Film

Its not hard to see why so many people find life in front of a TV so easy. It makes you forget real life for a while, with all its pain, struggle and heartache. Instead you watch other people's pain, struggle and heartache and then rejoice that it isn't you. I've found myself watching too many movies and TV shows this summer. So I keep asking myself. Why this fascination with a story? This addiction to drama? This obsession with the lives of other people, both their joys and their sorrows, their adventures and their losses?

What is the secret to a story as its plays itself out on the flat screen TV in your living room? (I personally don't own one, I just use my laptop) I wonder this question over and over again as we watch millions of people flood the theater's on opening nights; as we watch billions of dollars being poured into the film-making industry. I'm not against it, but neither can say that I am for it. You can't just say that those stories that flicker across your television screen are all entertainment and nothing else. If it was simply that I'm not sure that it would be such a big deal. No it's something much deeper, even as it numbs you to reality, it also awakens you to something you can't quite put your finger on and every time you the credits scroll you feel it drop away just out of reach and you are left with that burning desire to see the next sequel or the next episode, anything to feel it again.

And so it happens over and over again. More movies are filmed, by tickets bought and more shelves built for their showcase DVDS. Why?

Memories

I was in Hawaii less than a month ago. Sitting on a beach with a book in my hands, sun tanning my skin and sand creeping its way inside my bathing suit. I was staring out into rolling blue waves, watching my husband of only a few days riding the wakes with his surf board. Kauai's impressive mountain range pushed its way to the clouds behind me, where four-hundred foot waterfalls tumbled down to the island's valley floor.

I'm pretty sure every thing is several tones brighter in Hawaii. Also the rain is clearer and fruit is three times as big. When I took  my first step off the plane in Honolulu I swear the air tasted like sugar. Maybe not the most accurate description, but it was what I felt, plus the breeze blowing in from the ocean was like heaven.

People can say I was on my honeymoon and perhaps every thing was romanticized, but I'm pretty darn sure that was the way it was. In any case, now that I'm back in Texas, and the weather is sizzling hot and the air dry and your sweat tastes like vinegar salt I can't help remembering Hawaii. The only way of enjoying a good book here is in the cool, air conditioned atmosphere of your own home or sitting on your computer near an electrical outlet.

Like today I'm inside, with the curtains drawn and cool cup of sweet tea in my hands. A cool, deep, blue ocean of water would be real nice right now.

You can feeling the yearning.
You can taste.
Hear it.
Almost touch it.
It follows you around, on the hem of your jeans, hanging there silent and heavy. It pulls with uninhibited inconsideration at what you are doing, jerks at you with dogmatic precision and whispers with gentle caresses. It never leaves, but neither does stay close enough for you to hold and real enough for you see. It dances just out of reach, teasing, laughing and winking and then falls back in step just behind, dust in its wake and fire in its eyes.

If you look back it will slide to the left and if you look to the left it will slide to the right, but it always pushes you forward, pleading for a chance to show you it's dreams. One by one they flash in before your eyes, leaving you breathless and aching. And when it touches your belly with that finger of desire you flail and writhe, begging for mercy and but asking for more. You cover your ears, but your heart is unguarded, then you close your eyes, but your feet keep moving. There is no power to stop it on earth or in heaven.

And so you walk and then you run, but the yearning remains, holding your hands and kissing your feet. The strength of its will and the fury of its devotion sweep you off your feet and you fall panting in the dirt.

It really does not have a name, but the only one I can come up with today is this: Heaven is out there, reminding me I belong there and not here and it will never let up until I am home.