March of the Penguins

With Pete still out of town, caught up on sleep (In a 44 hour perios I slept 3 hours due to my own crazy schedule: airport delivery, PADS serving night, babysitting the sweet grandsons, etc.) and having accomplished most of the chores I had set for myself, I treated myself to a movie.

I have never gone to a movie by myself before, ever. Just standing in the ticket line, I felt like should be looking for Pete to run up after parking the car. Bought my popcorn and found a seat in the fairly crowded $2 theater. Smiled to myself, thinking it strange that the popcorm cost more than the admission!

I chose March of the Penguins because honestly, I doubt if Pete would ever want to go see it. What an amazing story with the most beautiful photography. I found myself mesmerized by the narration of Morgan Freeman describing a year in the life of Empire penguins. These Charlie Chaplin waddling birds make a 70 mile trek to the spot they were born to begin the process of finding a mate. 70 miles! On those short little legs, sometimes flopping on their bellies and sledding a distance. Once they find their intended and the female lays the egg, the really tough part begins. Their egg, their precious chick-to-be, is transferred to the male who holds the egg on the top of his feet and under a feathery flap of penguin skin for four months while the female goes back the same 70 mile route to the sea. Her mission is to eat enough to sustain herself and the chick when she returns to her mate. She makes the trip back (that's now 210 miles!) where the poor male has lost almost half his body weight, standing in a giant huddle of male penguins protecting their eggs. The mates find each other, he introduces their chick to mom and now he leaves to go back to the sea to nourish himself. This process has gone on for hundreds of years. The cold and winds of the South Pole, the natural enemies ready to pounce, lack of food, these beautiful birds stop at nothing to recreate and nurture thier young.

Did I just take this all in as a great National Geographic piece of cinema? No, I thought of being a parent and the willingness to overcome anything to bring a child into the world and protect that child against everything possible. Do I think the old gentleman next to me noticed my tears? No, I think he had tears in his own eyes. We all have our stories...