"The Whole World is Set on Fire"--My Need for Great Romantic Tragedy

Daniel Day-Lewis does an absolutely A-May-zing job.
Madeleine Stowe is incredible as well.
Overall, just an outstanding film that stands the tests of time.

I'm watching the end of The Last of the Mohicans for the second, and in a few minutes potentially the third, time...ok...a fourth...(by the time I get this typed up on my iPhone with my thumbs as I lay here in bed trying to find sleep.)

Why? You might ask. And my reply would be "Because it is one of the greatest tragic endings of all time. And if you know me or if you have read anything I have written you know still waters run deep within me and that my soul feels more than my brain can find words for.

A father running for his son, a brother for his brother and a sister for her sister and none of them with the hoped for end result. Silence, howling and sadness ensue.

The music, the beauty, the wildness, the humanity, the grand tragedy of young life lost, innocence removed and sacrificed and the pain of knowledge gained, the suddenness of loss and death, vengeance and justice, and yet the lingering hope for eternity and peace remains. There is a melancholic air that permeates the movie in it's entirety and it all conspires together to break your heart and to bring you to weeping for love undiminished and for justice given though too late to prevent loss.

Through the ages men and women have come and gone. Discoverers, explorers, makers of civilizations, slaves and freemen. It is a true cycle that humans keep without fail. Trial, perseverance, building and pushing through the struggle only to be replaced and perhaps eventually destroyed, only for the cycle of freedom and independence to build again and again and again.

The beauty of the earth is eternal and I could see myself as a frontiersman's woman. I could see living in the forest or in a clearing, tending to my own business and keeping quiet company. Carving a life out of the land with my hands and hard work.

No doubt I romanticize it to a significant degree and think that perhaps my life would need it's own soundtrack and film crew...but...I can see why people came here in the beginning. I can see why they braved the unknown and the wilds. I can see their need to not be owned--or at least to have the hope to not be owned. It was a different time and a very different place.

Maj. Heyward:
And who empowered these colonials to pass judgment on England's policies, and to come and go without so much as a "by your leave"?

Cora Munro:
They do not live their lives "by your leave"! They hack it out of the wilderness with their own two hands, burying their children along the way!

With the world as it is, balanced on the edge of a knife, I find myself often wondering if we will end up wide-eyed and surprised, running for our lives through the forest or into the mountains. Perhaps that seems or feels drastic but then Rome burned while Nero fiddled--so you never do know.

In contemplating the great American frontier, and in turn the Wild West I have a parting tale from my own archives of experience...

Jeremiah Johnson

When I was a younger woman of 28 or 29 I was very actively engaged in the Daughters of Utah Pioneers organization and attended a variety of events over the course of several years. At several of these events I met an older man, his wife and adult daughter. This man had to have been in his mid to late 60's at the time. He had a great white head of hair and a huge white beard, twinkling blue eyes and a ready smile and dressed in a Western cowboy way, down to the black hat. In appearance he reminded me a little of my dad.He was engaging, interesting and charming and had led a unique life full of interesting stories of a time gone by. I've always had a soft spot for a man with a big full beard and engaging ways. ;)

This older man, who was not my husband, unexpectedly and quite surprisingly, professed his respect and love for me, telling me that if it had been in a different time and in a different place that he would have followed me into the sun, to the end of the world, to the end of days. I remember blinking with my smile in place and thinking "Wait a minute--what?? Did he just...wait...he...oh my...he did!" Yes---I was stunned.

I was shockingly surprised, but touched by his gentle and desperate sincerity. I knew he meant no harm, nor any disrespect. I thought perhaps he felt twilight was upon him and was clutching with desperation to youth and there I stood--youth. In that moment, I definitely felt that the old West and frontiersman-way were still alive and well, right there in front of me.

I mention the story because he was a mountain man and he believed his own words. No doubt he would have wanted to call me his woman if the culture, time period and situation had been right. Watching movies about the frontier, the life, the beauty and the violence, on occasion remind me back to him, though not always. This is not because the feelings were mutual--they definitely were not...is it possible to emphasize that enough??--but it was definitely an unexpected and very unique life experience at the time.

Anyway--appropriately so, nothing came of it and I never did see him again at any events after that. My mom thinks perhaps he realized he had gone too far, and said too much. I think she may be right. He was not a man to be inappropriate and perhaps his feelings on life got the better of him that day. Who could say?

Anyway--so there you have it. My up close and personal experience with Jeremiah Johnson or Josey Wales, as you please.