How a Hermit Prepares for Winter

When I prepare for winter, I think in terms of having a good supply of food, wine and DVDs ... not necessarily in that order. When my freezer is full, my wine racks stuffed, my pantry shelves lined with cans of staples and all the bins are filled with flour ready for breadmaking, I feel content.

I also need to know that I have stocked up on entertainment. I do not have television reception here, but even when I did, I did not watch television. Indeed, much of my life, I did not own a tv set.

I can read in very good light and when my mind is clear, but in the evenings I turn to film. I have such a bad memory now that I can watch movies several times without remembering all the details, and even when I do, I delight in knowing what will come next. It is a little like reading and re-reading Little Women, or Heidi, or The Secret Garden, or Anne of Green Gables as a child. It didn't work for the books in the Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys series which were plot based and written using templates. It only worked for the classics.

The movies I purchase are almost all excellent films with depth of character, sometimes with clever plotting, in which the craftmanship is evident ... and elegant. But most of all, these films, like good literature, touch me deeply because they make me reflect on life.

Yesterday I stopped at the post office to pick up a parcel and discovered two filled with DVDs. Most were ones I had seen before and wanted for my collection (The Wind that Shakes the Barley, The Illusionist, Blood Diamond, The Last King of Scotland, and The Kite Runner), but a few were brand new, chosen as a result of watching trailers and reading reviews (The Painted Veil, After the Wedding, Black Book and Paris, Je t'aime).

Last night I watched The Wind that Shakes the Barley . It is a fine film about life in Ireland when the British army occupied it. I came away understanding better what it must be like to live under foreign occupation, to be treated with hatred and disrespect, to know that you had to fight the oppressor, and then to die far too young. It made me reflect upon life in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in places like Palestine occupied by Israel.

This film is about the complexities of politics and people. Nothing is simple. Not patriotism. Not love. Not courage. Some people believe that even partial victories are worth having. Others burn with such a fierce fire that anything less than what they fought for is not good enough, and they are willing to give their lives for that ideal.

I belong to that second group, I am afraid. It is not a comfortable way to live life, and perhaps it explains why I am a hermit. Hermits don't have to compromise nearly as often.