Over the New Year weekend, I was basically dying. By dying I mean I was curled up into a ball on the couch, under a blanket, in my pjs, dying of strep throat/sinus infection/migraine awfulness. So, I rented a bajillion movies...and watched them ALL. Seriously, I have to quit partying like this. I am SO hip and exciting, but whatever. One of the movies that just melted my heart was, 'Away We Go'. This movie stars Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski as a couple who are in their mid-thirties, who are looking for a place to call home for them and the baby they have on the way. So they travel all over the place, looking for that 'perfect' place. They meet a ton of zany characters, and these wise words may not make tons of sense unless you have seen the movie, but they are beautiful.
To sum it up, this couple, Verona and Burt, have been together for a VERY long time. They are looking for a home, she is pregnant, she also refuses to marry Burt. Burt and 'Rona travel to see his brother, who has just been left by his wife. The wife who left also left their lovely 8 year old daughter. Thus, this conversation happens...on a trampoline in the middle of night...
Verona: Burt, what are you doing?
Burt: I am calling everyone she knew. Her old company. Her friends.
Verona: At midnight?
Burt: Right. The element of surprise.
Verona: Well, can you stop, please?
Burt: I mean, what kind of god damned person leaves her daughter?
Verona: I don't know. Maybe not such a strong person. Please stop.
Burt: And you know what the worst of it is? There is nothing we can do about it. Because she is gone. And this family can't be fixed. And that is it. And what if one of use freaks out like that?
Verona: We won't. It can be fixed. And you know it. Look at me, please?
Burt: But really. I mean, what if something happens to one of us and just makes us go crazy? I mean, what if I'm walking by a construction site and something falls, and then my frontal lobe gets chopped off and my personality's altered and then I'm not a good dad? What happens then?
Verona: Well, be careful walking near construction sites.
Burt: What about Munch?
Verona: She'll be careful walking near construction sites, too.
Burt: No, really. Don't you just look at her and want to give her everything she has ever wanted? It's so incredibly unfair that she can't...
Verona: It's unfair that she won't ever be able to have a baby, and that bad parents still get to be parents and good parents die when their daughters are in college. So what?
Burt: I'm sorry 'rona.
Verona: Look all we can do is be good for this one baby. We don't have control over much else.
Burt: Will you marry me? At least.
Verona: Never.
*long pause*
Verona: I will never leave you.
Burt: Yeah.
Verona: I promise.
Burt: No, I know. You...you promised never to marry me because you don't want to get married without your parents there. I get that. You promise never to leave me. Do you promise to never leave this baby that we are having?
Verona: I promise. I do. Do you promise to stop talking about your ability to find or not find my vagina after I give birth?
Burt: I do. Do your promise to let me cobble-
Verona: Carve.
Burt: ...carve in my spare time? And let me teach our daughter the lore of the great Mississippi?
Verona: I do. Do you promise never to develop a thing for seahorses?
Burt: I do.
Verona: Good.
Burt: Do you promise to let our daughter be fat or skinny or any weight at all? Because we want her to be happy, no matter what. Being obsessed with weight is just too cliche for our daughter.
Verona: Yes, I do. Do you promise when she talks, you'll listen? Like, really listen, especially when she's scared? And that her fights will be your fights?
Burt: I do. And do you promise that if I die some embarrassing and boring death that you're gonna tell our daughter that her father was killed by Russian soldiers in this intense hand-to-hand combat in an attempt to save the lives of 850 Chechnyan orphans?
Verona: I do. Chechnyan orphans. I do. I do.
Does this seem odd? Yeah, a little. Hence, why you need to watch this film to truly *get* it. This is the most perfect, specific, non-wedding, wedding vows. This to me is romance. Making promises to the one you love in your pajamas, on a trampoline in the middle of the night. Silly, sincere, loving promises. Odd...but true.
Now please do yourself a favor and watch this movie as soon as possible. Holler.
xoxo
