Little Amelie: Life Through the Eyes of a 3-Year-Old Girl

In a cinema packed with children, Cine Ciutat had the thoughtfulness to keep the lights partially on until the movie had started. Several parents complained, though it still took a few minutes to turn them off. And I understood perfectly why.

I remember my first time at the cinema. I was 6 years old, going to see Beauty and the Beast, and I was scared of the dark. A few minutes after the movie started, I had to be urgently taken out of the theater because, from nerves and stress, I began to vomit.

I didn't see the movie.

Today, however, the cinema's gesture seemed magnificent to me. This screening was especially for children. Besides "allowing" more time for everyone to sit down, go to the bathroom, or get the popcorn they "now want," they kept the lights on during the opening commercials (with their dark transitions). Only when we were several minutes into the movie and the screen's light was secure did they turn them off.

No child cried. Everyone enjoyed the visual beauty and surely understood the film better than many adults.

"A 3-year-old girl notices many things but understands none." An absolutely masterful phrase from little Amelie, after a journey in which she describes the adult world through a child's eyes, with equal parts innocence and wisdom.

And I return to the gesture of the lights. Those small differences in our daily lives are what truly mark the differences in our life experiences.

It reminded me of the importance of creating these gestures, for ourselves and for others, if we have the chance. We'll change our day and our realities, from what is actually within our area of control and effect. We'll train our attention to look for those micro-adjustments in the now that will make the situation, whatever it may be, a little more comfortable.

And that, ultimately, is mindfulness to me.

What micro-adjustment did you make today to make something a little more comfortable for yourself or someone else?

Small gestures are silent revolutions.