Out ALL Night

May 24, 2010 by The OJBG Team | 5 Comments

In this week’s episode “Yes or No,” the show closes with Sarah coming home after staying out all night to a dramatic mother who has sat up worrying. Needless to say, upon her arrival she was grounded, her mother hysterical, and both taking comfort in a heart felt embrace.

For the majority of you following our web series, I would suspect, you too have experienced the out all night- complete with angry/crying moms, likely grounding, and for the lucky few of you- a heart felt embrace. But, as I watch this weeks episode reminiscing the freedom that comes with being a teenager, I am forced to laugh.

I have become old. I am no longer willing to stay out all night just for fun, I don’t want to sneak in at 4 or 5 a.m. It is merely too much work. The youth and energy of the teenage sphere astounds me and makes me feel sad that I no longer possess such motivation or passion for seeing sunrises before bed.

And while I can remember being grounded, it was how I spent most of my sophmore and junior year in highschool, I can also remember thinking that my night out was easily worth a few extra chores and perhaps even a weekend in. Because in spite of any punishment, I had tasted and appreciated freedom. Now, years older, I have that ability to spend a night out without reprocussion, (beyond being exhausted and in a bad mood), and I have no desire to do so.

The irony of life is life.

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http://omorto.blogspot.com Ana

Hi there,

There’s this book, “L’Invitée”, from Simone de Beauvoir, where she talks about the moment when the main character, Françoise, realizes her age (she’s turning thirty). She says: this thirty years, they’re not only my past, they’re my present, my future, what I am made of. Of course, things are still going to happen in her life, things unplanned, she still can learn Russian or visite Constantinopla, but, at this point, she realizes that her life will be this life and not another one and will never distinguish from itself.

What I love about OJBG is that everything happens before this moment described by Simone de Beauvoir. In the webserie, life can still turn into something else, can still change.

In portuguese: “É isso o que significa ter trinta anos: sou uma mulher feita.(…) Esses trinta anos não constituem apenas um passado, que arrastei todo este tempo. Depositaram-se em volta de mim, dentro de mim, são o meu presente, o meu futuro, a substancia de que sou feita. Nenhum heroísmo, nenhum absurdo podem alterar esta situação. Evidentemente, tenho muito tempo, antes de morrer, para aprender russo, ler Dante, visitar Bruges e Constantinopla. Na minha vida poderão surgir, aqui e ali, incidentes imprevistos, novos talentos. Mas, com isso tudo, a vida será apenas esta e não outra, e nunca se distinguirá de si própria.”

Simone de Beauvoir, “L’Invitée”

Um abraço,

Ana.
http://www.orangejuiceinbishopsgarden.com Otessa

Hi Ana,

First of all thank you so much for watching our series! As for your lovely comment – we wholeheartedly agree with you – Simone’s message is a beautiful one. We’re so flattered you feel we capture that short span in a person’s life that she (and you) so eloquently described. (Seemingly short, once you’ve reached the point where you’re looking back on it.) I’m at that same turning point that Simone was then (growing close to 30) and in some ways– there is a sense of security-of-self that comes with it– but in other ways… it is wistful to think that doors and possibilities are no longer… even if i would no longer want those paths– to lose that unfettered sense of possibility…it is an odd thing to lose things we never had…

It seems Sarah may be coping with this open-endedness of youth, no? Hope you liked Ep 2.8!

-Otessa
http://omorto.blogspot.com Ana

Hi, Otessa…

I’m thinking about your comment and I don’t have a answer yet…

But, for now: are you or the OJBG crew familiar with brazilian music? If you’re not, i would like to introduce you to this lovely singer, Teresa Cristina, she’s a “lady of samba”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib2NKCun8Rc

And there’s another singer, also great, Marina de la Riva: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY9_0tSRBxE&feature=related

Since music is so important in the serie, i hope you all like it.

And, Emily, thanks for the book tip! Politics is one of my interests, side by side with literature and psychology.

Beijo,

Ana.
http://omorto.blogspot.com Ana

Well, I have to say it, again: I just love OJBG!

It’s very strange, in fact. I fell like a Proust’s character, invaded by all these memories that I just can’t stop! I even went through old boxes, looking for the journals I’ve wrote back then, piles of scholar notebooks, year after year…

OJBG reminds me of what my friends and I went through while we were growing up. We had to deal, back then, with everything that every adolescent has to deal with today: love, sex, friendship, alcohol, drugs. But, apparently, in Washington DC, 1994-5, and in Brasilia, 1997-8, we deal with these things in a slightly similar, gentle, way.

Of course, it makes me thing about today, about what I live today. Now, I am a grown-up, an adult with so many responsibilities as the adult next door. And I feel that the real question is not just about accept, accept growing old when everybody is obsessed with youth – when we talk about acceptance, we talk about things we cannot change. Merely. I think it goes way beyond acceptance, the question is about commitment, it’s about embrace the consequences of choices you’ve made so many years ago. The choices I’ve made, they were not bad choices, not at all. In fact, every time I realized where I am now, what I do, who I am with, I fell a little surprised, happily surprised. But it’s inevitable to think about the time when the choices were not yet made.

And then, maybe, just maybe, watching your series gives me the chance of think about this whole period of my life with… love. Love for the strange, melancholic teenager I was, compassion for my very, very, very concerned parents, love for all the lost friends of that time. And move forward more peacefully.

Thanks.

Beijo,

Ana.
Audra

Dear Ana,

Let me begin by saying thank you again for your continued support for OJIBG, and take this opportunity to also let you know how much we appreciate your thoughtful responses.

That said I wanted to comment on your thoughts about acceptance. When I was in college I would use the phrase ‘no expectations, no disappointments’ all the time. At the time, I believed I was positioning myself in such a way as to avoid any distress from things I had no control over. And while I took pride in maintaining this mentality, looking back now- it hurt me. Because how can you progress or build relationships without expectations?

Without expectations we have nothing, we drift, we fail to propel in any direction and therefore reject responsibility, and accountability, for the things that we have done. Instead we look at life as a series of events which have happened to us. And don’t we want instead to have a life that we have pursued? I think you’re right about looking back at our consequences, and recognizing that no, we did not always make the best choices, but still claiming them as our own.

It is strange how when we’re young things can be so blatantly black and white, and how quick we are to label a decision as good or bad. And then to watch, as we mature, these decisions loose some of their absolutist positioning in favor of being recognized as a learning experience. This change in perception truly does foster a certain amount of love.

And that I think is the point. That where we once say hopelessness we can find possibility. That in hindsight we can visualize ourselves within far greater stage than we ever knew existed. And that we can acknowledge that our parents were neither saints nor devils but humans, who probably tried their best.

Thank you again for your responses and dedication.

Best,

Audra