This past Sunday...

…was marked by extreme, awful violence and ended with the murders of my favorite movie director, Rob Reiner, and his wife Michele, so I watched The Princess Bride, one of my two favorite movies in the world (the other being When Harry Met Sally…) and reflected on what about the film and about Rob Reiner’s work in general hits me so hard, and what I realized is this: The Princess Bride and WHMS… are my favorite movies because they are about how worth it it is to let yourself experience love — romantic love (requited and unrequited), familial love, friendship love, love of literature, love of comedy, love of mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches and wagon wheel coffee tables — and that’s the lesson about living that Rob Reiner’s movies and performances and personal legacy taught me, and that’s what I will fight to choose to remember in the wake of such devastation.