Make It Count

It’s 22:30 and I am starting to write. I’ve had a good day, but nothing really remarkable happened.

Some days are just like that. Not totally fab, but not totally drab either. Somewhere in the category of normal, with a few good bits thrown in.

It got me thinking about a movie a saw I few months ago. It’s called Life in a Day. I’ve been looking forward to its release since the day it was made – July 24, 2010. The whole film is made up entirely of amateur video footage from all over the world. All shot on that one day.

The reason I know this is because Rob and I submitted footage for the film. It was great fun and we had a fully packed day – a friend’s biker-style wedding celebration and another friend’s birthday. And it’s really quite remarkable how much I remember about that day. Even though it’s one and a half years ago. Even though our footage didn’t make the final cut. I guess that day I really paid attention.

In the film itself, there’s everything from remarkable events like births, weddings and people dealing with illness to unremarkable events such as children laughing or pets playing. And I guess that’s what life is kinda like… a lot of moments that we might consider unremarkable in between memorable moments, people or events.

At the end of the film, there’s a girl in her car. It’s dark. She looks into the camera and talks about how she waited all day for something remarkable that she could film. And nothing happened. Now it’s close to midnight. And she doesn’t want to miss her chance of making this day count.

So in the end, this is what she says:

She’s real, honest and emotional. And out of all the thousands of titbits that make up this feature-length film, that’s the one I remember the most.

I think she made her day count. In a big way. Even though for the better part of 23 hours, nothing really remarkable happened.