The Hole

A strange memory: Several years ago my brother was assigned a film project for school, on what topic I do not recall. I filmed the movie for him and helped him write it. I clearly remember the first line:

I was born through a hole in the wall.

The line was befittingly accompanied by my brother emerging from a hole in the wall. The final depicted him reentering the hole in the wall. The in-between I cannot recall, except shooting a tilt upwards a staircase. I believe the film was shot on VHS-C camcorder tape, but I have many, several unlabeled and several labeled incompletely. I would like to find it. I'd like to see where we went from there. I'd like to write out the voice-over, which I believe I provided (my brother and I often traded as stand-in's for the other as we look enough alike). The monologue read like a poem and the film was very short. I'd very much like to hear it, see it, write it again. For tonight, I can only repeat the line in my head as I type and try to sleep.

I was born through a hole in the wall.

And though I've left, I have chosen to return, blanking out my existence, and, in turn, forgetting what I've done, where I've been, and how I lived; recalling only where it began and where it ended, holding only to the mysteries on either side of existence, remembering only what I've never known, I grasp my elusive memory of the hole, a place never to be seen in clean focus, only in the corner of an eye for a brief second in the moment of waking, that is, the only recountible encounter is a mere glimpse, easily missed, inversely terrifyingly, the truly keen eye into the edges of one's life are past the point of detailed analysis.

On a tangent, since life shows next to nothing of the natures of birth and death, birth and death would likely show the same or less of life. The film starts at the hole and ends at the hole. They are the boundaries. But somehow my brother has surpassed these boundaries. Even though his life has been limited between the confines of the two appearances of the hole, he has hinted at the transcendence of his earthly limitations; he has depicted the 'glimpse.' Not, however, in any material form; there is no heaven in the film. My brother is the material, he is in perfect human form in and between his entry and exit. When he is "born" he is not newborn, when he reenters the hole he does not die, and in between, within his existence, he remains not physically altered by the any elements of life. His consistency (and, regrettably, my memory of the film) highlights the 'great unknowns' of life. It is the best job a living, 'perfect' person could at portraying the 'glimpse' because one just cannot know. In life my brother does not know. He only knows where he came from and where he will go: the hole. But it is "the hole" itself that is our glimpse. Maybe the film is best forgotten. Forgetting may fulfill it's purpose.

I do not claim that the movie is profound, all that interesting, or even very good. Still, the insight as much anyone else could give. Disregarding all of the mumbo of the above, I simply like the line. I am yet to forget it, and, at times (like tonight), it finds its way into my head and bounces around stirring up contemplation of feelings that make me quiet.

***Note1 - I think my brother didn't get a very good grade on it. He seldom did when I helped him with his school film projects.

***Note2 - I plan to write something Resistentialist in the next few days. I am looking forward to it and wanted to note it now so that I could remind myself to start formulating ideas

I really want to go look for that movie.