sunday afternoon at the park

Sara watched the kids yesterday so Tim and I could go see Benjamin Button. It is just fantastic! We both left feeling renewed, newly in love with our lives, our children, each other. What more can you ask from a work of art, really? It is heartbreaking in all the right ways, and is a film that truly honors life. There is so much self-referential crap out there, that just spins in on itself and doesn't take you anywhere, doesn't change you. But this will. Go see it! And the thing I love the best is that the people in this film are not cruel to one another, despite sometimes impossible circumstances. Basic human goodness triumphs. I know that's not too sexy in the box office. And that real "artists" scoff at that goody-two-shoes business, but man, in my life, be good or be gone. We just don't have that much time, people. And every second you are given is a gift. I remember when I was in grad school and the folks who got the most accolades were those making the dark stuff, ripping their mouths off on a box, colliding into one another in anger. And our world is full of violence, yes. But hell, if the only good art out there is the stuff that wallows in it, then I'll take bad art that makes me happy any day and leave it at that. (Not that this movie makes you "happy," exactly. But it leaves you with the kind of deep longing and melancholy that reminds you how much it all does matter, and how fleeting it is.)

We went down to our local park after, watched the light glinting off the water (or what's left of it in this drought), and enjoyed each other's company.