The Studio Ghibli 5K

Sprout participated in the Girls on the Run program this school year, but they weren’t able to attend the 5K run at the end of the season.

I proposed that we do a 5K by ourselves, and as a reward for finishing it, treat ourselves to The Secret World of Arrietty in an actual theater (thank you Studio Ghibli Fest).

The Running Part

There was a time when Sprout would want to take a break after just starting to run. This is not that time.

We set ourselves a simple rule: Each time we pass a fire hydrant, we would switch between running or walking. Our goal was just to finish a 5K distance. The stretch goal was besting their time from the practice 5K (an hour and eight minutes).

We finished the 5K in 53 minutes. I’m proud of them. They’re proud of themself. And we both felt a big ol’ rush of endorphins for the rest of the day.

I knew something was going well with this program when they asked me one day, “Can I just go run around the block?” When they got back, they asked: “Can I do that again?”

The energy, the focus, the commitment. These are all things Sprout strengthened in the last few months.

There was another moment today that impressed me, too. Sprout tripped and took a tumble, landing on their knee and hand. It was a pretty hard (and loud) fall. But they took some time with me to assess how bad it actually was, calmed down, got back up, and said they wanted to keep going.

I didn’t need to push. They had a goal to finish this 5K and they wanted it badly enough that a fall that just weeks ago would’ve meant a piggyback ride home now was a minor obstacle.

Again, so damn proud.

The Movie Part

I knew this would be a movie Sprout would want to see. It’s their favorite Studio Ghibli movie so far. We’ve both only seen it on our TV at home.

I am a person who believes in the cinematic experience. Going into a dark room with a bunch of strangers and all staring at the same bright screen has for a long time felt holy to me. It’s a sacred space, and there are many films that are best seen in that context.

The Secret World of Arrietty is absolutely one of those films.

At one point, Sprout leaned over and mentioned how amazing the sound was, and we talked later about how it was both the quality of the sound system in the theater and the sound design of the film itself (like how the same objects would make different sounds depending on whether we were experiencing the moment in the POV of the Borrowers or the “Human Beans”).

We both knew this was a gorgeous film, but seeing it up on a giant screen really let all the details pop. You could see the care put in to every shot.

I loved being able to share this day with my kiddo.

It also makes me hopeful that the slop-fest of current AI/LLMs will pass (or at least the hype will clear away for less flashy, human-centered tools that could actually work as promised). You don’t get storytelling like this movie by plugging in some prompts to a plagiarism generator and waiting for it to render. You can’t fake this emotion.