Don't Fall Off

Since Friday, I have been at home with sick kids. It is okay. Though I hate when they are miserable, I find that our entire family takes a big, deep breath. We find ourselves coloring, resting and mostly, watching movies like crazy.

Several years ago when Davis was just five years old, a friend of ours recommended the movie Fly Away Home. It is such a great movie and family friendly, aside from the use of the "s--t" word once. It is based on the true story of Bill Lishman, a canadian, who with the help of Joe Duff and Dr. William Sladen, proved that wild fowl (geese) can be taught new, safer migration routes. He proves that "migration is not actually instinctive...it has been passed on from one generation to the next."

Now the movie, takes some liberties and creates a story around Mr. Lishman's experiment. The movie tells the story of Amy, a young girl, (played by Anna Paquin) who, after her mother dies, moves to Canada to live with her father. She comes across 16 goose eggs, displaced when the woodlands around her family home are bulldozed for a commercial development. Amy's story and the story of these geese is inspiring. We shared this movie with our daughters this weekend and I can say we watched it seven times from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening - and though I did not sit through each showing, I found myself stopping and then sitting down, again, often.

The only reason we would stop Fly Away Home and not start it again, was to watch Secretariat. I saw this for the first time on a snow day in January. My kids had seen it in the theater with their grandparents. If you have not seen this one, I highly recommend it. Again, a film based on a true story - Secretariat - the greatest race horse ever. We have watched it four times since Monday morning.

Tonight at dinner, we were discussing, of course, our favorite lines or parts of the movie. And though there are several great parts, my favorite line takes place during the running of the Belmont, the third race of the Triple Crown. As Secretariat makes his way down the final stretch, Lucian Lauren, the trainer, yells from the stands, "Ronny, Don't Fall Off!" My kids agreed, that part is great.

And as I sat here this evening thinking about work, home, etc. It really spoke to me. I have felt for the last few months as if I am approaching a ... crossroad (for lack of a better term). And as I was making a mental list of things I wanted to be thinking of or doing in the next few weeks/months, etc., all I could hear was Lucian Lauren yelling, "Don't Fall Off!"

That is the plan.