Ponyo

I first saw this movie as a little boy. Maybe 7 or 8 years old. I fell in love with Ponyo’s mother. I had never seen a woman with such beautiful red hair before. I’d like to thank her for my obsession with it now. I remember renting this from my local library. My mother took me there often. As a kid, I would read everything I could get my hands on. Once I got a PS2, and realized it could play movies, oh man. I had a reason to look at more than just books. A beautiful movie, to say the least. And very formative for me. I think it carries more weight now than it did before. I ached rewatching this. The last time I saw it, I was 16. I showed it to my then-girlfriend, on a shitty secondhand iPad in my room. We laid together, just watching. I don’t remember what she thought of it. Does it really matter? Because now I’m here, with the desire to go back to when things were so simple. When all I wanted was to eat that animated sandwich and learn Morse code so I could speak to my absent father.  Sometimes it’s nice to be comforted because pain is mandatory but suffering is optional.  Maybe one day I’ll get that Ponyo tattoo I always wanted to get.