As a child, I was obsessed with Winnie the Pooh.
I loved Piglet the best. He was my favorite. He was small, and quiet. He stammered sometimes. He was afraid of the world, and pretty much everything in it. All of the things I was back then. I saw him as a friend, someone who understood.
I had all the books. I had the stuffed toys. I had a Piglet cake one year, for my birthday. I had all the video cassettes, and would watch them every weekend.
But then, a few years later, I stopped. We transitioned from video cassettes to DVD players, as technology grew taller than me. I couldn’t play those tapes anymore. And even if I could, they were worn beyond repair, after a thousand repeats.
I mourned, of course. End of an era. But it was good, in a way. It gave me a chance to try new things, which was when my love of science fiction started.
In my writing group, we have a weekly zoom session. We read out some of stories from the weekly challenge, and discuss other stories. This week, we were talking about stories set at winter.
I instantly had that image of the Tigger Movie, of that stripy snowy tree on the edge of the cliff. I had an urge to watch the movie again. So afterwards, I watched it on YouTube. And I cried. I had forgotten how beautiful a story it was. I was lost for words, overwhelmed by feelings I forgot, but recognised, and by the powerful and emotive storytelling.
Its a story about finding where you belong. About family, and not fitting in. About depression, for even the happiest of people. Trying your hardest, but being let down. Doing things yourself, and it going wrong. And at the end of the day, accepting that differences are okay. And it’s done beautifully, so powerful and emotive, the characters and settings so vivid that you could be there too.
So I cried, at The Tigger Movie. A proper bawling my eyes out. It seems a strange choice to cry at. But it pulled my heartstrings, and broke them, and then put them back together. I don’t know of another movie that does that to me. It just goes to show, that sometimes the best stories are the old ones, that move you more than words can say.
