It had come down to the simple fact that life was harder than anyone had told him it would be.~Elizabeth Brundage (From The Vanishing Point)

The movie was a cinematic tributary I seldom navigate. Science Fiction. The premise was so intriguing that I couldn't resist. The movie, Nine Days, follows a man who spends his days in a remote outpost watching live Point of View on TVs of people going about their lives until one subject perishes, leaving a vacancy for a new life on Earth. The man then gathers several unborn souls to consider for providing them an opportunity to live. For nine days, each candidate is exposed to a multitude of experiences, both positive and negative, so they can get an idea of what they might expect if chosen to live. Eventually, the interviewer begins to rule out the candidates, one by one. However, before they are let go into oblivion, he asks each of them to write down one pleasurable, memorable event that he will re-create for them before they depart. 

One candidate chooses a day at the beach where he experiences the tide breaking in and the low soothing rushing sound of the ocean--the feel of sand sifting through his fingers, a warm breeze. Another chooses riding a bicycle on a pathway that takes her through tree-covered hills and a wide blue sky overhead. All of the candidates beg for a chance to live. The interviewer is empathic toward their craving to keep living, as he has once lived on earth. He knows it will take extreme resilience. No one can tell them how difficult it will be, nor how wonderful.

Watching the movie triggered something sentient and vulnerable inside me. What memory would I choose? I thought about the day Giovanni and I got married. I would re-create that memory. I wrote in An Ocean Away:

Thirty years had passed since 1974, almost to the day, that Giovanni and I last saw one another as adolescents--that hot August day I climbed into the taxi, when I looked back and he was gone. And now I looked at him, that one glance spanning decades, as we drove to a small chapel in downtown Charleston to exchange our wedding vows...I wore a simple ivory-colored dress with sheer sleeves and elaborate, seeded pearl beadwork around the collar.

During the ceremony, images flashed through my mind of our extraordinary history, and the boy blended into the man who stood before me...I suppose I really have never felt as supremely blissful as I did that day.

Life is bittersweet. There is no perfection. Living takes buoyancy and courage. But let us remember, too, all the moments we'd live again. Let's collect as many as we can while here, while we're alive.

All of you who congregate at the site each week, how grateful I am for you. Writing these posts brings me such delight and pleasure. Some of my best and most memorable days are spent on the page. Thank you for being here with me. Much love and life to all of you. Happy Thanksgiving!