Just a hundred feet away

The Handsome Family has a song called All the Time in Airports, which talks about seeing someone familiar "just a hundred feet away." This person is always just out of reach, and when you get too close, they disappear. It's a phantom trick of the mind to make you believe you're seeing someone. You want them to appear, so like a dream they appear, but you're not really seeing them. So, too, this happens with television. Watch enough and you'll see people you know. 

I'm one of perhaps millions enamored with Natalia Dyer's character on the Netflix hit Stranger Things. My reasons are personal. It's not like I have a thing for her. I think she's a great actress and she's obviously attractive, too. My reason for watching is because she reminds me of someone. If you've been following this blog, then I'm sure you can guess with 100 percent accuracy who that woman is. 

Natalia's character, Nancy Wheeler, is from a good family. They live in a safe neighborhood at the end of a cul-de-sac. She's a good girl. She gets good grades. She's super smart, always put together, always fashionable (even though the show is set in the mid-1980s in Indiana). She does something with her lips and her eyes when she's embarrassed, when she's in a conversation where she doesn't want to tell the truth in order to spare someone's feelings, when she's just being cute. It's adorable, and it reminds me of someone else who does that very thing. Her mannerisms are proper, but there is a fire in her, too. I think "bullshit" and "asshole" are her favorite swear words. Some of the best scenes are when she's angry, swinging a bat, shooting a gun, saying she wants to kill the monster. It's two sides of the same coin. At one moment she's the perfect lady, at another moment she's swearing like a sailor. It's endearing. 

Offscreen, Natalia is in a relationship with costar Charlie Heaton who plays Jonathan on Stranger Things. Fans lovingly call their onscreen relationship "Jancy." Offscreen, however, they're even more adorable. I sincerely hope their relationship lasts because they don't look like an ordinary Hollywood flavor-of-the-month couple. They look like they are truly in love, if such a thing exists these days. I wish them the best, of course. 

It's funny how we get these tangental things in our heads, things that remind us of someone else and thus soften us toward someone who has no idea what our thinking is. It's a strange facet of being human. Hollywood probably thrives off of this very thing. It's a loose connection, a facial expression here, a hair-tuck there, a wink of the eye, perhaps, but it draws us to certain people like a moth to a flame. 

While she'll never be my girl, Natalia's character is a nice reminder that my girl is out there. And that she's beautiful.