I fucking love Whisper of the Heart. I empathize very much with Shizuku in that she struggles to balance a guaranteed future with a potential future of passion...
WotH (you have to read the whole name when I type that; I'm just super short on time!!) to me is the greatest coming-of-age movie ever made
that captures what it actually feels like to come of age. It's amazing.
I only first saw it when I was roughly 30 years old, but if I'd seen it when I was their age...it would have become a foundational part of my worldview.
I wish I had time to really do one of my Novel-Class Posts on this, because there are so many intricacies of that film that resonate with me. <3 <3 <3
Regardless, when I was growing up in North Dakota (the first time I could get around with my own transportation; prior to this I grew up in Ohio and other places), I found the ages from 16 to 18 to be the most formulative of my life. More so than my early teens.
That's because you weren't fully "you" in your early teens, yet! For most people, the high school years are when their identity truly coalesces, which includes the self-awareness to understand oneself as such. That's why it's the age that characters in most coming-of-age stories are set. Most people know their high school years (whether or not a "high school" was actually involved; maybe I should just say Ages 14 - 19) were special, but they can't put their finger on why. Those are the years when most people truly bring their will to bear on the world for the first time. Self-assertion and declaration! It's beautiful.
It was here I discovered that there is this dichotomy within me, one I haven't yet managed to ride to conclusion. I love love LOVE the country and the quality of life it offers: serene landscapes, slow pace of life, generally good people, a sense of community. I grew up with this in a small farming community in Ohio and even now there are times I miss it.
The other side of that dichotomy is that longing for meaning in the hustle and bustle of the big city. Proving one's value amongst the sea of other heads is the penultimate valuation of worth in the human race. And it's incredibly vain and inaccurate. That proto-hipster (or is it pseudo-hipster) aspect of my personality longs to have the loft, forego my car in favor of public transportation, the constant stream of strangers entering and leaving me life, so on and so forth.
I have a the same dilemma, probably for somewhat different reasons.
I have a great desire for vast open spaces, peace and quiet, sweeping vistas, and simply being left alone. My years on a remote mountain in the middle of nowhere decisively pushed the needle of my preferences in favor of living far away. I miss being able to take walks on the Ring Road and have the whole world to myself. I've attached an image of our view in one direction; there are no cities or towns anywhere in the picture. Of course I had a person living with me, so I don't mean I want to be completely alone, but rather to have a place where I turn off the rest of the world when I wanted to. Absolute splendor and silence.
On the other hand I am a true cosmopolitan. I love the city. I love that, currently, I live in the downtown of an arts city of 80,000 people. My car lives in a big cute parking garage; one of my favorite cafes in the city is right next door; there are a zillion restaurants nearby. When I lived in Seattle a decade ago I loved the same; loved being able to walk to get my groceries, walk to the post office, walk to the bank, walk to all of it. I love the cultural melange; the conflux of voices and worldviews. Cities are more tolerant and enlightened. They have to be, because you get to see the faces of the people you'd otherwise talk smack about.
I wish I had a home in the country and one in the city.
That's not really something that is touched upon in Whisper of the Heart, but I say that in that when I lived in ND I found my Shiro's antique shop there in the cold wastes of North Dakota. You see, during that age I had discovered my artistic side and was practicing film photography, and I spent MANY nights going to downtown Bismarck (which in hindsight hardly constitutes as a downtown) and would walk around late into the night listening to shitty emo music and taking pictures.
One of those nights I found a little art shop; to this day I swear it had the most serenely beautiful window I'd ever seen. Small lit trinkets, old fashioned bulbs, and a thousand pieces of prismatic beauty decorated that window from sunset to sunrise. Eventually I befriended the woman who owned the small art store and she even showcased a few of my photographs (which never sold). I loved going to her store and just looking at all the trinkets that she sold. Something about it sparked that creative bone deep within me and never let go.
That's a beautiful story. I can't do justice right now, in the words available to me in my tired and hurried state, to how deeply I felt that story when I read it.
Soon I moved away for college and haven't been back since. I never did find my baron, although the memories of the place still haunt me. Haunt me in that it was beautiful, that feeling never quite recaptured. I miss it.
When I watch Whisper of the Heart I think of that woman and her shop. I'm sure it's closed by now, as Bismarck, ND was not a very creative city. The people were as cold and isolated as the city itself.
I hope you're wrong. Go back there and check. =]
