Someone once asked what ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ was about, and having just seen it I said, “It’s about… hope.” My dramatic pause, and the simplicity of my response caused the questioner to crack up in my face. It may have been Suzie or my brother, two people who have always been able to take the piss out of me with a few short words or chuckles. The movie was playing on television the other day, and I caught the last bit of it. Certain movies draw you in no matter how many times youâ’ve seen them ~ and this is one of those for me.
It also helps that my initial assessment has proven to hold true through the decades since I made the trite proclamation. I’ll add something more now that I have a few more years of life experience under my expanding belt: it’s also about grace, and the way friendship is sometimes the only way we survive the horrors of this world. That’s a sentiment which is always worth revisiting.
“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.” ~ Stephen King, ‘Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption’
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