Sometimes I absolutely love the internet, today it reminded me that I am not alone - that other people are as sensitive as me (poor them!) I had a very intensive weekend with an old work friend that has been to a metaphorical 'hell and back' in fact she is still very much in recovery. On my return I put on the television whilst I had my lunch. I recently lent the Mad Men DVDs to my Mum but she gave it back to me without watching probably more than series 1 as she didn't like it.
I know....! I couldn't be bothered to ask her what her objection was at the time but I suspect it was just all too damn much. Well as a result I put them on again and went all the way back to series 1 and I am experiencing another intense 'box-set lockdown' I am currently just at the start of series 4. I started feeling very moved in the scene where Peggy congratulates Pete on the news that he would soon be a father and remembered all of the drama that led up to that moment in their individual lives. Then they share a glance packed with emotion and yearning, but Peggy does the decent thing and moves on and takes a chance with a new crowd as it really now has to be put well and truly in the past in order for either of them to succeed. Stunning and subtle writing. Then this
scene follows. Devastating. But when I typed that phrase into Google (other search engines are available) I was delighted to see that other viewers had been similarly moved by it.
Why? Well instantly you saw the futility of all the drama in people's relationships. The old man and woman in the '
pear' scene have survived it all and now the highlight of his day - perhaps life - is a, presumably easy to eat, sweet, fragrant and juicy
pear. Boy, I hope for her sake she remembered to get that fruit or she could even source them as if not (and I suspect perhaps not) she either couldn't - we can't always get what we want. Wouldn't - she was in control of this man's desires and deliberately choose not to satisfy them or was just NOT going to discuss it in the hall as she was very weary and there was no rush.... afterall, she loves him enough to always try to bring him a pear, or something else to brighten his existance and frankly she is sick of him forgetting that and continually asking. Antici---pation is everything right?
Don of course took all this in in an instant and perhaps I was meant to feel his mixture of sadness, surprise, delight and the inevitability too. As he said to Roger in a previous episode (pre-divorce), life is short and we know it doesn't end well.
My reaction to the end scene was possibly intensely felt because of my preceding 48 hours. It left me softly sobbing and I wrote the phrase down so that I wouldn't forget it. I then also recalled my love of
Pears soap and it seems apposite as it was a product so heavily advertised that generations of people still consider it the height of soap luxury (face facts Imperial Leather!!) but of course we only feel this way because of the tricks used by the likes of the Don Drapers in this world.
Still knowing this now is all well and good but I have a very vivid memory - which I only recall because of the connections I am making - of pouring over adverts for
Miss Pears and wanting only to be her. Luckily I now feel fairly confident that I wouldn't be so taken in. I don't use their soap anyhow.
This campaign was apparently only run in the UK but pictures of the winners must have run in Australian magazines as I can remember staring at the face at least one winner - it ran from 1947 to 1997 and was an annual award for gals under 12, any parent could submit a photo to apply. I was no doubt even at that tender age, still hoping to become rich and famous, or at least as pretty as the little Pears girl. When watching the above episode of MM and it featured trying to come up with a strategy for increasing Ponds Cold Cream sales in 1965, the research suggested that all 18-25 year old women wanted was any help to make them look as beautiful as possible to attract a husband. Has anything really changed? That is also why I am melancholy. I spent the weekend with two smart, talented, capable women. It was very enjoyable and although we talked about many things, men were still very near the top (probably the top) topic of conversation. My friend has a lot of thinking to do and will probably not go with what she knows is the right thing to do because she wants a partner and WILL compromise despite the fact she has the time and money to keep the search alive if that is really what she wants.
The conditioning of women in their forties comes from the fact that they were raised by women who themselves grew up in the late 1950's early 1960's. We still don't have a hope in hell. That is probably why my 70 year old mother couldn't stomach MM, it was all too much like real life and she has the t-shirt!
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Which is just a poet's way of saying, "Did you get pears?"
