Love and patience:

Indispensable allies for a better you

A movie earns the identifier of memorable when it makes such an impression on you as to change your life. A movie’s extraordinary beauty makes it easier for its message to permeate your being.

One such movie in the repertoire that given me so much is Como Agua para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate), a beautiful love story that is bound to ignite your soul.

Based on a magic realism novel by Laura Esquivel, the movie has many recurring timeless themes such as unrequited love and family traditions that will continue to make you think of it days and weeks after you watch it.

One of the most enduring topics, however, is the role that love plays when doing everyday chores such as cooking. The movie's luscious cooking scenes are bound to enrapt you, almost making smell the scents and taste the flavors of those magically colorful feasts, such as the quail in rose petal sauce. 

Quail in rose petal sauce

The biggest take I got out of Esquivel’s masterpiece was the importance of making love an essential ingredient in any meal you prepare. While you cannot buy it at the supermarket, love is that one ingredient that takes everything you prepare up to the level of scrumptious.

Like everything you do in life, if you put your attention, intent and passion into it, it is bound to be superb. Your energy has the capacity to transform something tasty into something superb.

When you want to cook a good meal—even if it is something as simple as an omelette—it requires patience to allow for slow cooking to work its magic. Slow cooking gives way the masterful balance of flavor and consistency characteristic of the perfect rice, sauce, potluck, or any special meal.

Engaging love in the equation of anything you do also requires patience.

The contrary holds true for things that you do not invest the love and effort required to succeed: they are bound to fail.

For those of you that do not mind reading subtitles in a movie, I urge you to see this timeless gem that will grab your entire self by the senses, shake it up and leave it to recover from the emotional charge it will produce in the core of your being. 

Watching it with undivided attention and intent, fully internalizing it, is bound to make you a more exquisite person.

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When inspiration becomes elusive, art becomes a good source for it.

If you are in need of heartfelt inspiration to confirm that despite adversity and tragedy, good does triumph over evil, here are some suggestions of my favorite flicks that may tattoo beauty your spirit as they have done on mine:

Dead Poet’s Society

Shawshank Redemption

Life is Beautiful

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (See my previous post on it here)

Cinema Paradiso

For a little while, consider discarding the political or doomsday videos that are bound to make you anxious and despondent.

Instead, gift yourself a little love. Get your popcorn and Kleenex ready and take some time to nourish your soul.

Enjoy!