The First Day

The first day is important. And so I did nothing particularly important.

I rolled out of bed when I woke up. I took a shower.

My grandma is important to me. I noticed her face still has this lovely shape. Even as I noticed her wrinkled jowls, the definition of her jaw catches my eye and I can see how beautiful she will always be. She moves slowly, but her eyes sparkle like a little girl. My brother Nick drove from Tremonton and three of us went to see The Book Thief. It's a movie about death, narrated by Death. And books. And words. It's kind of the perfect movie for anyone in my family. We're morbid and we read. A lot.

I've heard critics don't like it. They're stupid. It was a wonderful movie. I don't know whether it followed the book because I haven't read the book. (I guess we don't read as much as we should.) The movie talks about the Word. That Word that gives Life to everything.

After the movie, we ate lunch, did some chores, shared stories, and I got an emergency call from work. I left.

At work, I called my dad and asked him to help me out. He was there in 5 minutes. It was pretty spectacular. Nick left Grandma's and joined us. Then the three of us went to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  I've read the short story by Thurber. I've seen the Danny Kaye movie. Really--these movies need to say, "This movie is based loosely around a complicated character that James Thurber wrote--but his story was just so damned depressing, we decided to write the ending we imagined as we read the ending Thurber wrote...And really, you're perfectly happy with the changes because you didn't like his ending either. And really, we changed the middle too... And a lot of the beginning too."

But that might be a little long.

As New Years movies go, it's perfect.

The movie honors life. And Life. More than that, it honors the ordinary as much as it honors the extraordinary. Everything in the movie catches your breath. And it's meant to. Reality is beautiful. Connection. Love. Loss. All of it. There's a line I can't quite recall, "Beauty doesn't need to be sought after." I don't know if I got it right, but it's true. Beauty simply is.  Like my grandmother's face.

So I spent the first day of the year reveling in well told stories next to people I love. I love hearing my brother laugh. I love sitting next to my sweet grandma, while she watches a little girl who was just a couple of years older than she had been during the war, in a country that she lived in so many years ago. I love hearing the tears catch in my dad's throat.

I hate the inversion. I resolve to go up to Park City as often as I can to allow my lungs and my spirit some relief from the smog. I resolve to find the extraordinary in my ordinary.

Today I'm grateful for the new, the beautiful, and for my family.