Time for a little romance

Spring is under way.  Birds are singing, bees are buzzing, and love is in the air.  Which seems like a good excuse to write about rom-coms.  It’s easy to be uppity about rom-coms.  They’re arguably the most formulaic of screenplays and generally tend to follow the format of boy meets girl, boy gets girl, girl and boy fall out, girl and/or boy must learn an important life lesson in order for true love to triumph.  All sounds dead simple, but the writing a good one, which is say one that’s fresh and original, has the right balance of light and shade and is as light as freshly baked choux bun, is a very hard trick to pull off.

So anyway – here are my personal favourites.  And hats off to all the brilliant writers!

The Philadelphia Story, 1940 – written by Donald Ogden Stewart, directed by George Cukor

James Stewart won an Oscar for playing ‘Mike’ Macauley Connor, but the stand-out performance for me is the inimitable Katherine Hepburn in the role of Tracy Lord, a New England socialite with unrealistically high expectations both of herself and her men.  Add Cary Grant at his most debonair, and a script which sparkles with witty one-liners and you have a movie that’s not only romantic and funny, but also definitely for grown-ups.

The African Queen, 1951 – written and directed by John Huston

Hepburn again, this time doing verbal battle with Humphrey Bogart as she tries to convince him that it would be a good idea to turn a clapped out old tramp steamer into a lethal weapon, with which to blow up the Germans she holds responsible for the death of her brother.   Much of the film was famously shot in technicolour on location in Uganda – a testing experience for all involved.  The original African Queen was fully restored in 2012 and is now on display in a museum in Florida.

Roman Holiday, 1953 – written by John Dighton and Dalton Trumbo, directed by William Wyler

 

Could this be the best-looking film of all time?  Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn enjoy a romantic dalliance while scooting around the fabulous city of Rome on a vespa.  This was Audrey Hepburn’s first major role; she went on to win an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA – the first ever actress to net all three awards for the same performance.   As rom-coms go, it’s one of the sweetest ever made.

 Some Like it Hot, 1959 – written by IAL Diamond, directed by Billy Wilder

 

If I had an all-time favourite movie, this might be it.  Marilyn Monroe at her most luminous as a ditsy banjo player intent on catching herself a millionaire, and Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis competing for her affections but unable to declare themselves because they’re both disguised as women and on the run from the mob.  To top it all, when Lemmon finally reveals to his ‘fiance’ that they can’t get married because he too is a man, he gets perhaps the most famous riposte in film history – “well nobody’s perfect!”  The film however, pretty much is.

When Harry Met Sally, 1989.  Written by Nora Ephron, directed by Rob Reiner

 

Can men and women ever just be friends?   Most of the film consists of Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal debating this question – and repeatedly coming up against their very different views on sex and relationships.  For the audience, however, it’s pretty clear they’re made for each other from the outset, when they sit down to supper in a diner on the road from Chicago to New York.  This is the first movie that Nora Ephron both wrote and produced and it put her firmly on the path to becoming the queen of the modern, sassy rom-com.  It did Meg Ryan no harm either.

 Four Weddings and Funeral, 1994.  Written by Richard Curtis, directed by Mike Newell

 

The first and for my money, still the best of Richard Curtis’s movies, it’s a film that captures perfectly that stage in life when everyone seems to be getting married and you wonder if it’ll ever happen to you.  My sister got married in the chapel at Greenwich naval college the following year, which was used as the location for the first of the four weddings.  The film also brought Kristen Scott-Thomas to international prominence, which has to have been a good thing!

 Groundhog Day, 1993.  Written by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis, directed by Harold Ramis.

 

While most rom-coms tend to foreground the romance, over the comedy, this one does the opposite – with hilarious results.  From a writing perspective it pulls off an extraordinary trick – having a character literally doing the same thing day after day, but still managing to keep the whole thing surprising and briskly paced.  If you ever wanted proof that rom coms can also be highly original, this is it.  And of course it helps that this gem also stars Bill Murray at his deadpan best.

 Overboard, 1987.  Written by Leslie Dixon, directed by Garry Marshall.

