Pour ma femme

La fille que j'aimera
Sera comme bon vin
Qui se bonifiera
Un peu chaque matin

(Bourrée du célibataire, par Jacques Brel)

Although I do intend this pour ma femme, this snatch of poetry appeared in the movie Groundhog Day, one of my all-time favorites. We saw it in our Faith and Film small group tonight. Beneath what might appear on the surface to be a slightly goofy Bill Murray movie is a profound parable of conversion and formation of a person's soul. Others have found in it Buddhist parallels, others Jewish, and yet others existentialist or psychoanalytic parallels. Myself, I see resonances with Christianity. At any rate it is a great movie. If you are interested in a fun, fascinating essay on the movie, check out The Ned Ryerson Conundrum.

I include this excerpt, too, because something strange happened to me the other day. I was dreaming, and I found myself somewhere in Europe, planning a train trip. The train would travel through parts of France, Germany, Switzerland, back into France, and end up in Italy; it may have even passed through the Low Countries, I don't remember. Anyway, I was in France, at the ticket counter, ordering the tickets in French, and I thought to myself, "hmm, my French isn't too bad." Here's the strange thing: something startled me awake and I came out of sleep thinking en français for a moment. Strange, no? (Ok, not so strange as if it were Swahili or something, but still quite uncommon; it's not like I speak French every day.)

The translation:

The girl that I will love
will be like fine wine
which gets a little better
each morning.

(from Dance of the Bachelor by Jacques Brel.)