Breathe

Netnet Camomot

SOME malls now close at 12 midnight. I guess that’s their Christmas weekend sked.

At 11:30 pm, while still hopping from one section to another in that mall’s department store, the announcement lady’s voice softly booms through its public address (PA) system to remind everyone of the last remaining 30 minutes to shop.

If you’re entering the store at that moment, after watching “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and continuing your emo reflections over the required post-“Star Wars” dinner, there’s a major possibility you would rather sit at the shoes section where benches abound for shoppers who want to sit while squeezing their size-9 feet into size-7 shoes. To qualify for that specific group of shoppers, you need to pretend you’re also looking for shoes. So, you sit there, call the attention of a shoe-section staff, and point at a particular pair. It doesn’t matter what pair. The goal is to look like you’re buying shoes.

Me? I sat there the whole time without pretending to be anything else but a tired shopper who has had enough of the Christmas spirit.

I’m now considering giving Christmas gifts on Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day. Hey, who doesn’t want to receive a gift on the day of hearts? People in the office will then suspect it’s from someone who romantically loves you. Or stalks you.

After watching “The Last Jedi,” you won’t have any energy for anything, anyway. Not even dinner. This is “Star Wars” and we forgot to have photo ops with its poster. I crawled out of the cinema with my senses on a rollercoaster that has stopped abruptly in the middle of a 360-degree turn. It’s emotionally draining, the saddest installment in the series.

I cried when Carrie Fisher appeared onscreen and all the memories came back. The young Princess Leia. Me wishing she and Luke would end up with each other, which morphed into, They’re twins? Darth Vader is their father?

Also remembered Fisher as a writer with “Postcards from the Edge,” “Surrender the Pink,” “Delusions of Grandma,” etc.

Dead authors don’t write any more books, so, you’ll read their books again and again when you miss their voice.

The future “Star Wars” won’t have Leia obviously, unless…

Unless George Lucas decides she should be back?

I’ve been watching a lot of movies this year. A friend is already teasing me that I now belong to the SC (senior citizen) club whose members—that is, if they call themselves as SC members—have free movie tickets as additional perks of their dual citizenship: Pinoy and senior.

With no TV in my room and learning of the latest news only through Facebook and the printed versions of daily newspapers, preferring to watch movies inside a movie house must be the result of my TV deprivation.

I even watched “The Star.” No, that’s not a typo. It’s not “The Star Wars.”

When we bought tickets for “Star,” the ticket counter clerk warned us, Cartoons ni. My reply: Yup, I know.

“The Star” is about the donkey that Saint Joseph used to bring Mama Mary to Bethlehem. No, it’s not a physically draining story of how the donkey endured the weight of two people—Mama Mary and Baby Jesus in her womb. It’s a funny movie that focuses on the what-ifs: What if the donkey experienced all these in ensuring the birth of Baby Jesus went smoothly. But we need more stories like this to remind us that the Holy Family is composed of human beings, too, like us. Well, not exactly like us. Immaculate Conception and Jesus as the Son of God—these don’t happen daily.

Christmas fans may forget what the season is all about once they’re stuck in traffic, or while facing a buffet table at a Christmas party and trying to crack a no-longer-crispy lechon skin. In this mad rush to buy gifts and ticking off each name on the Christmas list, where’s the spirit there?

“The Last Jedi” may have the answer.

Luke Skywalker: “Breathe. Just breathe. Now reach out. What do you see?”

Rey: “Light. Darkness. A balance.”

Balance. That’s what the Christmas season lacks. Have some time to reflect on how this year has been, and how the years before this contributed to the present moment.

“The Last Jedi” will also make you regret not watching the series’ past episodes as a refresher course before absorbing this latest installment. You have to recall the past in order to understand the present.

As for the future, well, it will simply happen.