 

Although not universally acclaimed, I’ve always had a soft spot for this one.  The whole thing is very good natured, and real-life husband and wife, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, bring charisma and a huge amount of genuine personal chemistry to the mix.  Throw in a bunch of adorable kids and it hits all the right feel-good buttons.   I also really like the way the writer creates characters whose weaknesses turn out to be real strengths, while remaining completely true to themselves.

 Pride and Prejudice, 2005. Written by Deborah Moggach, directed by Joe Wright.

 

An argument could definitely be made for Jane Austen as the originator of the female-driven rom-com.  The aim of this version was to bring Austen’s very well-known story up-to-date by casting young, relatively unknown leads and giving a very – indeed often literally – down-to-earth portrait of Austen’s England.  However you dress it up, there’s something completely irresistible about the story of Lizzie Bennet, who defies her parents and insists on a marriage of equals based on genuine love and respect, rather than status or money.

 Silver Linings Playbook, 2012.  Written and directed by David O. Russell

 

If further proof were needed that even today, it’s still possible to come up with a fresh take on the rom-com, this is it.   David O. Russell’s edgy script explores how it’s often only our own neuroses that stand in the way of true love.  If a terrific script weren’t enough, two hours in the company of Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence is an added bonus.  It’s not surprising that Jennifer Lawrence won an acting Oscar for her performance here and Bradley Cooper is genuinely moving.  Comedy is supplied by his football-obsessed dad, played by Robert de Niro and Jacki Weaver as his sharp-tongued mother.  Oh and it also has some pretty impressive dance scenes too!

So that’s it – my top ten rom-coms. Any other suggestions?

Oscars 2015: Birdman soars, but Imitation Game moves

London, Hollywood assesses the Oscars

London, Hollywood

Eddie Redmayne at the 2015 Oscars, where he won best Actor

After months of jockeying for position, the Oscars had settled down to being a two-horse race between the two “B” movies, Boyhood and Birdman. The Globes gave no clue, since they split Best Picture into Comedy and Drama and honoured both films. Last night at the Academy Awards, Birdman emerged as the big winner with four of the big ones: best picture, director, original screenplay and cinematography.

Boyhood had to make do with best supporting actress, which was no mean feat given that Meryl Streep was nominated in that category. Meryl took defeat more than graciously. When Patricia Arquette gave a speech thumping the tub for gender equality and equal pay for women (the hacked Sony emails having showed how culpable Hollywood was in this regard), Meryl whooped, pointed at the stage, and shouted “Yes! Yes! Yes!” like…

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Lazy Sunday

Occasionally, it’s nice to wake up with nothing in particular planned for the day.  It doesn’t happen very often, but every once in a while, I have the luxury of not having to jump up out of bed the moment the alarm goes off and can instead laze under the duvet with a mug of coffee and a good book.

Lev Tolstoy in 1908

I recently decided to revisit War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy, which I first read when I was at university ie a fair few years ago!   It’s hard to imagine anyone publishing a novel of that length these days; I expect most modern editors would be itching to cut huge chunks out of the book.  There are whole chapters dedicated to relatively minor characters and pages and pages of Tolstoy’s philosophising about the nature of history and the role played by great men.   And yet taken together, all these things are an essential part of the whole.  They’re what make it feel real.

In the chapter I read last, Tolstoy describes how an officer, Prince Nezvitsky, is pinned up against the railings of a bridge as a whole company of soldiers swarm across it.   Although Nezvitsky is a completely minor character, Tolstoy nevertheless treats us to his thoughts about the river flowing around the piles of the bridge, snatches of conversation he half-hears, his feelings and anxieties about the battle ahead.

For a short while, the reader is plunged into Nezvitsky’s world, and can identify with him completely, so that we too are trapped on the bridge, can hear the water roaring below, mud spattering and shouts and sweat of the oncoming troops.  We too feel Nezvitsky’s relief when a fellow officer helps him break free.

This is what Tolstoy does so brilliantly – he creates an immersive world so full of the detail of actual lives that the reader cannot help but feel a part of it.   There’s something very visual, almost cinematic, about the way the whole panorama unfolds as before our eyes.

 

What a novel allows, however, as film rarely can, is insight into the characters’ thoughts and feelings.   Tolstoy – by all accounts pig-headed and frequently insensitive in real life – nevertheless has an uncanny, almost magical knack for describing the deepest and darkest corners of the human heart.

