A Theme for Losers
I did in fact listen to Henry Mancini's Theme for Losers (1973) on Tuesday, 30th June. But the name is too good to not be used as a title for a blog post. I also found the name quite funny and befitting of my situation at the moment, albeit it being a beautiful song.
It is a classic 70s soundtrack to an Italian B-list film, strings and violin, imbued with romance and yearning (and in this case, losing), one you'd very much expect from Mancini. Upon further research, it is quite abnormal as instead of being the usual accompaniment to a horny Italian film, it was made for the 1973 documentary, Visions of Eight, which was made by 8 renowned filmmakers from around the world (Miloš Forman, Kon Ichikawa, John Schlesinger, Claude Lelouch), each with their own take on documenting a specific aspect of the Summer Olympics of 1972 in Munich, Germany. One thing to note is that "Schlesinger's is the only segment that fully acknowledges the Black September terrorist attacks, in which 11 Israeli athletes and coaches, and a West German policeman, were murdered." The poster of the film doesn't shout an Olympic documentary either, as I assumed it was more of a Rosemary's Baby type situation.
Claude Lelouch chose to concentrate on the losers of the Olympics, and not a specific sport like the other directors. How awfully bitter must it be to lose something that is your whole life. How awfully bitter it is to lose. How awfully bitter is to lose something or someone in your life. That has been my life's narrative the last few months. My grandad, my stepdad, and one other male who chose to burn the ship and make a jump for it, deleting himself from my life in a flick of a video call. Can I be bitter? Can I huff and puff and moan and scream at the cascading dominoes of men in my life that are falling down one by one?
There seems to be a theme happening at the moment, for my friends are also all going through it (ie breakups and family deconstructions).
I'm a swimmer, I'm a runner, I'm a tennis player.
I'm running, swimming, hitting the racquet, but the timer, the set, the track don't seem to stop.
I'm never booed off, nay, but the people in the tribunes keep disappearing, and I don't know what's worse. Who do I grieve first?
The one who loves always wins.
It still doesn't feel like it, when will it? Does it ever?
Sports have formed who I am. I am competitive, I like to fight, I like to play, but I need to win. Tennis was too individualistic for me, I recount the times at tennis bootcamp I got put up to play against older and taller boys who wrecked me at serve, I tried to hide my sadness and hurt, but the seething shame swallowed me inside nonetheless, and made me gave up easily. Bibi has asked me to get rid of all my medals that I have collected. A good few gold, plenty of silver and bronze, all from tennis and dance competitions. It was either lacquered rock-hard hair in a bun or red clay painted legs with momentary cuts and bruises from being too eager to get the ball. I never got to the point of life-long dedication to a sport, stopping everything when I was 16/17 and moving on to finish my studies, so I will never experience the feeling of being an utter failure in a sports context, but I'm sure all of us have felt this way in a different part of our lives. :)
My Last Night
I didn't sleep too well. I went to bed too late as I was busy editing this website (#coder), knowing full well my alarm was at 06:42, and that I'm only closing my eyes at 23:55. At some point in the night, the storm came down with an unromantic bang, I was then coming out of a mix of dreams, nuggets of which I can still unfortunately remember. The dominating theme was fickleness. That's how he's been appearing in my dreams, when he does visit every few weeks. It is the same on this plane of existing, drifting in and out of sleep, he drifts in and out of my life, and in hand heart. Fickle, fickle, fickle. 'It's an awful word' But it's true! He's only ever been a fickle character in my life, and that's okay. I should have just had the will to depart, leave, run, scream. I don't think it's fair that my body still tries to remind me this. But at least I don't wake up feeling too tight-chested anymore.
This is in fact a heartbreak journal too as you have probably noticed, it is both everything, and nothing.
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