Standing Room Only

Yesterday, on a marvelously sunny and warm afternoon, I opted to head INDOORS for a couple of hours – to watch a documentary film. I knew the filmmaker/director from Ubud and I’d seen an early draft of his film last year, a work-in-progress that was screened to a smaller crowd.

In Ubud, the film was shown at a venue that ranks up there as one of my favorites – chiefly because its large comfy couches with pillows strewn about invite me to recline in comfort.

But yesterday was a different story. The festival took place at Tel Aviv’s Cinematheque, a large multi-purpose facility with screening rooms of varying sizes. They all have one thing in common: auditorium seats. Typically, a no-go zone for me – or at least one that puts me on high alert: I’m pillow-less. The seats don’t recline. No comfy couches on the periphery…

As luck would have it, the seats had sold out a couple of weeks earlier. Still, when I approached the ticket-collector at the door, moments before the film was to begin, he was either too flustered at my request to wave me away, or too puzzled by my plea to be troubled. Given his furrowed eyebrows and harried expression, it could have been either. But there was also a gentleness to his demeanor, which is what probably saved my day. He ushered me into the hall and allowed me to lean against the back wall.

While attendees nestled into their seats, I stood, swayed, crouched, squatted, leaned and shifted around my way through the next two hours. Perhaps it was no coincidence, the juxtaposition of me – on the move, in one spot – next to a woman in a wheelchair.

As the film was being introduced, I flash-backed to last month, and to all the activities I’d felt compelled to try out and brave enough to attempt; paddle-boarding, water-cycling and slowly sputtering around on the back of a jet-ski. They were all made possible, indeed feasible and fun, because in those cases, with a little help from family and friends and with minor allowances or adjustments for safety, standing was (and is) required.

May I extend this invitation to you: Please get up and move your body!