i rewatched roman holiday

on escapism and oyster days (you'll see)

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Earlier this week, I went to Bryant Park with a few friends for one of the park's summer movie nights. A lovely-in-theory, Main Character Activity that I usually steer clear of because close proximity to grass and bugs in the summer makes me nervous. But people keep telling us to romanticize our lives, so movies in the park on soft summer nights it is.  

And it was delightful.

(If I were in a really self-reflective mood, I'd perhaps ask myself, how many things do you miss out on because of perceived non-issues, Clara? Alas, luckily for us all, I am not.) 

Not a single bug bite on my skin. I ate a couple of tacos that in any other forum would have been mediocre, but not in the park at twilight. A guy got up on stage and proposed to his girlfriend before the movie started. We all clapped and whooped and hoped she was receptive to the idea of being proposed to in front of hundreds of strangers on a muggy summer night in July. She said yes, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief; minutes later, Roman Holiday began. 

And the thing is, Roman Holiday holds up. It was my friends' first time seeing it, which thrilled me—both for the unwarranted sense of brief superiority I feel any time I'm familiar with something that other people are not and for the joy of watching one of my favorite films for the first time through the eyes of some of my favorite people. (We contain multitudes.) I fall in love every time I see Roman Holiday. With Rome, with love itself, with the idea of embracing previously-unattainable levels of joie de vivre, however briefly. The film is loveliness itself, nearly confectional in its sweetness while still managing to treat its audience like adults. 

Girlie just wanted to ride a Vespa, eat ice cream, drink champagne, be kissed, and get a life-changing haircut! Never have someone’s whims been more relatable to me.