Rainy days beg for a comfy couch, cozy blanket, a good movie and popcorn.
Sunday, as I was searching the movie channels an old favorite popped up; St. Elmo’s Fire. It had already started but I’ve seen it a few times before. So I settled in.
The infamous, Brat Pack…a coming of age film about finding the meaning of life…ah, adulthood. They all looked so young. As I watched… a few things made me wonder…things I hadn’t wondered before…
There is a scene where Demi Moore locks herself in her apartment because her life is in utter shambles and Rob Lowe breaks down the door (after she has unlocked it) and tries to tell her that she is making all of her problems bigger than they are and references it to St. Elmo’s Fire. Do you remember? He continues to explain that the sailors would guide their journeys around it but that there was no fire…in fact, no St. Elmo. They THOUGHT they needed it to keep them going when things got tough. He then takes the spray can and his lighter...great balls of fire!
I will admit a couple of things; I must have been completely swooning over Rob Lowe because I totally missed that analogy before. Seriously, we all had a crush on Rob Lowe, before the scandal, right? Secondly, how embarrassing…all of this time, I thought St. Elmo’s Fire was in reference to the bar they all congregated to…not the ‘phenomenon relating to weather.’
Just so you know, in case I wasn’t the only person on the planet thinking that, according to Wikipedia, St. Elmo’s Fire is a weather phenomenon in which luminous plasma is created by a coronal discharge from a grounded object in an electric field in the atmosphere (such as those generated by thunderstorms created by a volcanic eruption). The phenomenon sometimes appeared on ships at sea during thunderstorms and was regarded by sailors with religious awe for its glowing ball of light, accounting for the name.
KEWL. First of all, I love the word phenomenon and I find weather so fascinating.
I also found it interesting that Kevin aka Andrew McCarthy was able to define the meaning of life after being with Leslie aka Ali Sheedy. The entire movie…he is reserved…quiet, not living and then they have one night and there he is... smiling, opening up, writing, suddenly published and showing a happy that we see was sadly, one sided. Leslie's heart is still with the ass hole, typical.
My mind wandered off as I watched, thinking to myself…what do I consider to be the meaning of life? It seems like the one burning question that no one is really able to define. The ultimate reality is different for everyone.
In the end, the glowing ball of light for the Brat Pack was that they were growing up…pursuing dreams…moving on…and discovering they outgrew St. Elmo’s Fire.
