I know many of you spent the weekend digging yourself out of an igloo. Hubs shoveled us out of our driveway while I kept the couch warm. This calf strain presently makes even walking difficult, but hoping to get back on my feet soon. Just have to be a good patient. Take the drugs (where is that Advil bottle,) show up to my physical therapy appointment (and not call the office fifteen minutes after I was supposed to be there,) and no matter how tempted I am to go for a little jog, I have to wait.

Many of you also spent last night glued to the TV as the music divas walked the red carpet. Arm and arm with the tuxedo-bearing best voices of today at the Grammys. Not I. Hubs and I went on a last second date night. To do the one thing I can do right now. We went to the movies. 

Funny thing is, this was only the fourth movie we watched this weekend. Like a mini-vacation, we traveled to other worlds, four different places, without leaving the couch. Besides the last trip. We drove a few miles to the theater for the roller coaster finish.

Friday night, we started in Tim Burton’s animated world of Hotel Transylvania. And although the story was oh so predictable, we all enjoyed the humor-laced dialogue and the happy ending. Can’t have a family movie night and not end up with some warm fuzzies. 

Saturday afternoon, princess number four was out buying milk with her daddy, so the tweens and I sat down to watch A Walk To Remember. And this is one of my all time favorite love stories. Because it’s about young love, love between two very different teens, and love so deep, I cry myself an ocean as the concepts of commitment and sacrifice flourish on-screen and starry nights and butterfly kisses take on new meaning. 

Then, when the girls fall asleep that night, Hubs and I watch Denzel’s latest movie, Flight. After the first five minutes, when our eyes dart back and forth between the tv and the ceiling, the story takes us on the turbulent flight of addiction. Something Hubs and I have seen nearly destroy people close to us in real life. The two steps forward, three steps back journey of an alcoholic resonated with my own walk. I’m not that different from him, I thought as I watched him dump out every ounce of liquor within sight and then a day later, he’s sitting at a bar ordering a double shot of this and that. None of us are that different. And the first step to change is admitting who you are.  

Sunday night, Hubs called me up on his drive home from the nursing home to ask me out. Love when he’s spontaneous like that! So as soon as he drove up, we were off to, you’ll never guess… the movies. To see Daniel Day Lewis is possibly the performance of his lifetime as my favorite president in U.S. History. Lincoln.

And out of all the worlds we visited on our Movie Marathon weekend, the historical detour to the days of the American Civil War and Lincoln’s quest to pass the 13th amendment was my favorite. Maybe its my innate hunger for justice. Perhaps my love for the language in the movie, the dialogue written so brilliantly that if you didn’t focus, you could really miss eloquently conveyed details of the story. Or maybe it was simply that Spielberg found a way to portray Lincoln as a man. A father. A husband. And a hero.

I loved the scenes with his son riding on his back, his blow-outs with his wife, his story-telling ways with his cabinet, and his moments of silence. Just waiting for the right moment to answer. Because he came across as such a good listener. Presidential. Would be the perfect word. How I always imagined the President of the United States to be. And yet so human. Wow. Incredibly executed movie. And I cried nearly as much in the theater as I did when I knew Jamie in AWTR was dying of cancer. Because you know that the assassination is coming.

But I teared up for other reasons too. For the journey our country has travelled. For the progress we’ve made. For the road ahead, because we have not arrived by any means in the areas of racial justice and equality in America or in this world. And history is a beautiful thing, when you get to peek at it from the future. Like a tapestry, so majestic on the outside. But behind the picture, a mess of pain and heartache and lives lost and truths found. 

And in the end, that’s what I love most about movies. Great stories change me. Great lives lived, even more. Go to the movies when you get a chance. As a New Yorker, it sure beat fighting traffic, paying tolls, darting cabs and snow plows just to get away. Love the cinema. Yes, I do.

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Seen a good movie lately? Did your favorite band win a Grammy? If you could visit one period in history in my handy-dandy time machine, which decade would you venture to?