Like many folks who have the luxury of no commute, I have been homebound. The fierce winds and clattering cold have sharpened the divide between inside and out. I will close my eyes to next month's heating bill. 

Movies are a lovely way to take my imagination beyond the square footage of our home, however cozy. Last week I watched Mr. Holland's Opus, Hachi, and Lorenzo's Oil. Years ago I had a running list of movies that portray strong marriages, and these three all meet that mark. But the way they each impacted me was on different grounds. 

Mr. Holland did not aspire to the crowded halls of a public high school. He loved music and reluctantly made the concession to try to teach teenagers why. There came a subtle change, too invisible even for him to notice. Mr. Holland was distracted by the almost impossible task of teaching a drummer how to hear the beat, and the squeak of a would be clarinet player with pigtails. His disappointment was compounded further still when his own son was diagnosed as profoundly deaf. How could the sounds he loved pierce that silence? Yet in the end his purported failure in a school system that was deaf to the meaning of music became moot. It was blown away by the opus of his career.