There Is Love In Holding And There Is Love In Letting Go.

“There is love in holding and there is love in letting go.”

— Elizabeth Berg (via quotemadness)

“You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.”

— Azar Nafisi

“Things are beautiful if you love them.”

— Jean Anouilh

“In the big city the twin spirits Romance and Adventure are always abroad seeking worthy wooers. As we roam the streets they slyly peep at us and challenge us in twenty different guises. Without knowing why, we look up suddenly to see in a window a face that seems to belong to our gallery of intimate portraits; in a sleeping thoroughfare we hear a cry of agony and fear coming from an empty and shuttered house; instead of at our familiar curb, a cab-driver deposits us before a strange door, which one, with a smile, opens for us and bids us enter; a slip of paper, written upon, flutters down to our feet from the high lattices of Chance; we exchange glances of instantaneous hate, affection and fear with hurrying strangers in the passing crowds; a sudden douse of rain — and our umbrella may be sheltering the daughter of the Full Moon and first cousin of the Sidereal System; at every corner handkerchiefs drop, fingers beckon, eyes besiege, and the lost, the lonely, the rapturous, the mysterious, the perilous, changing clues of adventure are slipped into our fingers. But few of us are willing to hold and follow them. We are grown stiff with the ramrod of convention down our backs. We pass on; and some day we come, at the end of a very dull life, to reflect that our romance has been a pallid thing of a marriage or two, a satin rosette kept in a safe-deposit drawer, and a lifelong feud with a steam radiator.”-The Green Door, O . Henry.

you know what I brought up the idea of deep diving into what exactly gives the proposal scene in little women 2019 such strong aro vibes compared to the other versions, and tbh idk if I’m ever gonna fully get to the bottom of it, so I might as well just chuck out a few ideas here! For the sake of simplicity I’m mostly gonna be comparing to the 1933 film here, just because the two have very similar scripts, so I think it’s super interesting as a demonstration of just how much impact acting and tone have on a scene!

The biggest difference imo is that the 2019 film leads with the fact that Jo doesn’t return Laurie’s feelings, in comparison to versions like the 1933 film which leads with the reasons why the two of them wouldn’t be a good match for each other (for the record the book also has Jo start off with telling Laurie she doesn’t love him). Just in general I think a lot of adaptations have a tendency to really emphasise the “practical” reasons why their relationship wouldn’t work, and the fact that Jo doesn’t feel that way about him in the first place kind of takes a backseat

There’s also something very matter-of-fact about how Jo talks in the 2019 version compared to the others, especially “I don’t see why I can’t love you as you want me to” (yes I have a mildlly concerning obsession with this one line shut up). Like 1933 and 2019 both have this line but in the 1933 film she says it like it’s something really upsetting for her and in the 2019 film while she’s still upset that seems more like it’s because of the situation and she’s more…at peace, I guess, with her feelings for Laurie. idk it’s kind of hard to judge especially because of the very different eras of film and the fact that the acting styles are just so different, but idk. it’s something.

Where the contrast is really clear though is the line “I don’t believe I’ll ever marry.” Again, in the 1933 version, Jo delivers it like it’s something genuinely tragic, but in the 2019 film it’s like. ok god I have so many feelings about this line but it’s like the first thing she says in the whole scene that she seems genuinely confident about! It’s said with such gravitas and weight!

The 2019 film is also iirc the only adaptation that includes the line immediately after that one: “I am happy as I am, and I love my liberty too well to be in any hurry to give it up”, which genuinely means so much to me. Like there’s been so many adaptations and this is the first one that actually keeps in this sentiment, this idea that this, the life she has right now, is what makes Jo happy, this is good for her, this is what she wants. Anyway aro rights.

“How evanescent those loves and friendships seem at this distance in time … We move on, make new attachments. We grow old. But sometimes, we hanker for old friendships, the old loves. Sometimes I wish I was young again. Or that I could travel back in time and pick up the threads. Absent so long, I may have stopped loving you, friends; but I will never stop loving the Day I loved you.”

— Ruskin Bond