Credit: Illustration by Zeke Barbaro / Getty Images

Here is the church

Here is the steeple

Open the doors

See all the people

I started reviewing movies for the Chronicle when I was 21 – a dream job. Whether I was elbow-to-elbow at a sold-out sneak screening or alone at a 10am press screening, the only body in the building, I never got over that worshipful feeling that came over me whenever I sat down in a movie theatre. The movies aren’t just my happy place – they’re my holy place.

To be without that ritual for over a year has been intensely destabilizing. No surprise then that two weeks and a day after I got my second Pfizer shot, I was back at the movies. My 43rd birthday, surrounded by a dozen dear friends, we rented a screen at the Violet Crown and watched Speed, a perfect movie. I got religion again.

This week, our (totally vaccinated!) editors write about their own experiences getting back out there, reconnecting with their beats, in the spaces that mark their beating hearts – the movie theatres and restaurants and music venues that spiritually fulfill us.

This article appears in May 28 • 2021.

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A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...