to howl

Where the Wild Things Are is the best movie I saw in 2009. It's incredibly cathartic - I get choked up just thinking about the sense of longing that permeates the movie. As practically my sole employment has been with children for the past three years, there's a whole other level to my involvement with the film - I have allowed myself to be pretty vulnerable to the kids I babysit. I'm able to be hurt by them. I respect them. I've learned their limits, their resilience; I've seen them take terrible falls & rise unscathed, I've seen splinters reduce them to weeping. I've let them eat too much or too little, I've made them go to bed, I've let them stay up late. I've read them books. They've hit me with books. We have run together to an urban field with nothing to play with but imagination. We've collected rocks. We've collected potato bugs. We have drawn monsters in chalk through alleyways. We have sung at the top of our lungs. They have told me to leave. They have told their mothers to leave. They have kissed me suddenly on the mouth. I don't know how I started taking care of children, or why they like me, or if I'll ever have any of my own. Okay, okay, but hey, as my ex-boyfriend recently wrote to me, "enough with these dramatics!" Who cares if I have kids or not! This movie is great and so is the soundtrack! Oh, and p.s., I like how you destroy stuff.