Childhood ("Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind")

"Sometimes, I think people don't understand how lonely it is to be a kid."
- Clementine, in the movie "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind"


In "Eternal Sunshine", we enter a story of a man who discovers that the woman he loves has had him completely erased from his memory, after they had a fight. She, Clementine, was the bold one in their relationship, facing the world with brightly dyed hair and open opinions, while he, Joel, was more private, scribbling and sketching in notebooks. When they disagreed about things, she would fly off the handle, while he could quietly say one sentence which cut her to the bone. Sure they may have wished they could change some things about each other, yet as the story unfolds, it is clear that they complement each other through their differences. Clementine draws out Joel by fearlessly walking them across the frozen Charleston river, and he endears her by simply saying, "I'm just ... happy. I'm just exactly where I want to be."


The scene where Clementine tells Joel about the loneliness of childhood has always touched me. She starts by asking Joel, "Am I ugly?" a soul-baring question followed by the confession that when she was a little girl she had a doll, an ugly girl doll whom she named Clementine. "I kept yelling at her 'You can't be ugly! Be pretty!' It's weird, like if I can transform her, I would magically change, too". Joel leans over Clementine, whispering "You're pretty," over and over. It's a memory which is being erased from his head even as he struggles to hold onto that one encounter, that one beautiful, meaningful memory with the woman he loves yet whom has hurt him so deeply that he feels he has no choice but to erase her as she erased him.

When I was a child, I'd sometimes come up with my own answers to questions. So instead of asking a string of "Whys", I'd ponder it over, coming to the conclusion from what information I had that a baby must be conceived through kissing, or that the term 'running errands' was a fancy phrase for doing grown-up things. I decided that thin was good and maybe skinny was bad and even if I didn't like adults talking about my body or appearance there wasn't much I could do about it because they'd just laugh if I got upset. Children are this strange combination of elasticity and fragility, though maybe we're all that way no matter the age. I had a wonderful childhood, indeed, though I think that for all there are moments when a child knows that the world is run by adults and you yourself are small and full of questions, and the answers to ones such as "Am I ugly?" can be incredibly important and so difficult to prove.

There are other scenes which talk about childhood, such as when Joel admits than when Clementine lead them into an empty house on the beach he felt like a scared little kid, in above his head, so he left. Or when Joel tries to hide and preserve his memories of Clementine by taking her deep into his childhood, where he recalls being four and wanting nothing more than for his mother to pick him up, pay attention to him, while she bustles around cooking and talking with a neighbor. He says, "I really want her to pick me up. It's amazing how strong that desire is," channeling how as a child, want can rise above reason. Similarly, I remember once crying until my father came to give me one more goodnight kiss. I claimed he had forgotten to do it, though strangely, I recall that even as I cried crocodile tears I knew I was being ridiculous and should simply go to sleep, though the longing for my crying to be enough to draw him back kept all logic at bay. I have a number of those odd childhood memories, as though I saw myself from beyond myself yet couldn't pull away from what I felt in that moment.

For years I babysat for a family with three kids. One little girl was highly sensitive, often getting a fear or concern in her head which caused tears to fill her eyes. Sometimes it was all I could do to keep her from becoming hysterical. Once, I put her and her siblings to bed, only to have her come to the living room, beginning to cry and shake because she said she was afraid of dying. Where this fear sprung from as she lay in her bed I don't know. I gathered every bit of patience and empathy I could as I sat and talked with her, trying to comfort her and answer her questions with understanding. Childhood can be lonely. So many questions, so many all-important wants, so little within one's own control. Maybe we can't have "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind  / Each prayer accepted, each wish resigned", as the Alexander Pope quote goes. Yet we can try to remember what it was like to be a child ourselves. Simply as fellow human beings, we can try to stave the loneliness and uncertainty with understanding and grace.