After spending the day sleeping (I stayed home from work today), I wasn't sure I wanted to watch what promised to be a rather slow movie, and one that required I put my glasses on (sinus pressure!!!), but Rang-e khoda , or The Color of Paradise, was an absolutely beautiful movie.

The title is significant because it's about a little blind boy who's father is ashamed of his disability. The little boy is constantly looking for God through his fingertips: he reads the stones at the bottom of a creek, he reads the nubs on a wheat sheaf, and he tries to catch the wind while riding on the bus.

I have to admit to total ignorance of places like Iran and Tehran. After 28 years of movies and books, I was under the impression that the entire Middle East was one big desert, with a few oasises (sp?) thrown in. When I studied Bible history, the professor assured us that that area used to look like "the promised land", flowing with milk and honey, but that constant war had turned it into a desert. According to this movie, though, which I'm sure was shot in Iran, it looked more like the Pacific Northwest: trees and flowers everywhere, lots of green, rain, rivers. Except for the fact that I wouldn't understand the language, nor would I want to wear a shawl over my head all the time, I would luv to live there.

I need to travel more.