough to be something of note. But the crux of this film is about reflection and a willingness to open the shades to who you really are.

During my one cursed year at NYU, we had to write a paper on a film. Obviously, I chose Carol.

It was the first time I had ever been invested in schoolwork. I tasked a new friend, and fellow movie lover, with watching the film once over before I pulled an all-nighter to write the paper. I crushed some Adderall that was most definitely not prescribed to me and sat in a small room off a corner of the dorm lobby. Two metal-clad chairs sat in front of a faux-wood desk, centered by a barred window, and a computer set up with an iTunes Store purchase. Surely, I’d watch it again.

I still watch Carol. Nearly every time fall rolls around, and sometimes when I’m in need of a comfort I don’t know how to describe to others.

I’ve spoken of my secrecy, which acts as a cursed coping mechanism more than a desire to withhold. I like to ask questions, more than I like to be asked them. I love peering into other peoples existence’s to gain a better understanding of who they are and analyze for myself. But there’s always so much I want to say. I’m confident in myself, I grow even more-so with age. I like who I am becoming, even if it means shedding layers that once held, protected, and loved me. There are many things I look back on and shudder— ways in which I should have handled things differently, makeup I shouldn't have worn, things I shouldn’t have said, people I should have been honest with.

In the first long format Substack I wrote, I spoke to my desire to look inward. To find a place in this cultural landscape where I can provide beauty, whimsy, and celebration, all while being my true self. A flawed person, one with deep feelings, who runs away when they're hurt and digs their nails into their skin. It’s a bit of a contradiction, to make believe for a living: offering people a portal into a romantic glamorized life of abundance and perfection, all while feeling embraced by darkness and intrusive ideation. But the thing Im learning is, it makes total sense. I’m here to offer an escape from the thoughts and feelings that surrounds us— a way to envelop yourself in wonder as a way to keep out the cold. To offer moments of reprieve, beauty, evocation. None of this is serious, it’s a way to embrace the unconventional.

This brings me back to Carol. When I watch it now, I see a two year romance with the friend who sat with me in the corner room, watching a MacBook Air. I see a love that I never thought I’d never be worthy of, one wholeheartedly unexpected but burning far too bright to tame. I see the ways in which I let it dim, and the fears that escorted its eventual demise. I see my dear attachment to this film, as one that perhaps perfectly encapsulates all my past experiences and deepest desires. I see it as a box I can hide away when I don’t think I’m ready, but one I can always reopen when back alone.

Perhaps the greatest disservice I’ve done is keeping my love of Carol to myself, and not letting the world in on the second universe I’ve created.

Carol is a love story between two women who ultimately can’t be together due to external factors. There are a myriad of reasons why, but the conservative nature of the 50s is the overarching one. It’s taken a lot of time, but I’ve realized the closest character I am to this film, is the time it took place. I’ve set parameters on who I can and cannot be, and how tightly I can curate my existence to fit a mold others can adore and digest.

There’s still a lot I’m figuring out. I dont have answers to most questions, and I have a lot of questions. Upon reflection, I do know that I deserve a love much kinder, prouder, and warmer than I’ve been willing to receive. One like that found watching a certain movie.

I write this not for praise or acknowledgment of bravery, but so perhaps another girl rewatching Carol can start to talk about why she actually loves the film.