Slept without any alarm set last night, I was so pooped from lack of sleep the night before. Puttered around and got some breakfast, stopped to see Mom and went off to a movie.

I suppose Man of Steel was the first Oscar hopeful for the year but meh, it wasn’t much to write about, more like something to yell about.

This film, Fill the Void left me scratching my head and I’ll ponder the story for awhile I guess. The filming of it was beautiful though and I will give it a few bonus points for clear audio. Nothing sounded mumbled, even given that there were sub-titles to support the Hebrew dialogue. There was an interesting choice of music outside of ritual-related music and that choice was repeated at the end. It was this bit of psalm 137:

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget [its skill].
May my tongue cling to my palate, if I do not remember you…

Having looked it up, I see the commentary by Rashi:

If I do not bring up Jerusalem: The remembrance of the mourning of its destruction I shall bring up to mention at the head of every joyous occasion of mine.

which of course goes to that melding of sorrow and joy at many occasions. Sometimes this is ritual – the pouring out of a bit of water, or the breaking of a glass – and sometimes it is personal and what we each go through in our lives.

When I was most drawn into the film’s story and wondering about the approach and retreat going on, I thought Shira, the main character, had not been given a chance to mourn her sister enough and so did not have distance enough to make a decision one way or another. At the end she is able to ask for strength from God, help and support from her mother and made her own choice. In the end, she remained innocent but moving forward in her life as part of this very traditional culture.

I left the movie bound for a farewell gathering for a co-worker and as I headed north on I-787 suddenly on the road there was a huge construction barrel/barrier thingee. I had that moment to see if there was anyone alongside me (me being in the middle lane). There wasn’t. I swerved. I heard something and I saw the car behind me suddenly in the left lane (as I went back into the middle lane).

A little further down the road there was shoulder wide enough to pull off so I did and that car did too. I really could not tell – had I hit him, had he clipped me? A nice young man got out and asked if I was all right. Oh yes – and they were too. Did I hit your car, I asked. Oh no, he said. Saw you swerve and saw what you were avoiding but I hit it.

So we looked at his father-in-law’s big SUV and the bottom edge of the bumper was loose on the passenger side but it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. So we agreed that this was way more excitement than we needed for the day and that we were glad we were all ok and we went on our way. Whew.

I honestly could not have told you where that barrel came from – probably it had been concealed from view by a car in front of me. By the time we got past it it was all the way to the right hand shoulder of the road. Whew. Thank you FIAT for your nimbleness!