A Lesson from Rent (the movie)

As I am finishing up some work for a client, I noticed that my roommate has put on our classic "go-to" movie: Rent. Believe it or not, musicals never really piqued my interest, so this one was never on the top of my list to see--or even rent for that matter (hah rent Rent). Nonetheless, a few months ago and after about two months of living in the heart of East Village (i.e. where this movie was set and filmed), my roommate talked me into sitting down and sucking it up for the hour and a half+ it would take to watch it.

Not only did it quickly climb up my list of favorite movies, though obviously not replacing Home Alone 2 as ALL TIME #1 FAVORITE duhh, but it found a special place in my heart, which I only came to realize tonight.

If you haven't seen it, I won't give too much away, so no worries. But just to give you a heads up on some common knowledge that I apparently missed the memo on--the whole 'characters having HIV' thing isn't just a coincidence...its more or less a main point of the movie (which also makes it seem like HIV is a lot more rampant in my neighborhood than I would suspect, but maybe not in the late 80's). Regardless, the movie has a number of pretty priceless insights and lessons to take away...but equally as important...it's a part of my New York City story (which I will save for another day).

But back to the lessons of Rent, which in this movie tend to be told with the accompaniment of a song :) One of my favorite lessons/songs in particular is "Another Day" in which Mimi, a 19 year old night club dancer with HIV and an addiction to heroin, offers this quote:
There's only us,
There's only this,
Forget regret,
Or life is yours to miss,
No other road,
No other way,
No day but today.

It's hard to take advice from someone with as little credibility as hers, however, there is something valuable there based on the fact that she, like many others with terminal illnesses, lives everyday differently than those who live blissfully unaware of their end-date. The irony here is that just because most of us don't have something specific that we can pinpoint as a potential culprit for why we will reach our final destination, we avoid the idea all together. We let days slip by without any outrageous story to tell about them. So, while this is nothing new, the fleetingness of life is worthy of being reminded of, and regularly. I am not delusional enough to think my rehashing of this subject, one common to the self-help section of Barnes & Noble and apparently AIDs life-groups, will change your life in the long haul, but I'd at least like to think that it made you determined to make today a little more of an outrage than it would have been otherwise.

CROOD Awakening #2: It is easy to forget that everyday has the potential to be your very own masterpiece, so use your daily canvass to create something beautiful because otherwise, the end will come and you'll have left nothing worth admiring.

Setting My Pace To Catch Up

I have forever been one to write with a pen and paper. I think my mother would agree that my first true love was school supplies, and to this day, I'll admit that the isles at Staples filled with lushes products by Paper Mate, 3M, and BIC give me butterflies in a way that Giorgio Armani, Karl Lagerfeld, and even my kindergarten sweetheart, John, never could. Even more ironic, most people think I'd be the type to have beautiful-loopy-girly handwriting...but I would liken it more so to that of a 6 year-old boy...

Nonetheless, I don't like electronic calendars, I don't write my To-Do list on my Blackberry, and my best papers in college were the ones scribbled on the back of scrap computer paper that I collected and subsequently lugged from my dorm room to apartment after apartment each year.

But now, I am officially committing to the digital world, just don't think I'm going without a little kicking and screaming--I'm keeping my To-Do list in the Archaic Age (for now at least)!

CROOD Awakening #1: Embracing change is necessary, but its important to do it at your own pace...just try to make it a pace that lands you near the front of the pack :)