At 7AM I had a thick quilt pulled up to my chin, a hot-water bottle in one hand, a heating pad on my chest and "Shadowlands" on the DVD player. This is the setup for donating platelets at the Red Cross Apheresis unit: the heat to keep everything flowing and the movie to keep from going starkers, because it takes me about 90 minutes to pump my pint.
Choosing the movie is a very big deal. There used to be one VCR for every two donors, so the first one there got to choose. That's how I once got stuck watching "Milk Money" - a disgusting bit of drivel. Now that there's a player for each donor, we only have ourselves to blame for poor choices. For me, a poor choice is a generally a thriller or a weeper. Emily will appreciate that "Singing in the Rain" works perfectly, but then so does "Twelve Monkeys" and "Antonia's Line", so figure that out. And "Shadowlands" is both a weeper and one of my favorites.
The donors I knew used to avoid weepers because we had to keep both arms still throughout the procedure (whole blood out one arm, everything except a pint of platelets back in the other arm). So, when tears leaked out, a nurse had to mop them up or we let them dry itchily on our cheeks. My donation site has changed over to mostly one-needle machines, so now I can wipe my own eyes, blow my nose, scratch my ear . . . oh, my gosh! I just realized, I can read a book!
Anyway, today it was "Shadowlands" for the sixth or seventh time. There was a group of writers called "The Inklings" that included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams. I couldn't get through the Narnia books, found the four books of Tolkien's trilogy exciting, but am still awed by Williams' novels. Fortunately, "Shadowlands" isn't about the Narnia books; it's Lewis himself, nearly fossilized in academe, doubting just enough to risk his comfortable life and finding he was capable of great happiness and crushing pain.
Oh, yeah . . . I love this movie. And when it was over, I got juice and cookies and still had the whole day ahead of me!
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