The first movie I ever saw twice was Dirty Dancing. I was 15. My best friend and I sat at the back of the cinema and swooned at Patrick Swayze, wishing ourselves decades out of our own time and into an American summer camp full of Patrick Swayzes. The minute the movie finished we bought fresh tickets and walked straight into the next session of the movie.

I tell this story because the decision to spend the little money I had on a self-indulgence as great and intangible as the FEELING I had in that theatre at 15 was one of my first conscious acts of self-possession. I crossed a threshold, however slight. I wanted to live in that imagined world for a few more hours and I had the power (the $7.50) to make that happen if I chose to.