Cinema Paradiso
The movie theater is a transformative, magical place that rips you from your life and thrusts you headlong into magic, horror or a state of imaginative dance, once that projector starts. My father loved movies. I remember how he would play them over and over at home. I remember relentlessly trying to get him to stay and watch a whole flick, which, in contrast to the way he drank in movies of his own choosing, was utterly confusing. There was the moment my brother almost choked to death on a Milk Dud and a swift slap on the back dislodged the caramel cork from his throat. He would always point out the architecture of the nicer movie houses, and inevitably force us to stay through the credits, long before the post-movie easter egg existed as a fad. Sometimes, we’d go to a movie theater and he would duck out to go argue with his girlfriend. Or have a smoke. He took us to movies that were inappropriate and sometimes intellectually beyond us, but I still miss our time in those theaters sitting in the silent darkness of a story.
Watching movies in a theater with my son has become one of my favorite ways to pass the time. He sits in his own seat at first but, after a time, he always slinks over and perches himself on my lap so that I become his human Lay-Z-Boy chair. When I place my hands over his heart I can feel it speed up during moments of on-screen tension and slow down when he sits in awe of what he sees. As the credits roll and we re-renter the atmosphere of reality, it hits me that I won’t always get to have this experience. He better get used to unabashed levels of affection. It’s the only way I can fight against time slipping away. To hold on tighter.
Bex says: 
Dave 
Zach 
Jess 
