Thrall

I am currently in thrall to something.  I'm about to talk lots about it without ever saying what it is.  This is partly to be mysterious and annoying, but also cos thrall should be mysterious and a bit annoying.

I discovered a thing, and now I can't stop thinking about it.  This is a very childish part of the BlackberryJuniper psyche, and a part I am ever vulnerable to.  I seem to have always had this.  I find a book, or a series of books; or a film or a TV show; or an album (or occasionally, an idea - which widens the scope and makes it almost impossible to deal with), and whilst experiencing it for the first time...something inside me explodes with joy and identification and a sense of ultra reality.  (Note:  this usually occurs with books and TV shows that have hardly any basis in reality whatsoever, which I find funny - as I am reading a real/mundane world significance into a landscape that is usually peopled with things and creatures I never would meet here).

Once I experience that sense of ultra reality I am totally lost.  I am there more than here.  Don't get me confused now - I don't mean I think the characters are real here, or the worlds are real here - but I do think that they get to such large dimensions in my mind that they do exist in a parallel universe sort of way.  They have gained a reality beyond their original creators conceptions because I and all the other fans have gone a little bit bonkers and despite seeing 'making of' featurettes and seeing the human actors in their actual spotty, farty unfunny actual lives...nonetheless, they achieve, by the edit and scripting, by the music and scenery a level of reality beyond their own lives.  I last got this in a big way with the Robin of Sherwood TV series (the one with Michael Praed, then Jason Connery).  To this very day, those characters, as portrayed in that series in particular, run about in my head, in my mental landscape.  They are my friends when I day dream.  They got added to my Lands, and are still there, many years later.

I don't know whether this latest thrall will be added to my mental Lands - its partially there, in other forms already, as it deals with myth, and I like this particular myth.  Its not even the characters in this version that are getting me.  Its the atmosphere of the production, the music, and the amazing scenery.  The simplicity of it is incredibly engaging.

Its a bit worrying to be going through every day and at any given the moment, the music will balloon in my head.  Or I'll suddenly be watching a scene.  Its odd to think I live for the moments when I can get away and be with it.  I steal time from elsewhere.  Is it healthy?  Probably not, you know.  Anything that makes you feel better during and after (and even in anticipation), but at the same time, makes you feel your own life is drab and wanting...well that's not a message to send yourself, is it??!  And yet I always seem to do it.

Its not quite the same as obsession.  Obsession can get very unhealthy indeed.  Obsession can make you a bit insane and change your whole life, sometimes in very dubious ways you can regret for years to come, and end up trying to make amends for - or unable to.  Thrall is a bit better than that.  You can do life around thrall, while obsession just holds and owns you and that's that.

Thing is, I'm completely hooked, and I'll only be half here till I'm done.  All of this particular thrall will only be new to me this once, so its doubly precious as an experience, to be honoured for the joy and comfort it gives.  (Whatever the side effects...)  Didn't say, for one second, that I am always wise, did I?  Quite the reverse.

The lure of story will always have me, I reckon.  So bye bye for a minute, for now.  It calls, and I go, willingly.  All the colours and sounds and the play in my head: all about to begin.  Shhhh.  Sit down, curl up, get a blanket ('cos its very cold here today) - and listen and watch...Be There.