Manchester by the Sea

I said a while back that I didn't want to see this film until after the holidays.  I saw it last week, just before Ash Wednesday.

Manchester by the Sea is the perfect film to see during Lent.   It's about tragic loss.  Lent is about tragic loss.  Life is a series of losses.  Some by our own making, some not.

Manchester by the Sea is a beautiful little fishing village about 34 miles northeast of Boston.  The Academy Award nominated film is an exquisite, devastating story.

Lee Chandler, due to his own terrible series of mistakes,  has caused the deaths of his three children.  He loved them dearly.

Lee is enveloped in pain.  He moves away.  He is closed off and inaccessible.  And then, sometime later, his brother dies leaving behind a 16 year old son.  Lee must return to Manchester-by-the-Sea and face his demons.

We are taken along on the struggle to survive.  In the end we see hope for healing.

We humans want to believe that all misfortune is caused by bad people.  However, there are no bad people in this film.  Well, except for the character played by Matthew Broderick.  He plays a religious zealot.

This is also Biblical - and relates to the season of Lent.


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I Can Fix the Oscars

Deadpool Oscar

Hollywood is still reeling with Sunday night's  big faux pas at the Oscars when Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty announced the wrong film as winner of the Academy Award.    La La Land was declared the winner when it was supposed to be Moonlight.

But this isn't the only problem with the Oscars.  We all know the show is entirely too long.  What the billion of us in our jammies watching from around the globe want to see is Hollywood razzle dazzle, not the silly stuff that makes no sense.

For instance, the crowd of tourists arriving - unbeknownst to them - at the theater door and being ushered in to hang out with the world's most beautiful people - was cringe-worthy.  

Also what was the point of the candy dropping from the ceiling?  And what about Jimmy Kimmel texting up on the screen?  Big time waster. - and it didn't work   At least this year we didn't have to watch Girl Scouts sell their cookies.

Here's what we want!  We want beautiful people who are totally comfortable in the public eye entertaining us - either on stage or just sitting in their seats - being beautiful.  Is this so hard?  Can't the Oscars just make do with the scores of highest paid entertainers in the world and not ship in us civilians to mess things us?

Remember Jack Palance doing one
arm push ups at the Oscars?

And for years I've had a problem with the Oscars bringing out old timers who are well past their prime. ( I used to spend a lot of time in front of a microphone.  But I no longer have nerves of steel. ) If old-timers are to be honored, why not just show great clips from their careers? It was an embarrassment to see 1967s' Bonnie and Clyde have to deal with the mix-up.  They shouldn't have been put in that situation.  Denzel or Amy could have handled it.  

All in all, I thought Jimmy Kimmel did a good job.  I loved seeing all of the awards and Dave and I think this years' film are excellent.

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Is This About Me?

The fiction part of The New Yorker magazine is usually a personal interest story.  There is usually no real beginning and rarely a resolution.  They are sometimes maddening.  Why do I read them?  Because they are a slice of life.

And the one in the current  (February 27th) issue could be about me in the not too distant future.  "Ladies' Lunch" written by Lore Segal, is about a woman living in an apartment in New York with a view of the Empire State building.  She's lived there forever and she loves it. She has a group of close friends who've been together for decades.  They are retired lawyers, writers and other strong smart women.

So what's the problem?  They're old.

Lotte, the apartment dweller, has no interest in the caregivers or the heart healthy diet that her children keep re-providing as fast as she rejects them.

Her friend, Bridget, presents the agenda at one of their get-togethers:  "How to Prevent the Inevitable.' I mean any of the scenarios we would rather die than live in."

Later in the story Lotte, after firing yet another caregiver and suffering a fall, is carted off by family members to an assisted living facility in the Hudson Valley.  She has no view.  Her smart friends plot to rescue her but none of them drives anymore.  The plan to have an eighteen year old grandson provide the get away car fails when he flunks his test for a license.

In the end they cease to hear from Lotte but not before she explains to them that they needn't worry about her because she is already dead.

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I'm blessed to be a part of a community of folks who have continual conversations about issues like What's Important in the End.   It's different for all of us.


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Kids Who Are Different

I love this comic strip from a couple of days ago.  I love the strip, Zits.  Jeremy is a typical bored but gifted fifteen year old who thinks his parents are clueless.  But his friends are all different.  Especially his friend, Pierce, who is apply named because he has many piercings and tattoos, not to mention different ways of seeing and doing things.

