Having been raised a heathen first class--I have no ear for the word of God. I do, however, respond quite submissively to the voice of Don LaFontaine. I don't know hymns, but I do know that the 20th Century Fox fanfare centers me in a way no prayer ever could. The torch-bearing Columbia may be the closest figure I have to a Mother Mary. And, despite Warner Brothers insistence on being the world's most evil media conglomerate, the WB shield means more to me than the crucifix. Beyond these icons I am offered not a necessarily the tangible, but something more heftily relevant than the stations of the cross. There is a measure of salvation in the lion's roar. And a designed deliverance just on the other side of the mountain. Childhood Sundays were for some kids spent in church, or on spent on chores, or in the bleachers. Me? I got to go to the movies. 

My first memory is of going to the theatre. The shrinking iris of time produces a pattern composed of a hundred bright lights--this constellation exists now only in my imagination and extends all the way to the tips of my eyelashes. A spiderweb of light suspended from the soffit of my memory, the collective warmth conveying a fragility similar to that of a worn postcard. What could have been such an easily disposed of memory, is over 30 years later tucked away for the sake of happy remembrance. Like a valentine. Like a pressed cloverleaf. In 1976 a little girl stood beneath a marquee, waiting with her parents just to see a movie. Inside that singular, otherwise forgettable moment, the definition of the person that girl would become began to form. 

I don't typically traffic in mantric bumper stickers. But if I did, mine might read: I don't go to church, I go to the cinema. 

The dark offers redemption. And occasionally forgiveness.

The dark offers absolution. And most often sanctuary.

What's most curious about my cinephile status is perhaps its genesis. Typically children are taken to the theatre to see a holiday production of the Nutcracker. Or the symphony, or a ballet recital, or the Ice Capades. In subsequent years I have been made to suffer through those miserable rituals. But the first actual memory I possess (one I hope never to misplace) and my first memory are of a movie theatre. They are one in the same. A filmy haze loiters just above my kodachromatic recollection--but the memory is never far from me. I wouldn't let it be. I would have turned 4 that May. My parents took me to an evening screening in June. I'm told I read quite early, whether that's my mom's way of feeling like a superior parent or it's somewhat true, I suppose I won't ever really know. So I wonder if I might've actually read the marquee that night, or if it's a slight of hand on the part of my brain that distinctly recalls the fat, black letters spelling out the title: The Outlaw Josey Wales.