I’ve been a little melancholy the last couple days.  Contributing to the gentle storm clouds lingering above my head, I learned that my aunt Ellen O’Neill passed away yesterday.  Ellen was dealt a bad hand from the get-go, but she gamely sat at the table for longer than I think she even thought possible.  She had been on dialysis for several years, and had been going every day for over a year.  Ellen lived in public housing and took the bus every day receive her dialysis.  The treatments took a physical as well as mental toll on her system.  Deciding she was tired, and with her doctor’s permission, she took herself off her treatment.  When my cousin Susan visited her in the hospital on Monday, Ellen told her, “I just got so tired of waiting for the bus in the cold.”

Sometimes when a gal is blue, she takes herself to a matinee.  This afternoon I saw Crazy Heart , and it was like a beautiful, well-placed punch to the gut.  I love movies that give me feelings.  I love films that speak to what it is to make things and the driving force behind those feelings.  The Hours, High Art, and the documentary chronicling the execution of Isaac Mizrahi’s spring collection Unzipped are three films that come to mind that give me those same feelings.  Crazy Heart is like your favorite Tom Waits song.

Here’s to Ellen O’Neill, and to music, and to good stories.