Obama and Slumdog

Barack Obama is our president. I find that I can't help but smile as I type that and say it out loud. It's real. It's progress and I am proud of our country today. I am not throwing all my beans in the pot to say that one man will turn our entire country around, but I am clinging to the hope that he brings. I choose hope, too.

While talking with people about their experience of watching or listening to the inauguration today, I had goosebumps listening to teachers talk about watching it with their first grade class, or high schoolers shooshing their peers because this could be the most important day in our history. It seemed that everyone was near a television or a radio. People gathered in auditoriums, around projectors on big screens, around laptops, around computers in cubicles, in stores around televisions for sale. Everyone seemed to understand that something incredible was happening, is happening and it's impossible to not want to be a part of it. Just thinking about everyone pausing their days to pay attention and to experience this monumental day in history, I couldn't help but think again about the movie Slumdog Millionaire.

There is a scene in the movie where Jamal, a young man from the slums is back for the second half of the game show "Who wants to be a millionaire?" and ready to answer the question to win the big bucks. He's been accused of cheating after several correct answers that led him to the $500,000 prize, because everyone is thinking, how could a boy from the slums know the answers to all these questions? His story is tearing through all of India as everyone learns a boy from the slums could possibly win it all. This could be a monumental day. Jamal knows it, the show knows it, and every person in India knows it. People gathered around big screens in offices, in auditoriums, on the sidewalks, in living rooms, in hotels, anywhere there was a television to be found, people were gathered to be a part of this event, this monumental day in history.

This boy from the slums became part of their story. They hoped for him and were there to witness a day that would go down in history. Just as we as Americans witnessed a day that will go down in history. This is by no means the end of the journey. We must run with endurance the race that is set before us. We're all in this together.

slumdog millionaire

I am in love with the movie Slumdog Millionaire. I tend to make broad sweeping statements about things I love especially movies that I see. I’m not a real tough critic, unless the movie is over three hours long and then chances are I fell asleep and no longer have any desire to finish watching, ever (sad, but true).

Back to the movie, I loved it. I don’t want to give anything about it away (I might anyway, so be warned), but one scene that I found particularly touching is one where the main character Jamal, kisses the scar on Latika’s cheek. Latika is the love of his life. Throughout the movie, the two have experienced countless traumatic and tragic things. In this reunion of sorts, he kisses a scar on her cheek, a wound that has healed over, but the memory and reminder still remains for all to see. It was just so symbolic and meaningful and I know I get wrapped up in finding meaning in just about everything, but it was such a sweet moment. It was an acknowledgment of everything they had been through. Though she’s been hurt in the past, he will love her broken places and be gentle to her wounds.

Isn’t this what we all need? To love each other’s broken places.

Into the Wild

I watched Into the Wild last night, can I just say my soul was just flying while watching the beautiful cinematography. I’m definitely one of those people that will see something beautiful and feel the need to tell someone about it, like the sun reflecting off of Mount Hood in a special way or the moon shadows over the Puget Sound. Take for instance driving through the mountains at sunset, which sunsets always get better and better…I’ll probably comment at least twenty times out loud how beautiful it is and twenty more times to myself. So you can only imagine how many times I had to comment on how beautiful the shots were throughout the movie. I did try to keep them to a minimum to keep from being that girl who interrupts the movie every few minutes. But really, the cinematography had me giddy. AND the soundtrack, too! Eddie Vedder is incredible in this soundtrack. I had to comment on the beauty of the music throughout the movie, too. Yes, I did turn out to be that girl during this movie, shoot…

Anyhoo, after watching the movie, I am SO ready for adventure. I want to go “into the wild”, maybe not to the extent as the guy from the movie so as to be shooting and butchering a moose to live on and living by myself in an abandoned bus in rural Alaska in the dead of winter, but a milder version of this would be incredible, to get out of myself and experience the world and everything in it.

I think I’ll be marinating on that entire movie for a while, but the feelings it left me with have been nipping at my heels all day. The song society, by Eddie Vedder is so telling of the world we live in. Society. I feel so boxed in by society, boxed in and cattle-herded toward the American Dream. My life can’t be fulfilling unless I have a six-figure income, a fancy car and vacation homes. I can’t be happy unless I have a model’s body, a designer wardrobe and a great tan. I need to make more money to buy a bigger house and more things to fill my bigger house. I need to work more so I can take luxury vacations but with all the hours I put in to earn my six-figure paycheck, I have no time to take luxury vacations or see my family. How can this be the American dream? (I've written a little about this in my old blog, too)

I really identify with his character. He wants to live without society’s constraints and expectations. There is a scene in the movie after his college graduation when his parents announce their graduation gift to him, a new car. He quickly tells them he doesn’t need a new car. He has one that works just fine. He doesn’t want any more things, any more stuff; his life is so countercultural in that way. I constantly struggle with that. I don’t want any more stuff either. Well, let me rephrase that, I don’t need anymore stuff, yet I find myself throwing it in the shopping cart or ravaging through the new anthropologie catalogue like it had the cure for cancer in its pages. It’s no easy task to ditch the American dream.

I find so much joy from being out in the world and experiencing new things. Part of me is so inspired by his story, almost enough so to pick up and go, but the other part of me takes so much joy in a small town life, comfortable and familiar. What does one do with that? How do you satisfy the desire for adventure and experience and the desire for comfort and safety?

I apologize for the random collage of thoughts; I’m too lazy to string them all together at the moment.

I do recommend to you all…
-watch Into the Wild if you haven’t seen it yet
-go ahead and buy the soundtrack, it’s amazing

Feast of Love

"There is a story about the Greek Gods; they were bored so they invented human beings, but they were still bored so they invented love, then they weren't bored any longer. So they decided to try love for themselves. And finally, they invented laughter, so they could stand it."



This is how the movie, Feast of Love begins. I ordered it from Netflix and when it came I couldn't even remember what the movie was about or why I ordered it. As I read through the description, I remembered why it appealed to me.

-set in a "small idyllic Oregon community"- ding!

-"features different lives intersecting at a coffee shop" -ding!

-"explore the depths of love and loss, joy and pain, and everything in between"- ding, ding, ding!!

These are all things I love.

I liked the movie overall. They showed all different kinds of love, from young love to old love, falling in love, falling out of love, adultery, heartbreak, loss of love, birth, death and how they all play out in the lives of the characters. It's pretty well done. Also, pretty depressing. I prefer movies that make my heart flutter and feel all warm and fuzzy, but this has more of a taste of reality. I will warn you though, there are excessive sex scenes and nudity throughout the movie. It makes you think that people meet-have sex and get married within a week of meeting each other because there isn't a real concept of time in the movie... Also, Morgan Freeman is in it and well he's pretty close to God.

I was thrilled when I recognized the coffee house where a lot of the movie takes place, this cute little place on Mississippi Ave in North Portland. I've been there! That was really exciting for me.







Anyhoo, back to the quote. I like it. There is so much depth and joy and pain involved in loving someone that it just makes sense that love requires laughter.