It’s coming up on a year since my girlfriend and I have been an official item. I must say that it has been a pleasant experience to this point. Sure, we’ve had some bumps in the road—something I attribute to both of us being alpha personalities with extreme independent tendencies—but overall, it’s been really good. I haven’t been in a relationship this successful for this long since Valorie Drew in my teens. A few weeks ago, I was watching a movie on Netflix and there was a particular part in said movie that touched me in a tender spot. It got me to thinking about a specific part of my future. I’ll get into that in another post to come. But this post is about the movies, which brings me to this week’s moment in the Flashback Friday series: Jumping the Broom.
How I first came across this moment? I first came across the movie on September 2, 2011. About 20 minutes into my American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo, I decided to check out what was available in the in-flight entertainment options. After watching the pilot for a new ABC television show called Revenge, I checked out a movie called Jumping the Broom. I saw Paula Patton on a one-sheet, similar to the one above and I actually liked her work in Idlewild and Déjà Vu. So I decided to watch the film. It was actually a really good movie. My favorite part of the movie was when Paula Patton’s Sabrina Watson character hits Laz Alonso’s Jason Taylor character with her car and he tells her to calm down as she’s having a panic attack. The cut scene with the shot of an illuminated New York City at night with Sheléa Frazier’s “Love Fell On Me” was a great piece to the movie. I know, I know…it’s really an obscure and probably inconsequential part of the movie but it was pretty tender for me. Anyway, the flight was how I came upon the movie.
What it meant to me then? In the moment, I was kinda disappointed watching that movie. A few months earlier, I had been unceremoniously dumped by my then-girlfriend. I had avoided watching romantic dramas because of my sore feelings about what happened. But Jumping the Broom, though it was a romantic drama had enough comedic elements in it with Mike Epps and DeRay Davis to make it less sappy. Overall, it represented—in a way—what I wanted in that kind of situation.
What it means to me now? Nearly 4 years later, I still like that movie. I have it on Blu-ray. There are parts of it—like Jason’s crazy mother and her friend—that apply to my life. Oh…and that Sheléa Frazier track: yeah, that’s a mainstay in my Windows Media Player. At some point in the near future, I’ll have my own moment like the El DeBarge scene.
