April 22nd marks the birthday of actress Sheryl Lee.
Lee, through her relationship to both Twin Peaks series and the movie Fire Walk With Me has filled an inordinate amount of my brain space since I was 15.
Lee, herself, only works in film sporadically these days. Some ink was spilled when Twin Peaks: The Return hit in 2017, sorting out where she'd been and what she'd been up to. She has some health issues that make acting a bit difficult, but she does do it.
But I think wrecking me during Twin Peaks, Fire Walk With Me, and then devastating me during Twin Peaks: The Return was probably enough for one lifetime. And when I think about her now - after we spent COVID pondering nostalgia and what made for the best of our generation - going through reunions of youth-friendly media, identifying Gen-X favorites, I don't really recall Twin Peaks getting included. But in her way, maybe Lee's creation with Lynch and Frost, Laura Palmer, was the ultimate Gen-X icon.
Laura had loving parents, she had a house in the 'burbs, dressed in the clothes of a different generation, and as a youth of the era, still ran wild, unknown and unknowable, what she was up to only really discovered when she was no longer there. And, of course, the scream of Laura Palmer/ Sheryl Lee when she returns to where she's told she belongs? Someone else is there. And she never quite existed, but went along to find out. Middle-aged and displaced, being told she was someone she was not.
There's a parallel in there somewhere.
Sheryl Lee isn't Laura Palmer, of course. But she did bring her to life. And as she's never been one to hog the spotlight, she's maybe her own version of unknowable.
But we're going to wish her a happy birthday anyway.
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