Graceful Parenting in Austin

August Rush makes me feel like hitting my head against a wall because that would be more fun.
I went to see August Rush with Blue Eyes and Noel the other day. The movie is about a young orphan who believes his parents really love him and want to be with him and he can find them by playing music they will hear.

How can I be against a young orphan finding his parents?

Well, for one thing, this really isn’t a movie, it is a really, really long music video.

For another thing, the movie uses lighting and background music to develop characters. You see this beautiful young woman under soft, warm lighting with sweet music playing? She must be a very kind with unbounded love and adoration for the son who she doesn’t know she has.

Did I mention the woman has a son that she doesn’t know she has? The story requires a lot of imagination and it isn’t for mythical creatures or special effects, but for believing what the regular humans say and do.

Was there nothing to like?

When I closed my eyes and listened to the music, it wasn’t so bad. I liked the blend of different styles - acoustic guitar, classical and rock-n-roll - with the styles mingling with each other during transitions. Music is separated and categorized by genre so much, it was interesting to hear the styles together and sense that they are more alike than different.

Why bang my head against a wall?

I thought about this one some more. I want to say that I HATE this movie, but I tell Noel that HATE is a strong word and to use it carefully because it is sad to go around hating a lot of every day kinds of things. (Why do the things we say to our kids remind us to be honest with ourselves?)

I realized I’m just so tired of seeing movies. When I was single I would see three or four movies a year and that was fine. Now that I’m married, I feel like I see a hundred thousand movies a year. On Sunday nights we are tired and want to relax so we watch a movie. During the week, on family night, we watch a movie. Then on the weekend, we want to do something fun so we watch a movie. In a typical month, we watch movies from our three Netflix queues, from cable on-demand, from Blockbuster and at the movie theater. Movies are a line-item in our budget, the same as gas and groceries.

So the banging the head isn’t about the movie so much, it is about the BIGGER thing, which is just how much do I have to compromise for my family? What about seeing music or going for a hike or browsing a bookstore? If I added all the times we’ve done those things during our four and a half years of being a family I end up with about three weeks worth of movies. (Noel is my step-daughter, Blue Eyes and I married when she was six.)

So, what about ME?

Which I find to be a great focus for the holidays.

It helps, though, to recognize the BIGGER thing and not walk around mad at August Rush. I thought about what I really wanted. I didn’t want to stop seeing movies. Blue Eyes and Noel have a tradition of watching movies that started long before they met me and I want to be a part of that. But, maybe I could ask them to modify our family traditions some.

I talked to Blue Eyes about trying some new things together as a family. He had some good points. That movies at home are easy when you have a baby who naps a lot at irregular times and it’s hard to find infant-friendly live music. Then he asked if that meant I didn’t want to see Bourne Supremecy, because Noel had just gone off to Blockbuster to get a copy. She was getting that movie in particular because they knew I wanted to see it.

I told Blue Eyes that renting the movie that I wanted to see was making it much harder to make my point that I don’t like movies.

So, after the holidays, we agreed to keep in mind other ideas for family nights, while keeping realistic, since we have a small baby.

And, maybe August Rush isn’t so bad after all. It reminded me that, in a world where there are orphans and families that can’t find each other, if all I have to complain about is seeing a bad movie now and then, then I’ve got it pretty good.

(See my review philosophy.)