Lessons from a favourite film ...

After a walk in the brisk winter cold this morning, I decided this afternoon was a good time to put on a movie and just relax ... My movie of choice was one of my all time favourites: Cinema Paradiso.

Since I first saw the film at Princess Court Cinema in Kingston Ontario during my University Days, I have loved the movie and the story it tells ... It is simply enchanting.

But today after the journey I've been on over the last few months I found it offering me new lessons that I had missed before ... The old man, Alfredo repeatedly offers young Toto or Salvatore words of wisdom that ultimately came from the many movies he had watched as operator of the projector at the Cinema in a small Italian town ... the scene that touched me today came when the now grown Toto has come home and Alfredo sends hin away and tells him to never come back ...

Alfredo: Each of us has a start to follow. ... Get out of here. This land is' impossible. Living here day after day, you think this is the centre of the world. You believe nothing will ever change. Then you leave. One year, two years. When you come back everything's changed. The thread's been broken. What you came to find isn't there. What was yours is gone. You have to go aways a long time, many long years befor eyou can find your chance ... This land's ... not home. Here, nothing is possible. Right now, you're blinder than me ... Life isn't like in the movies ... Real life is much harder."

Alfredo then sends Toto away. Tells him to go and never look back. He doesn't want to hear Toto talking any more, instead he wants to hear people talking about Toto ...

This scene resonated within me today ... We can lament what once was, we can forever chase ghosts, we can seek nostalgia ... Or we can move forward into tomorrow. Perhaps all of us need an Alfredo in our life who have the courage and the love to drive us out into a new land and send us on a journey ...

Life isn't like in the movies ... but there is no reason why it has to be so hard ... we can define our reality by learning lessons from our past ...