What We Carry

Kyle Reese dropping naked into a rubbish-strewn L.A. alley was an unexpected introduction to one of the biggest movies of 1984. I saw The Terminator about a year later, at a friend’s house, after it came out on VHS tape, and just like that, I had a new movie star to dream about. It wasn’t the scene, though. Not for me. That would have been the one in the motel room, when Reese and Sarah Connor are having sex, creating John Connor (destined to save the world), and Reese grips the sheets. That clasp, that grasping, took up a mere three-plus seconds in the movie but far longer in my life. Why? I never tried to analyze it until now. I had always been content with its je ne sais quoi, but now I get it: he was clutching at something he knew he’d never have and yet was able to be content with what he was getting—in fact, not just be content, but able to wring out of the moment everything it had to give. Kyle Reese carried the weight of the future, but he managed to live in that moment. What do you carry, and how often are you able to put it down so you can be here now?