He creates rich, complex, distinctive and very fallible characters, who cannot be other than the way they are.  Thus it makes perfect sense that Natasha Rostova, a younger member of a large boisterous family and the child of warmly generous, spendthrift parents, should be impetuous, passionate, unguarded and completely charming.   Or that Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a fabulously rich but distant father, should be insecure, clumsy, earnest, and shy.    Or that Prince Andrei, the motherless son of a pedantic and exacting father, should be arrogant and ambitious.

Audrey Hepburn in the 1956 film of War and Peace

No doubt, many people find the sheer length War and Peace off-putting, but it isn’t a difficult book to read; Tolstoy’s style is wonderfully clear and accessible.   And knowing you’ll be spending a good few hours in the company of his wonderful characters only makes it seem better.

Letting Go of Your Baby

Although it’s still only February a whole load of green shoots are beginning to poke through the earth, promising that spring will soon be here.  At this time of year, I begin to get really fed up with the cold and damp and start longing for the weather to warm up a bit.

Cheery crocuses and anemones are the first signs that things are changing.  However my favourite winter blossom belongs to the Christmas Box.  I love it not for its flowers, which are pretty plain and uninteresting, but for its fabulous perfume, which fills the air outside my front door at this time of year and always seems to promise wonderful warm days to come.

Other exciting things have been afoot, not least the filming of my short screenplay.  It’s a comedy – not a particularly sophisticated one, I have to admit – about a young photographer who finds himself saddled with the flat-mate from hell, and after being driven to his wits’ end, comes up with a very novel way to get rid of his tormentor.  It’s a situation many, many people can identify with, so I’m hoping that will give it some fairly universal appeal.

The process of the filming itself is a lot less glamorous than you might imagine and involves endless repetitions of the same lines and scenes from different angles and viewpoints.  As the writer, it’s quite hard to get a sense of how it will look once it’s finished.  It all seems very disjointed at this stage, but the director seems pleased with how it’s shaping up and clearly has his own plan for it.

While I was writing it, I had a very clear image in my head of what the characters were like, what the settings would be like and how it would all play out.  What is very clear as we make it, is that the director has a completely different mental image of the story and so do the actors.   And then you have to take account of what’s practically possible to film with the resources and locations we have.

What will emerge will be a synthesis of all these things – our different thoughts and ideas about the story, modified by what we can actually get down on tape.   With any luck, a bit of magic will happen that will transform it from being a series of mental images existing only in the imaginations of those who’ve read the script into something richer and more interesting than any one of those involved had conceived of.

Screenwriting, more than any other form of writing, is a collaborative process; the articulation of a shared vision for the film is essential to bringing the project to life.  As the writer of a film, you have to be prepared to let your baby go, and let others get fully involved in shaping it and making it as much theirs as it ever was yours.  It can be hard at times and the annals of film-making are full of stories about writers who were no longer allowed to work on their own films.

Personally, I really enjoy that collaborative creative process.  I like the idea of making something that’s more than any one person could produce.  Yet as the writer, you also have the satisfaction of knowing it all started with you, and your idea.  Without that, there would have been nothing.

Happy Birthday, Mr Burns!

Tonight is, of course, Burns night, and we’re looking forward to steaming our haggis and bashing our neeps and tatties and raising a glass to Scotland’s national poet.   A few years back, Robert Burns was voted the greatest Scotsman of all time and I find it deeply heartening that that honour has gone to a poet, and not a warrior or politician.

Here are a few words from the great man himself …

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,

That’s newly sprung in June:

O my Luve’s like the melodie,

That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry , my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve !

And fare-thee-weel, a while!

And I will come again, my Luve,

Tho’ ’twere ten thousand mile!

Many happy returns Robbie, and thank you for all the pleasure your wonderful poetry has brought.

Repression art

This is definitely worth a read…

Standing Ovation, Seated

Wars have inspired many artists throughout the centuries to come up with art glorifying the victors or lamenting losses, or thinking of the ways wars make people stop being human. We talked about it here, in the War Art post.

Surprisingly, repressions against a country’s own people have largely failed to produce anything that would be similarly impressive. I can understand why. First, killing or imprisoning your own people for entertaining ideas the boss doesn’t approve of is a relatively new concept. Second, artists who have enough strength of spirit to come up with such art are usually repressed first. Unless, of course, they join the other side, but even that does not guarantee their safety.

