I’m 25; The Sound of Music is 50… But still, ‘The Hills’ are so much alive!

If I would show my students this picture and ask them if they are familiar with this scene, I have a feeling only 10% of them would know where exactly it came from. It’s the sad reality that I have to face. I would even think that you, one who is reading this entry, have absolutely no idea what that picture is all about. Well, If you know who that woman on the left is, and say that it’s Julie Andrews, then you’re absolutely right! And those children with her are NOT her real children, but her children in one of Hollywood’s most iconic films of all time, one who is celebrating it’s 50th birthday-slash-anniversary this year–The Sound of Music.

I fell in love with The Sound of Music when I was in High School. When I first heard the enigmatic tune of ‘The Hills Are Alive,’ with Julie stepping on stones while throwing rocks at the pond, I completely got lost into its wonderful world. And to this day, I am still so much engrossed to it like a dog following its master wherever it went. Who wouldn’t fall in love with it? I have seen so many musicals (the likes of Singin’ in the Rain, The Wizard of Oz, An American in Paris and so much more) in my 25 years of existence and, to be really honest, this film tops all of them ten times over. I cannot even fathom my life now if I have never seen it at all.

And now, look at these children. They’re completely different from the first photo I’ve shown.

And Julie and Christopher here are just adorable, I could cry right now just by looking at them with such an ecstatic feeling!

Last month, I was able to see Lady Gaga’s take on the 50th Anniversary of The Sound of Music, singing her heart out to all the Oscar goers. Julie was there, too, congratulating Gaga’s performance, which, to me, was fantastic! I never even knew Lady Gaga could sing like that. And what actually caught my attention was the musical’s songs.

The Sound of Music is, and forever will be, the icing to my cake, or the cherry on top of my ice cream. I will forever cherish it, and treat is as my absolute favorite movie of all time. True, it is 50 years old, but I’ll be very much happy if I live to see its 100th anniversary (if there will be one, that is, I have no idea!) even if I will be 75 by that time. SEE IT! I know you’ll love it 😀

“I’m very sure. This never happened to me before. I met you…”

I remember a scene from The Lake House, when Sandra Bullock’s character, Kate, tells Keanu Reeve’s character, Alex, that she misses the lake house and its trees. When Alex knew about it, he brought a tree from the lake house to Kate’s apartment, which was two years ago from Kate’s time, and planted the tree there so that in Kate’s time, the tree would have grown big enough to shelter Kate from the downpour of the rain as she came running home. I remembered this scene because not only was it extremely cheesy for the most part, it was also a reminder that people, even when divided by time or space, would go to greater heights just to keep those who they hold dear happy. It’s not very easy to exert this much effort towards someone. You could ask so many questions like who this person is or what has he or she done to deserve this effort we are making for them. Something similar happened to me one time, and until now, it still feels gratifying. I asked this friend of mine to sing me a song before I go to sleep. He started with a tune from the theme song of Voltes V, and I thought it ended there, but all of a sudden, he set his videoke up and sang maybe five or six or even seven or eight songs, I think I lost count of how many songs there were. I even forgot I was going to sleep and instead I got lost listening to his voice singing the songs he loved. He kept asking if I was asleep. As sleepy as I actually was, I forced myself not to fall asleep, so I could listen to him sing his songs. So who made the effort here? The truth is, we both did 😀

Let me not be deafened by unusual silence…

A friend of mine once told me that being silent doesn’t always mean that one is going through something worrisome or sad or even bad… it could also mean that you just want to be silent and be surrounded by that silence for a while, which is enough of a reason for you to visualize in your own creative way the things going on around you. It could also mean that you are in that mood of self-reflection, where in you would like to enter a completely different dimension within yourself, without so much of the out of this world feeling. Knowing the depths of yourself is the best way for you to completely understand what you really desire in life. And the only way for you to really reach that is through silence…

Holding on to a threshold of memories…

I’ve learned… that sometimes, it’s not very easy to forget about a person even if you try your hardest to forget about him, especially if there were too many things that made the two of you become closer; things that somehow created such an inseparable bond; that no one, not even the two of you together, can break. And whenever you recall these tiny moments that shaped your oneness with this person, instead of forgetting about that person, you start feeling his touch again, as his hand brushed to your arms; you start seeing his gaze even when you knew he just stole most of them; you start hearing his voice, or his kind laughter, even the way he cried on your shoulder as he told you his story… And as you look back on these tiny, little things, you can’t help but smile, knowing that you can still have another go of happiness with this person. You start to believe that it isn’t too late, and that things are just beginning so why not let it begin somehow? By that time, you’ll finally realize that it’s completely useless to even try to forget about this person, knowing that he has turned into one of the most important person in your life. Now that I think about it, why would you even begin erasing him in your life when you know he’s really worth keeping?