40 days of my life in film

I avoid Lent. 

This is my 7th grade self remembering what I was told about Lent:

Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days to fast and pray, so we do it too.  He didn't have fun, so we don't have fun. 

It's the forty days before Easter.  There are roughly twenty five days of Advent before Christmas but we need forty to get to Lent. The wait is much slower.  With Advent you add on and get psyched, with Lent you reflect and let go.

OK...maybe Lent is longer than Advent because you need more time to take a really good look at yourself?

I got my ashes tonight.  The last time I went to an Ash Wednesday service was 2004-I had one little baby I could hold through the service.  I really needed a new set of ashes.  I haven't washed the dust off my forehead yet tonight.  I still have the dust.

I'm not big on housework, but I like to dust. Dust is annoying.  You open the blinds or turn on the lights and there it is. You want to get rid of it.  It makes the place ugly.  Everyone is sneezing. Your high and mighty neat freak friends and neighbors are judging.  The goal is to get rid of the dust quickly, but this Ash Wednesday dust is supposed to be thought about for forty days.

So here is my "Lent Epiphany":

I need to take a really good look at myself.

There is only one angle to take on this-film.

I like movies and I always have.  I have lost and gained friends over films. I want to tell forty stories about my life with the help of 40 films. It isn't just the movie-it's who you were with and where you were in your life when you saw it. It's the coffee you drank afterwards.  Most happened in a movie theater, but I'll share on a couple of trips to the video store because 1) those stores don't quite exist anymore and 2) the incidents were pretty funny and typical Page situations.  I hope this works.  It does in my notebook.  Maybe you will remember seeing a film for the first time, or maybe you won't. Maybe you will cue something new on your Netflix account. Maybe you will skip over to someone else's blog.  Whatever.

Here is to growing, and reflecting, and starting a new life in Easter...

but to start a new life, you have to  dust off the old one!