Repression art done by the descendants of the repressed often turns out to be a trite repetition of the kind of war art that talks about the plight of the defeated, with truly unique insights…

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Laughter and Tears – Birdman and Whiplash

There aren’t many films that are genuinely laugh out loud funny, but I have to say that Birdman, starring Michael Keaton, is one of them, although the humour is pretty dark at times.  The film tells the story of washed up Hollywood “superhero”, Riggan Thomson’s attempt to relaunch his career as a serious stage actor by putting on a play based on Raymond Carver’s short story, What We Talk About, When We Talk About Love.

Michael Keaton squares up to Edward Norton in Birdman

Not surprisingly, one disaster strikes after another.   On the night before the previews open, one cast member, admittedly one Riggan is desperate to get rid of, is injured by a falling light.  As a replacement, Riggan’s manager and the show’s producer, hires renowned Broadway method actor, Mike Shiner.  Shiner is played hilariously by Edward Norton as monstrously conceited thesp, so dependent on an audience for self-validation that he can only get it up in front of a packed theatre.  Needless to say, Shiner loses no time in trying to upstage Riggan at every opportunity.  Add to the mix Riggan’s neurotic, much younger girlfriend, his ex-wife, his recovering addict daughter and a diabolically bitchy theatre critic with the power to make or break any theatre production staged in New York and you have the perfect recipe for black comedy.

Yet despite all that, there’s a warm undercurrent to the film.  Throughout Riggan’s trials, his cinematic alter ego, the eponymous Birdman, berates and upbraids him.   But although Riggan seems to have retained a number of Birdman’s supernatural powers including the ability to levitate, move objects using his mind alone and fly unaided above the streets of New York, his chief preoccupations remain deeply parochial.

The film explores the idea that as successful we might appear to be, we remain beset with the same commonplace anxieties – are we loved, what’s our place in the world, have we been successful?    Riggan might have had a stellar career in Hollywood, but he remains deeply insecure.  Years of impersonating Birdman to do nothing to save him from himself.

By contrast, Whiplash, written and directed by Damien Chazelle, is anything but a comedy.  Young drummer, Andrew Neiman – played by Miles Teller – is a student at an elite music school.  Andrew is determined to take his place among the jazz greats alongside Buddy Rich and Charlie Parker, but at what cost?  Neiman finds himself up against Terrence Fletcher, the sadistic leader of the school’s jazz band, who refuses to countenance anything other than total perfection.

Miles Teller and JK Simmons in Whiplash

In order to weed out the men from the boys, Fletcher, played by JK Simmons, resorts to cruel mind-games, excoriating verbal abuse and physical violence.  The result is a desperate duel, in which Fletcher pushes Andrew through blood, sweat and tears to the edge of insanity and beyond.   However Andrew is not a quitter and through the conflict, he gradually gains the mastery that will enable him to match and surpass his tormentor and earn his grudging respect.

The film explores a number of interesting ideas around what it is that enables an artist to stand apart from the crowd and become extraordinary and whether those that take that path pay too high a price for their success.    While there are abiding popular myths about those born to be geniuses, the reality is that greatness is almost invariably very hard won indeed.

Begin Again

It’s been a sombre start to the year, with the loss of the AirAsia plane on 28^th December and the horrific news from Paris yesterday.   Somehow when the clock strikes midnight on the 31^st December, there’s always the hope that the New Year will somehow magically usher in a change for the better, but of course that’s rarely the case.   In some ways, New Year is only an arbitrary marker in the endless continuum of time, and yet we seem to have a strong need to draw a line under the past at regular intervals and give ourselves permission to start afresh with renewed optimism and purpose.

A fresh start or same old, same old…?

I have to confess that I didn’t write as much as I would have liked last year – a few short stories and a few short screenplays is all I managed to get down.  Starting a new job in the summer didn’t help, and it’s taken me a while to adjust and still find time to write along with work and family commitments.   So I aim to be much more productive this year, and much more disciplined too.  I have plans for a new feature script, and am determined to try and complete it over the next few months.