The Loyal Soldier

For a long time I've been fascinated by the concept of life being a journey, with stops along the way.  Twenty years ago I loved reading Scott Peck's concept in his book "Further Along the Road Less Traveled."  He talked about four stages along the journey -

1. Chaotic - Wild, Lawless, Self Serving, Absence of Spirituality - This describes all babies and the entire lives of some human beings.

2. Institutional - Place we go to get rid of the chaos and learn the rules- Family, school, military, church, AA, cult, prison, etc.

3. Individual - Responsible person seeking truth

4. God Centered - Advanced spiritual truth seekers

Now I'm reading Richard Rohr's book, "Falling Upward."  He talks about "The Loyal Soldier."  So we know he's talking about #2.  Being part of the institution - Following the rules - Keeping things safe.  Rohr gives us the example of the older brother in the story of the prodigal son as "The Loyal Soldier."

We love and appreciate the Loyal Soldier because without him we would be aimless.  We need discipline to get off to a good start.  We need tradition.

But the time comes for us to move on up.

Rohr gives a good concrete example in telling us about Japanese communities that, after the war,  created a ritual that thanked and praised the soldier for his service to the people.  But "the war is over...you need to be something beyond a soldier."

I know all this is pretty cerebral - but I moved a long time ago from the rules to the mysterious relationship where the rules are sometimes kind of murky but the stakes are even higher
.


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Harrison Ford and I Are Excellent Drivers

You've most likely read about 74 year old Harrison Ford mistakenly landing his small plane on an airport taxiway last week and asking the traffic controller:

Was that airliner meant to be underneath me?

This is a year or so after Mr. Ford was seriously injured in another plane he was piloting.  There is currently all sorts of speculation about whether or not he should continue flying.  From all reports Harrison Ford is, and has been, an excellent and careful pilot.

I am crazy about Harrison Ford, the actor.  While I'm not a Star Wars fan, I've seen about everything else he's done on the screen.  But I hope, besides the investigation, he's giving his situation some thought.

I, myself, recently had a fender-bender.  Prior to this I had a sterling driving record.  Full disclosure; I did have a ticket in the 1960s.

So what's the problem?  The problem is, like Harrison,  I don't know exactly what happened.

Was that beautiful black Volkswagen Luxury supposed to be in my lane?

Of course, the other driver told me it was my fault.  But, rather than being belligerent, he was kind.  And, by the way, turned out to be a Presbyterian minister.  So there is probably good reason to believe him.

I've been doing some soul-searching about my driving.  Am I not paying enough attention?   Am I doing all of the things I taught my four children to do?

By the way, I told them the same things in my driving lectures that I told them in my sex education lectures:  You now have the power of life and death.  Be careful.

Harrison Ford and I are at the age where we need to be careful.   I'm proud to say I've been accident free for four weeks.


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Happy Belated Valentines Day

I've not been feeling up to par so V-Day sort of got away from me. Dave and I don't buy gifts but usually do something fun together.

That hasn't happened yet but we're thinking about it.  In the meantime, here are two (belated) Valentine stories.

In Forum on Sunday we were talking about how married couples show their love toward each other and a woman shared the following story about her husband.  I don't remember the details but the story really moved me - even though it doesn't represent how Dave and I do things.

- She saw a pair of earrings.  She loved the earrings and wanted her husband to buy them for her.  He didn't care for the earrings but he bought them anyway.

Sometime later she was going for an important job interview and needed her special earrings but couldn't find them anywhere.  She was frantic.   Later still, he appeared from the laundry room saying he'd found the earrings. So she got to wear them to the interview.

Sometime - much later - she found the original earrings!




- Yesterday, Wednesday morning,  I had to rent a car and while I was going through all of the crazy steps Dave got on my nerves a bit by trying to be nice and friendly to the Hertz guy while I was trying to do business.  

We later had a tiny bit of unhappiness over this which is unusual for us. Then we went our separate ways.

Sometimes in Dave's Wednesday art group they give away things like magazines with beautiful photographs.  Dave rarely takes them.  I like to say to him, If someone offers you something (especially a wine sample) - take it - and then give it to me.

Yesterday evening he came home and, in a gesture of total love,  handed me one of my very favorite magazines "Architectural Digest."

I didn't deserve it.


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