30 Days of Memories

There's an organization called National Novel Writer's Month, or NaNoWriMo for those in the know. Their goal is to get people to write a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November each year, and hundreds of thousands of people participate world wide. Last year, I was a "winner" (meaning I completed a 50,000 word novel in the month) and loved the experience. It was a challenge, trying to keep up with the required daily word count.

I enjoyed how it pushed me to be creative and to write every day, and I would love to participate again. But I'm at a spot where it feels like giving 90 minutes a day to writing isn't the best use of my time, so I've decided to tweak it a little. Rather than be driven by a word count and the challenge of writing a novel, I'm going to write about one memory each day. My hope is to recall moments I thought were lost and to flesh out, give life to the familiar recollections. I tend to need deadlines and external motivation to write, so I hope this does the trick!

I'll be posting most of them right here all November long, though I expect to hold back a few particularly personal ones. Make sure you check back all month to see what turns up!

A Yearly Practice

I committed myself to a yearly practice: sending a thank you card to a doctor.

Every year on October 29, there's a surgeon who gets a card and a picture of me doing something I wouldn't have been able to do without his work. I've sent him a picture of me on top of a 14,000 foot mountain and one at the finish line of a half marathon. I'm not sure which one I'm sending next, but I know I'll have some good options by this October.

And really, that's one of the reasons I started doing this. I knew that if I had to have at least ONE adventure every year, even if it was just to have a picture to send, that would push me to do more. I can't live a sedentary, uninteresting, unadventurous life…because I need a picture to mail. This pushes me to try new things and simply…do more enjoyable things.

I also started doing this so that I would always remember gratefulness. It is so easy for us to forget what things used to be like once we live in a different reality. I want to remember how hard it used to be, so that I recognize just how good it is now. I believe that sending him a card keeps me in touch with thankfulness.

But there's actually a bigger reason that I send him a picture and a card. It's to remind HIM of how important he has been. Just another day in the office for him wrought out a massive life change for me. I think most people probably receive from him what I did, which is a massive gift…but then they go about living into that gift. This man changed everything for me, and I want him to know that. And that's why a one time thank you isn't sufficient in my mind. Every year that I'm able to do something is STILL a gift from that surgeon, and I want him to know that another day in the office shifted my potential for joy.

Neighbors, Alarms

Last December, someone kicked in my door and left with a few items…it seems they wanted to do their Christmas shopping at my place.

Because I don't want to repeat the experience, I've had an alarm installed in my house. It's taking some getting used to, and I've definitely already set it off once by accident. 

One of the things I've realized in this whole process is that a couple of decades ago, people didn't really have home alarms. 

They had neighbors. 

When my house was robbed, I couldn't even tell my neighbors to be on the look out, because we've never really spoke. I've lived here more than two years, and I know the name of ONE neighbor. I think it used to be that neighbors looked out for each other, and they would recognize when there was a suspicious car parked across the street. 

Home alarms are taking the role that our neighbors used to have. We would rely on our neighbors to watch over our house when we were gone, but now we rely on an electronic system. We simply couldn't ask a neighbor to gather our mail or pick up the newspaper, because that would be trusting and inconveniencing a stranger…who lives 25 feet away from me. 

I don't know what the lesson in all this is…it makes me realize that I wish I were more present in my neighborhood. If nothing else, that I could knock on their doors and tell them to be extra careful around the holidays. Maybe that's the challenge to me. Christmas is 33 weeks from today…I'm going to make sure that come December, my neighbors feel like they can trust me more than their alarm system.

I Am Not a Hipster

Hands down, this is my favorite movie of the week at Sundance. It seems to me that there is a lot to love about this film.

It's a musical in the sense that "Once" is a music. While the characters don't simply burst into song, as musicians their craft indicates their true feelings and struggles. The main character, Brook, is struggling to come to grips with the loss of his mother, his own purpose and the value of creation.

The film is full of references to his first album, Canines, which indicates that he has great talent for songwriting. However, Brook wonders about the value of such creation; the movie opens with him being heartbroken over the tsunami striking Japan's coastline. It is apparent that he questions the value of something as "silly" as songwriting in a world where such atrocities occur. In many ways, Brook craves something that is real. He shuns meaningless relationships and while he enjoys the praise of his peers, he knows that it is ultimately empty. 

This brings up the question of meaning and purpose to each life; what are the goals of living? An individual bestowed with huge amounts of talent wonders whether it's worth using it. Brook represents many of us who wonder what we are meant for. It's human nature to question our purpose.

Similarly, Brook's life questions the value of beauty. Is it enough that something is enjoyable, or must it have some further, deeper purpose? Is the enjoyment and appreciation of something enough to giving it intrinsic value? Perhaps the beauty of something indicates a built in value as well as the value of its creator.

A pivotal moment occurs between Brook and Clark, his would-be best friend. Brook states, "Too many people are making crap and calling it art." Clark responds, "I do it because it makes me happy." This epitomizes a future shift for Brook, a realization that creation itself has value. 

This movie was so well done in many ways. The dialogue is authentic and true; nothing about the interactions feels forced. The camera work is excellent, especially in the scene where Brook displays his brokenness. He breaks down at night and cries, waking one of his sisters. She comforts him holds him; it's an incredible scene, with the point of focus constantly shifting. It provides the audience with a sense of shifting clarity and mimics the view of one who has tears in their eyes. It is a finely crafted scene that serves as a high point of the directing.

