Get lost

Let’s get lost,” Tom Cruise (playing Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible II) says to his love interest, Naya (Thandie Newton). This, after he has killed several dozen bad guys either with his bare hands, knives, or high-powered guns; after he has made motorcycles fly and flip through the air in pursuit of them; after he has scaled mountains and fallen off cliffs with nary a pickaxe or a harness; after he has escaped burning buildings; after he has leaped off of airborne helicopters; and after he has been catapulted off speeding vehicles just to save his lady.

At the end of the movie, as he walks through a crowded park to reunite with her, he takes her in his arms, kisses her passionately, and then whispers to her those three words. As the female viewers swoon, the male viewer, tired of vicariously going through all those death-defying stunts, thinks to himself, C’mon, you earned it already! Get lost!

Another movie, another decade: Julia Roberts as the sometime-hooker Vivian, says to Richard Gere as industrialist Edward Lewis in Pretty Woman: “Don’t you ever just get lost? I mean, don’t you ever not go to work and do nothing?”

And so he does as she asks; he plays hooky from work at his multibillion-dollar empire for the first time in his life and spends the day with her in the park, sprawled on a blanket, barefoot, reading a book. They end their day going to a roadside hotdog stand in a limo for dinner. And yes, he has the time of his life — big surprise!

Last week a girl friend took me to lunch to regale me with yet another story that validates this “Get Lost” phenomenon. She and her boyfriend of six months are extremely happy; I have spent time with them and they seem to have a real connection. They could be what romantics might call “soul mates.” Their personalities are spookily similar; they appear to have the same intelligence quotient, up to the final quarter of a point; they like the same things — they share the same tastes in wine and cuisine, music, literature, film and fashion; they finish each other’s sentences; they have the same wacky sense of humor — laughing at the silliest things or at things nobody else understands; their energy levels are in sync; their outlooks and values are identical; and I’m sure that if I checked they would have the same pulse rate and biorhythm. 

They have been, however, separately dogged by family problems of late. Nothing to do with each other, but the issues and the drama have been taking their toll on both of them.

So she told me that on a very ordinary day, they both decided to take off; to simply get lost. She didn’t say where; she just said, “Quite a drive from Manila and for a few days only.” They had never been alone before and she was beaming when she added that, “I saw for the first time what he really is; who he is when nobody else but me is around; what he likes to do when there’s no one to impress, no approval to gain, no work to be done, no schedules to be followed; what his temperament and disposition are like when he’s not rushing to and from work and not having to constantly iron things out at home with family, and I loved everything I saw.”

“Just what did you see?” I asked. 

“That he laughs from deep down in his gut; that he sings with the car radio as though he were alone; that he dances with wild abandon; that he doesn’t ever take his eyes off of me each time I speak and locks on until I utter the last word; that he listens to me as though he has all the time in the world and as though I were the only person that matters; that he walks slower to adjust to my pace and holds my hand until we reach our destination; that he holds every door open for me to enter first; that he knows to place my order with the waiter at restaurants like a gentleman (he definitely is one); that after an evening of drinking wine he has this quirk of chasing it with a few shots of vodka to make “sundot the hit,” as he calls it; that he always carries all the stuff no matter how heavy and how much I insist on helping; that he always says please and thank you, especially to security guards, waiters and parking attendants — no fail; that he is neat — he hangs and folds even his dirty clothes; that he’s all happy and warm and fuzzy and chipper in the morning like a bright ray of sunlight; and oh, that he snores like a wounded moose.”

“And the snoring, you love that as well?”

“Surprisingly, yes! Because it signals that he’s at peace and so I fall asleep soundly.”

I wanted to say, Okay, I’ll ask you that part again after you’ve been married a few years, but I held my peace — didn’t want to rain on her parade.

And then, just two days ago, I was fortunate enough to have dined with interesting, highly evolved people whose appetite for life and laughter are remarkable. What a welcome relief after having been held hostage by troubled and whiny characters, what with the global recession and swine flu afflicting the world these days.

Over excellent Thai food, Mike, one of the six of us in that lunch group, told of his need for “alone time” at least once a week. “It’s my date with myself, when I can do anything I please just because…”

“What do you do then?” someone else asked.

“I have lunch out, window shop, browse through bookstores and music stores for two things I’m passionate about — books and music.”

Tim jumped right in and said, “That is so healthy. It is, in fact, essential to one’s well being, to one’s sanity — this alone time.” Tim also added that we all have a tendency to accumulate clutter and let it rule our lives, so much so that we must “be vigilant and just take in only what is positive and productive.”

I read up on the matter when I got home and found that psychologist Ester Schaler Buchholz, Ph.D., in her book, The Call of Solitude, introduced the concept of “alone time.” She described it as “a basic need,” as essential and universal as the need to bond with others.

“When we don’t get enough solitude we get very out of touch with ourselves; we get forgetful; we get sloppy.” She adds that, “Depending on our personalities, we can get angry, anxious, and depressed.” Modern life, filled with cell phones, laptops, the Internet, e-mail and television offering 100 channels, has become far more tumultuous than in the past.

Buchholz believes that alone time — defined as periods away from others, preferably unplugged and unstructured — is a must for everyone, even those to whom it does not come naturally.

This time apart from the rest of the world helps all of us to recharge and regenerate, and to develop resilience. It also allows us to exercise our imagination and creativity. It gives us the space to step back and view our lives from a different vantage point to hopefully give us better insight into our own selves; it gives us a second wind to dig deeper into our resources so we may solve our problems if not navigate through them with more ease.

Whether alone or with a significant other, we must force ourselves and find the time to get lost and regroup. Alone, we need to stop and listen to our own breathing in the stillness of our minds. But in order to do this, we first must make peace with ourselves so that we may enjoy our own company.

If we decide to get lost with a loved one, we create the opportunity to really stop and feel if their pulse dips and rises on the same beat as ours; to figure out if they laugh from someplace deep inside their being or if it comes from somewhere superficial and impermanent; to find out if they hold our gaze when we speak to them; to find out if, indeed, they are people we care to be with.

So get lost. Stop in your tracks. Drop everything. Do it!

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Thank you for your letters. You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com or visit my blog at www.fourtyfied.blogspot.com.