One boost is that a director has taken on one of my short scripts – a comedy about a flat-share that goes wrong – and with any luck, it will be produced and filmed over the next couple of months too.  I have to say that the prospect of one of my stories actually appearing on screen – or at least youtube – is vastly exciting and it’s also encouraged me to think getting some of my other story ideas actually down on paper.   I have a whole list of them…

While I enjoy writing, especially when it’s going well, I find the whole marketing side of it really hard.  It goes against the grain to talk much about myself or my writing.  Part of me just wants it to be miraculously discovered, but of course without me actively trying to promote my work, this is about as likely as seeing a flock of pigs sailing overhead.

Deserving winner of the Costa newcomer award

What sticks in the mind is a comment from the winner of the Costa Book award for best newcomer, Emma Healey, who said that she rarely spoke about her writing while she was working on her debut novel, ‘Elizabeth is Missing’, because it was kind of embarrassing admitting to being an aspiring writer.  I have every sympathy for such sentiments!   So I guess my main resolution for this year is to be more confident about myself as a writer, but to make sure I put in the hours too.  Wish me luck!

A Child is Born – a Christmas story

A child is born.

A child is born in snow and squalor in a makeshift tent in Arsal in the Bekaa Valley. The tent is constructed from plastic sheeting and splintered wooden pallets. The floor is made of flattened cardboard boxes laid over a morass of black, squelching mud and raw sewage. As the mother labours, the door-flap is torn open by the wind and gusts of needle-sharp sleet barrel around the tent, snatching away her moans. Oblivious, she grips the midwife’s hand and pushes with all her might. The lamp goes out; as the father fumbles for his lighter, the baby’s first wail is heard above the buffeting of the gale. A son. Al hamdu lillah!

A child is born in the Holy Land. A land of rare beauty, the hillsides are fragrant with thyme; in summer apricots, almonds and olives bend the branches of the trees down to the ground. They say the earth here was made fertile by the blood spilt by succeeding generations of invaders and insurgents. This is where history began, where faith and dreams collide with cold, hard facts on the ground. A promise was made here, but to whom?

The child’s father is Samir. This is not his native land; he was born in Aleppo across the border in Syria. Until the war came, life was good for Samir. Talkative, good-natured, clever with his hands, he had high hopes of taking over the car repair shop on the corner, when his Uncle Faruq finally hung up his spanners for good. The repair shop no longer exists, and neither does Uncle Faruq. Also numbered among the dead are Samir’s father, Ziad, and his brother, Rifat. Another brother is somewhere with the rebels; his sister, Fatmeh, is alone in Turkey with three children under six and no husband.

This time last year, the family was still together and Samir was celebrating his wedding. Childhood sweethearts, he’d known Zohra from when they first started at school. She lived in an apartment across the street and they used to walk home together, dawdling in the park or hanging around Ali’s cake shop in the hope of cadging some chewing gum or a sweet, sticky mouthful of homemade baklawa. Now only Samir’s mother is left among the ruins of Aleppo.

A child is born into a world of strife. Be that as it may, for now at least, the baby has no allegiance save to himself. From time to time, Zohra pours out her grief and anguish. “Those animals! If they were here now, I’d gouge out their eyes and tear the limbs from their bodies! May they never have a second’s peace! May they die writhing in unbearable agony! May their children fall ill with horrible diseases and perish before their eyes!” Samir feels for her in her impotence and rage. His people have long endured prejudice and disadvantage, but for all that, he’s no soldier. He’s listened to the hot-heads calling for blood and vengeance and holy war, but in truth, he has no desire to swap one tyranny for another. He has no desire to wage war on his neighbours. All he wants is a quiet life. All he wants is to look after Zohra and the baby.

A child is born into a cold and timeless universe. A tiny scrap of humanity, he is helpless and wholly destructible, just one of thousands of children in this camp alone. Not even his birth is unique in this godforsaken place on this bitter December night. Many kids are still wearing sandals. Most lack winter hats and coats. None is at school. They make the best of it as children do, fashioning a football from string and a discarded piece of sack-cloth. On his way to the distribution tent, Samir pauses to join in the game and for a moment is himself a child again, jubilant as the ball sails over the keeper’s head and lands between the pebbles that stand in for goalposts. He marvels at the resilience of these kids, at their unconquerable capacity for joy.

