graded on participation
Mom sent me an email today that gave me a great idea for today's blog post. It's a comment-getter, this one. Because, you know, it actually asks for comments. You know how I love movies and how I love to be moved by them. I'm so happy when a movie somehow elevates our own sense of purpose, our right to exist. You know those movie lines that sink in like "152 insights into my soul," and you wonder to yourself, "How did they know that? How did that big Hollywood somebody see me and write my feelings that way? It's surely happened at least once. Remember my post (I doubt you do) way back when about how movie makers are like the people in a Quaker church standing up because they just know they have something to say? Well, with all that intent, surely they've gotten to you at least once.
If you've seen my MySpace page, you know the quote that is probably the most defining for my own life - ironically from the very movie that joked about the insights into my soul. Meg Ryan's character wrote it in an email in You've Got Mail. Thus, I have Nora Ephron to thank for one of the most defining movie quotes of my life:
I lead a small life - well, valuable, but small. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I want to? Or because I haven't been brave?
From this quote on, I looked at life differently. I have a whole theory about how important the "small life" is - because it is important. But before this quote I lived life much more passively. After it, I realized that living the life you're supposed to requires more than just patience. Sometimes it takes bravery.
Recently P.S. I Love You spoke to me. The defining moment in it is probably the scene where her husband writes in a letter that he is not trying to help her remember him but to remember herself the way she used to be when she knew what she wanted and didn't worry so much how perfectly she found her way to it. "Just create." That's what she knew she wanted to do then and what he wanted to remind her of now. That movie speaks to me because of that belief in the importance of creativity and also for probably the most perfect love any human ever gave another. The guy in this movie was so content just to love her, and he did it so well. I definitely want creating things to come second to that part of my life.
Okay. Now it's your turn. A movie, a movie scene, a movie line - Pick one. It doesn't have to have changed your life - it just has to have moved you.