The Fall

I took Eva to see Toy Story 3 yesterday. And like quite a few twentysomethings that saw the first one while we were still children, I found myself in tears by the end. Now we could chalk that up to my emotional personality, to the themes of growing up and moving on, to the sheer beauty of finality, or a myriad of other things but I choose to believe I was crying because I was revisiting Innocence. Not my innocence, but the Innocence that the world seems devoid of now. Yes, I connect with that movie on a lot of levels--it literally took me til the third movie to realize Andy's mother is a single mom--but there is a special archetype present here that no one can ignore.

Whether you believe in God or not, the story of the Fall reaches in to the deepest part our psyches. To live in a pure state of being, to experience Light, to never wonder what is wrong with you or the world around you and then to have that taken away is, I think, the most powerful plotline of all. I could even argue it is present in every person's life and nearly every story ever told--definitely every tragedy. If we can recognize this theme in reality and in fiction, should we not acknowledge it as the reason why we cherish children and childhood? Children--and I literally tear up as I think about Eva--are incredible. Children have no concept of death or destruction and yet their scope of reality is infinitely larger than adults'. Listen to their stories. Listen to their play and you will see a world larger than the one you think you inhabit. Eva can make a toy come alive just by imagining it to be true. Children are Light.

So as I was confronted with the idea of Buzz and Woody and Jessie reaching The End, I cried. I cried for the love of my daughter, for the wonder of imagination, and for the deeply heartwrenching thought of somehow not being whole because another symbol of Innocence is gone. Mingled in was the joy that Art allows us to revisit Innocence--or how we lost it--whenever we need it. How lucky am I that I have Eva to remind me that my need for it is constant, unchanging, and ever-present.