I babysat my sister's children yesterday. To pass the time, we put on the movie UP. I still maintain that this is the best animated movie ever made. For those who haven't seen it, I won't give anything vital away, but it's basically about a little boy who falls hopelessly in love with a little girl and the wonderful adventures that love inspires.

For those who *have* seen the movie, you know what I'm referring to when I say that within the first ten minutes of the movie I had to get up and slip out of the room to wipe tears from my face without my niece asking why I was crying.

As the iconic scene played where Mr. Fredricksen's house goes flying up into the New York City sky, hoisted by countless bright balloons, my niece asked, "How could those balloons lift that heavy house? How could they even pick it up?"

"Well, that's why there's so many of them. The truth is, I don't think they could really lift the house, but we're supposed to pretend they could, we have to imagine."

UP does a beautiful job of dealing with pain and loss. I think we know to watch it as an impossible adventure, but what an image - refusing to accept defeat; rising above the crowded, noisy streets of New York, colors dazzling through condo windows as an absurd little house reaches up into the blue. Confident despite the impossible, floating away into the unknown with a thousand bright balloons.