Happy Thank You More Please

So yeah, remember how I was just talking about random? Well, if you don't, you can always check out the previous blog entry. Anyway...

Late (ish) last night I found myself in the that loose end kind of way where you really don't want to go home, because there's nothing there you really want or need to do. But it's kind of too late to really do anything (well...at least when you're a 40ish mom I guess) and it was really beautiful out last night too - well right now, pretty much always March, is always beautiful in Phoenix anyway, but I/it just had that great feeling of - you know, where you feel kind of like infinite and anyway...I'm probably not describing it very well, but it was just one of those kind of nights.

So I aimlessly drove around for a bit. I haunted a few closed gallery windows in Scottsdale. Sometimes I like to do that - just look at the inside of the galleries when they're closed and see what you can see, what they look like from the street, that sort of thing. Just wandered for a while. I wasn't particularly anything. I wasn't unhappy really. But I wasn't real happy either. I just was.

And then I decided to see this movie that I , and for all I knew, had the potential to be completely awful. Which as I've mentioned before, is the genius of going to movies by yourself. No one can get irritated that you wasted their time or money if they don't like the movie you see. And there's another genius aspect to it as well, but I'll get to that in a minute.

Anyway, mainly, I saw this movie because 1. it was starting soon(ish) and 2. It had this bizarre title. "Happythankyoumoreplease" and yes, I meant to type that without spaces. And it sort of humored me, the way Camelview 5 theatre had tried to fit that on the marquee. I don't know. It called to me - it beckoned me in the warm Scottsdale evening air and so, I said "yes".

Probably my favorite movie ever. I mean maybe. That's a big thing to say, so I probably have to sit with it a little while before I can say that. I mean already, now that I've said that, I'm like "Well wait...what about "Amelie"? And wait...what about John Cusack and your ultimate loyalty for all things Lloyd Dobler? And wait...what about "The Graduate"? Can anything ever really beat that?" So you know, I may being a bit rash. But still. It was a seriously awesome film.

And it randomly found me. And it did all of the following:

1. It made me really really really happy

2. It made me feel good about...well, pretty much everything and everyone

3. It gave me hope in the best possible way

4. It made me think about all the philosophy I've been trying to absorb for months now and it somehow managed to sort of encapsulate it in this nice little package which is really the title of the film anyway.

Which means what? Well, I don't want to give you this whole lay out of the plot of the film. Because it sort of cheapens it I think. I mean you can say it's kind of about relationships but it really kind of isn't. And you could say it's about people coming together, but that's not even really it. Or you could say it's about basic goodness, but that's not totally true in and of itself.

(and here is the other genius of going by yourself - what if the person you go with doesn't actually hate the movie, but you LOVE and ADORE the movie and they don't. Or they don't get out of it, what you just got out of it? That's almost just as bad. Sometimes that makes you re-think friendships, relationships and can really make you questions some basic aspects of people and who they are...and who wants to get into all of that just because you don't agree on how great a movie was or wasn't?)

But the title is explained in the film where one character says that she is told by a cab driver that the universe wants her to have bliss and she needs to be more grateful. And she says "how do I do that?" and he says "you just need to say 'thank you'" And she says "that's it?" And he says "yes, and then you need to say "more please".

A long while ago someone I admired suggested when we pray, maybe we get it all wrong. Maybe we should start out not by saying this sort of vain repetitious "thank for our blessings a, b, c & d, and could I have 1, 2, 3 or 4?" but instead to just say "thank you for granting me what I need" before you get it. Because that's faith. Faith is believing that you're going to get what you really need, before you even get it. And fear is the opposite of faith. And so you let go of that worry and fear and you just try to live in that faith.

It's not easy to do that every day. Not when it seems like so many things are not going the way you planned or wanted to asked or at least not the way you thought you asked.

Sometimes, it's really really hard.

But the idea...

Happy

Thank You

More Please

Is really beautiful.