Your Before Sunrise Moment? + Giveaway

During the Fresh Air interview with Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, they discuss where Linklater got the idea for Before Sunrise, the first in the relationship trilogy. Linklater’s story is sad because the woman on whom his film was based, or inspired by, died tragically in a motorcycle accident just before they started filming. That is one of those grim reminders of what kind of random chaos life can really be, and how the moment must never be taken for granted.

You just never know what might happen to someone. But in the fictional version of Linklater’s fantasy, he finds a way to see the girl again, in this case in the second film, Before Sunset. Now, all of these years later they brought them back for the answer to the question, “what happens when you get what you’ve always wanted?”

For our giveaway, we’d like to know if you ever had a Before Sunrise moment. What ended up happening? Do you have any regrets? We’ll pick two winners from the comments and send both Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. If you don’t have a Before Sunrise moment then maybe just a memory about a place you only visited once, or a childhood friend you lost touch with. I’ll go first.

It was around 1979 or thereabouts. I’d joined a family on their summer camping trip to Yosemite. I was maybe 15 or 16. All I remember is that I’d just gotten my braces taken off. His name was Matt. He wore suspenders, had shaggy blonde hair and was either living in Yosemite at the time or spending his whole summer there. Looking back on it, he probably saw many girls that summer, each time a new family would pull in to camp. But to me, I’d never met anyone like him – he would jump off cliffs into the creek, everything he said was so smart and funny but more than that, we could really talk to each other. We spent the whole day and night together, though I declined his invitation to go back to his trailer – partly because the family I’d come with would have not liked that very much and partly out of fear. The next morning I was in despair because I hadn’t said goodbye, I didn’t even know his last name. I was madly in love with someone I would never see again.