Perhaps the best part of this film is the music. It is insightful into Brook's struggle and matches the philosophy of the film. The soundtrack is certainly worth owning, as is the Canines album, which the filmmakers released.

The Words

A blockbuster cast was one of the things that drew me to this movie. Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Dennis Quaid, Olivia Wilde and Jeremy Irons seem like a compilation of actors that could get in each others' way, but they actually work very well together. The brilliant aspect of this movie is the layers of narration. The "real world" story is Clay (Dennis Quaid) reading an exempt from his future novel about Rory (Bradley Cooper) and his wife (Zoe Saldana). In the course of this story, Jeremy Irons begins to tell a narrative to Rory, creating a third level. One of the people I saw this movie with commented that it's the Inception of narrative. 

I loved this film because the multiple layers is not artistic for the sake of doing it, but rather the story within a story format truly develops and connects the characters. Ultimately, the story is about Clay (through he gets less screen time than the other two narratives). The other two story lines are designed to inform the audience about Clay's struggles and current life situation. This is developed brilliantly through some key statements about Rory's life, which mirrors some of the struggles in Clay's. 

This movie was really rich with thoughts regarding human limitations, self worth, and the drive for success. Perhaps the biggest issue raised in "The Words" is what do we love more, our work or the people in our lives. Many of the characters are forced to choose which is more valuable for them, people or accomplishments. The film raised that question for me as well. Exactly what are we willing to sacrifice for accomplishment? In the film, Rory is never happier than when he has yet to accomplish anything. He and his wife live a simple life in a small apartment and they enjoy their lives. Once Rory tastes success, he cannot go back to that simple life; he cannot get everything back in the box.

"The Words" is absolutely worth seeing; I plan to watch it a few more times because it was so rich with questions and metaphor, but it lacks the pretentious nature of so many other analysis films. Make sure you catch this one at some point, though it doesn't have to be on the big screen.

Sleepwalk With Me

This is a fictionalized autobiography of a stand up comedian named Mike Burbiglia. In the film, his name is Matt Pandamiglio, indicating that this movie really isn't more than a step away from reality. In short, this is story of Matt's attempt to discover himself and his purpose, set against the backdrop of the relationship with his girlfriend.

At the outset, this relationship is what defines him; at one point, he says "Everyone thinks the best thing about me is my girlfriend." After eight years of dating, he begins to feel pressure to propose though he feels ill-prepared and lost. As his comedy career starts to thrive, he becomes more enamored of that life; he enjoys the long drives, the motels and the people he meets along the way. On the road, he builds a sense of community with the other comedians and starts to find his place there. Meanwhile, he's discovering that he doesn't want to marry Abby, and he must find a way to tell her this, in spite of loving her. He simply realizes that he is not meant to marry her.

This movie has a predictably large number of laughs and Burbiglia's narration throughout the movie has a distinct charm and humor. It would be easy to overlook some of the deeper meaning of this movie. This movie is really about finding meaning, purpose and calling. Matt doesn't know who he is and feels the need to discover this before he inexorably links his life to someone else. 

Maybe my favorite moment of "Sleepwalk With Me" is the narrator's explanation of love. He says that everyone has a secret special skill and that love is when someone else recognizes that and brings it out in you. While a simplistic analysis, I find it very appealing. When someone knows you well and deeply enough to see that uniqueness about you, and they make that stronger, that is love.

It's a great movie, but not one to see in a theater. You'll enjoy it much more if you rent it with a large group of friends.

Finding North

The title "Finding North" refers to our country's moral compass, which has gone awry according to this well produced documentary. This film exposes an often unseen problem in our society: hunger. 

We are prone to thinking that hunger only strikes sub-Saharan Africa (as the film points out) but it is pervasive within our own country. 1 in 6 Americans do not have enough to eat; 50 million deal with "food insecurity," which is defines as not knowing where your next meal may come from.

This is obviously a complex issue. The film does an excellent job of humanizing the various kinds of people, both urban and rural, who deal with this problem. They cover a great deal of ground, including examining how our country's rising rate of obesity is deeply connected to hunger. In essence, unhealthy calories are cheapest. When living on a budget, chips and cookies are cheaper tummy-fillers than fruit.

"Finding North" proposes that this is a governmental issue, as we our government primarily subsidizes the ingredients in processed foods but not fresh fruit. 

This film is challenging and extremely frustrating. It spends a great deal of time examining the lack of quantity and health of food available to children and it's appalling to see that so many of our children are hungry when our nation is so prosperous. 

I suppose I have two reflections on this film. The first is that I think it tries to do too much. It appears to me that with every new thing they learned about this issue (such as obesity being linked to hunger) they discovered several more issues. While there is some great information in this film, it doesn't seem to have any kind of narrative direction. It does a great job presenting lots of information but does not seem to arrive anywhere. My second thought comes out of that: I found myself disturbed but without direction. While I'm angry about such injustice, I don't know where to direct that. It is not the filmmakers' responsibility to provide me with that direction, but they document others' attempts to fix this with no avail. I don't expect them to provide me with a simple process or way to get involved, but the movie left me despairing that nothing can be done. While I leave feeling informed, I also feel helpless and therefore infuriatingly apathetic.