The aid agencies are stretched to breaking point; the scale of human need is beyond all calculation. They do their best, dispensing rice and dried pulses, jerry-cans of water and cooking oil. It’s not enough, never enough: each day brings a further flood of mouths to feed, new injuries to treat, dozens more to clothe and care for. In richer, luckier places than this, appeals go out – spare a thought, give a little, make a difference – but the world is weary of conflicts too complex to comprehend and someone else’s crisis is always more pressing or more photogenic. There will always be those that have, and those that have not; it’s part of the natural order of things like the turning of the tides or the phases of the moon. There is nothing to be done.

A child is born into a community. The neighbours gather round and word soon spreads. A woman from along the way drops in with a packet of Pampers. Another has dried milk. A man from two tents down turns up with a bail of straw and big grin. “Let me see him, the little one.” Zohra opens the baby’s blanket a little and a shrill cry breaks loose. The neighbour nods in approval, “He’s a strong one. I can tell.” Together, he and Samir stuff the straw into a pillowcase and squeeze it into the bottom of a cardboard box. “Now he’ll have somewhere to lay his head.” Samir thanks the neighbours. All the next day, the battered kettle boils and endless cups of tea are drunk. To Zohra’s relief, the baby sucks eagerly at her breast. The neighbour’s right; he’s a strong one. He knows what to do.

A child is born into love. As Zohra’s son gazes up at her, her heart swells with an emotion more powerful than any she’s felt before. She knows without question she’d give her life for this heedless, mewling bundle of flesh and pencil-thin bones. For all the hardship of her pregnancy and their current life, she cannot regret the baby’s arrival, not even for one second. She takes Samir’s hand and squeezes it. As he gazes at his wife and son in the wavering gaslight, he realises he’s never seen anything more beautiful or intense than Zohra’s face in that moment.

“We must choose a name,” she says.

“Let him be Ziad like his grandfather.”

“No, he should have a name that belongs to him alone. Don’t let him carry our sorrows for the rest of his life.”

“So what should we call him?”

“Let him be Kamal, because he’s perfect in every way.”

A child is born and with him, the hope of the world to come.

A child is born.

When We Were Young

“I sigh that kiss you,
For I must own
That I shall miss you
When you are grown.”

That little rhyme by WB Yeats was brought sharply to mind as I was watching the infants’ nativity play at the local primary school where my children began their education, and where I am now a governor.  It’s all too easy to be overcome by nostalgia.  In a few short years, my adorable tots have been transformed from innocent little angels dressed in white pillowcases, with tinsel halos falling over their eyes into…teenagers!

As they have forgotten the words to Away in a Manger, they have learned every swear word in the book and developed a well-honed skill in delivering crushing put-downs to each other and their long-suffering parents. Instead of making gingerbread stars or sticking sparkly spangles on cardboard crowns, they now enjoy texting people they’ve only just parted with, instagramming embarrassing photos of themselves to all and sundry and watching X-rated TV shows on the family tablet when they’re supposed to be asleep in bed. How did this happen?

Amid the tantrums and exam angst (the daughter is doing ‘mocks’ as I write), it can be easy to overlook some of good things about living with teenagers. Without them, I’d be more intolerant, less well informed (particularly about music) and definitely more set in my ways. Every day, I’m getting a clearer picture of the mature adults they’ll soon be, and while yes, I miss the little children they once were, I’m also looking forward to what I hope will be a wonderful friendship between grown-ups just a few more years down the line.

Some of the conversations I’ve had with my teenagers recently have been amazing. The things they come out with are not only surprising but often profound and incredibly thought-provoking. It’s hard not to feel privileged to be able to share their thoughts and feelings as they learn about the world and their place in it. Politics, celebrity, freedom of information, the nature of justice, why slavery still exists… we’ve discussed all these things and many more over the past year. You name it – they have a view on it.

While they like to parade a veneer of world-weary cynicism, not far below the surface, you’ll find a pair of idealists and dreamers, two young people full of potential who genuinely want to learn and make a difference in the world.  As I enter the middle stretch of life’s journey, I want to tell them to enjoy every moment, live life to the full, and not be afraid to reach for their dreams, while all of life’s choices are still open to them.  In sharing their hopes for the future, they remind me that, if I can borrow a little of their optimism and good faith, it’s not too late for my dreams to come true either.