For years, I have been unable to answer the question, "What is your favorite movie?"

I never knew. Nothing fit my tastes completely, never fulfilled every part of me.

I have an answer to that question, now.

When the credits rolled in on Jim Sheridan's "In America," I sat amid the rubble of my tears, watery and loose, sunken into myself in the darkness that had settled on the shoulders of the couch, that crowded in the corners of the room's dusty eyes. I didn't cry, but I wanted to. I wanted to laugh out loud. I wanted to hold someone, kiss someone. I wanted to sit and stare out at a dying afternoon and watch the sunlight stir through the lace.

I can't tell you why it affected me so. I share no common struggles with those people I saw before me; I had no moments where I gasped and felt "Me, too." And yet, when the last image faded into the clouded reflection blooming on my winter windows, I shuddered with release. I felt so damned good. I can't tell you what it was in that film, only what it made me feel.

I don't think that any of you will agree. I think that you would watch and say, "Yeah, it was good. It was really good," and nothing more. That's the nature of difference and taste. I don't expect you to share it, or feel what I felt. A part of me is sad at that, that we cannot feel that together. I understand, though.

"Hey, what's you favorite movie?"

"'In America.'"