One night, my family asked if I wanted to go to the movies. They told me it was a story, like on TV, but on a huge screen, with big speakers, and there was popcorn and coke. I said I'd go!
The movie theater was huge! And there were bunches of different ones all in the same building! It wasn't as big as Yosemite, but it seemed close.
We were going to see The Fault In Our Stars. Now, I'm a little monkey, but I think stars are awesome. If you go out on a really dark night, you can see bazillions of them. There are more than I can even count! I don't really see what the fault in them is. But I guessed the movie would tell me.
Oh my, was there popcorn and coke! I guess in a ginormous building, there has to be ginormous popcorn and ginormous drinks. And the liquid gold they put on the popcorn was amazing!
Then, there were previews. Previews are lots of parts of stories. I want to see a whole story, so I thought they were kinda long and frustrating. I wanted to see the movie!!
Then it started. It was about a girl and a boy. They both had cancer, and went to a support group. They got to be really close, and really talked about what it means to be alive, and to love. We got to see some of what it was like for their moms and dads and friends.
I think it would be hard to love someone who you know is going to die. But I guess we are all going to die someday... There's just something about this cancer business. We go into this world, assuming that everyone gets to be healthy until a ripe old age, and then after living a full life, will drift off into a permanent sleep. Just the fact that we can't live forever ought to make us treasure the moments we do have. Yet so often, we take for granted the years we will have, the people in our lives, and our bodies! I'm a monkey who hasn't really gotten hurt yet, but I've seen enough that I don't want to!
I guess the point is that we have very little and a lot of choice in what comes our way. The universe is huge and there are infinite possibilities... I could have been an elephant or a hedgehog or a fish, but I a monkey. That decided some things for me. But what is choose to do with my monkey body, how I spend my time, who I choose to care about, what risks I take, those choices are up to what the universe places in my path, and what I choose to see.
"The real heroes aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people noticing things, paying attention. The guy who invented smallpox didn't actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox."
Sometimes I think I miss things. I don't notice when people are happy or sad, nice or mean. I'm just thinking about motorcycles and adventures and making mail and being famous. It's a lot of thoughts for a monkey brain. But I'm going to try. I want to be a monkey who not only does things, but notices things, and shares them with people I love.
I'm glad I saw this movie and thought about love and life and the stars, and ate the giant popcorn and spent time with my family. I hope the next adventure makes me think so much!
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