UP

That's the name of the movie.

Just UP.

Brilliantly conceived and created, this Pixar/Disney offering is completely worth ignoring the fact that it's animated, it's Disney and it's rated PG.

The dialog alone will take you through a full spectrum of emotions, but it's the silent segment near the beginning of the movie that will make you cry. Without giving too much away, let's just say that when I hold my hand out, my husband now takes it without looking....then we glance at one another and smile, because it's one of the best scenes in UP.

Okay, sappy to be imitating it, but it's the middle of winter and we're bored out of our skulls.

After you've watched the movie, don't miss the 20 minute mini movie showing how its makers set out on their own journey together, so that they might discover a deeper emotional and physical sense of the story. Their journey was half the fun of making UP, and I found myself thinking, well, what if I embarked on such a journey?

And that's the point.

What are the dreams that ignite an inner drive and keep our hearts from withering? Yes it's winter and we're bored silly, but so what? What are our winter dreams?

Snowshoeing, cross country skiing, finishing a beloved project or beginning one, ie. trying all the recipes in the original Moosewood Cookbook, reading all the Harry Potter books out loud to your family, watching every movie made by Hayao Miyazaki, gathering all your friends for a 24 hour marathon of Parcheesi...in other words, those "silly" things that cross our minds and would actually be lots of fun.

Those are just little things.

What about thinking bigger? What about going to Angel Falls in Venezuela?

What is it that we wait for? What dreams are shelved while we live our lives, each day assuming we are living to make those dreams come true, when in reality, life has a way of passing us by.

And before we know it, we are too old/too broke/too busy, too weighed down with responsibility, unable to take the journey to make our dream a reality.

And what, ultimately, becomes of us when a dream goes unrealized, when the call to the Hero's Journey goes unanswered?

As John Lennon once said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

January is a great time to contemplate the original dreams, to see how they have evolved over the years, and to see what has and has not been made manifest. January offers time to re-discover our heart's desire, to perhaps re-work the journey to acomodate our present tense, and to finally ask, how can I make this possible.

UP is about possibilities.