It is Gay Pride month. I was reflecting on my childhood as a result of news from home, that made me nostalgic for the past. Browsing through Netlfix I ran across 'Brideshead Revisted', adapted from Evelyn Waughs novel to screen. It was an eleven episode television blockbuster. It premiered in 1981. I was at school and fourteen years old.
I watched the first episode last night. I have not seen it in years. The theme music itself stirred long forgotten hopes of what love could be between men. This show shaped my vision of romantic love as a teenager. The idea that there was no hate, or prejudice to encounter was a wonder to me. But, the world of Brideshead was a fragile one. It is bygone era of British aristocracy and vast country estates. (Castle Howard/'Brideshead' pictured below)And, after the second World War it went into decline. They existed in peace, beauty and love. Their world was a fantasy and I wanted to melt into the screen all those years ago.Years pass and life happens. There is much beauty in life and there is much ugliness.
The first episode was called Et in Arcadia Ego, I am in Paradise, and by this episodes end my young heart was beating hard. And, last night it beat once more. An echo from the past reverberating through me. Then, I longed for Oxford's dreaming spires, to be in those golden green fields of England, of palaces, art and beauty, and there would be a Sebastian, or Charles, at my side. It is odd to write these words years later and watch this show. It brings tears to my eyes. I went to Oxford because of 'Brideshead Revisited', because it meant love. It was indeed a beautiful city to live in as a young man. It was a unique privilege. This is Worcester College, Oxford (pictured above) I woke up with this view and returned home at night to it. I lived in the cottages on the right of the quad.
At the end of this first episode Charles says, "I felt a sense of liberation and peace such as I was to know years later (of this time with Sebastian)....... I believe myself very close to heaven during those languid days of Brideshead. It is thus I like to remember Sebastian, as he was that summer, when we wandered alone through that enchanted palace".
I have always found the concept of two images of strength, two men, becoming vulnerable to each other and falling into each other wildly beautiful. A spiritual connection.
What was once dormant is now awakened by chance, I now long for a 'languid summer' with someone I love. I still long for the romance this adaption revealed to me all those years ago. I look back at me at fourteen and watching this again, my old heart melts and I want my Arcadia. Life is short. Am very aware of that too this week. And, though this was only a novel adapted to the screen it molded my heart.
So, on this Gay Pride I thought of the parades, of people marching in all manner of outfits, of the dance clubs pumping music until dawn, and all types of partying going on, and doing so I celebrate everyone ones right to love and live out loud in pride. To do so free of hate and judgment would be a wonderful thing.
Episode One came to an end. The credits rolled and the haunting, yet romantic, theme music played with a vision of Brideshead resplendent at sunset, standing proudly before the world. I had been transported back to a long forgotten dream in my mind in which two men could love in beauty, and with a childlike innocence of an endless summer that never ends.
Peace
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