My husband and I are heading into this cold, tightly screwed, stainless steel grinder that is FALL ROUTINE. Which means less time outside. Rigid school schedules and mandatory events. Relying more on alarm clocks and coffee because there is less natural light to nudge our circadian rhythms.
It's also getting darker earlier, not as many after dinner neighborhood walks or impromptu beach sunset picnics. It's a time my husband battles seasonal depression and the Tropical Gulf /Pacific Islander in me gets put into a cold weather chokehold ... and I can't tap out.
We don't like it. I'm especially rebelling seeing I'm still unpacking from that steamy but dreamy Haramara retreat, hanging onto the slow-paced hot jungle life while trying to adapt to the fast-paced cold concrete jungle.
One Fall tradition I do look forward to however, besides Halloween, is movie nights. I love a midweek weird doc or poetic narrative film. The latest we're
currently watching is very appropriate. A narrative film that the universe chose for us to help our perspective and terrible attitude, it's called Perfect Days.
It's a film by Wim Wenders. Gorgeous cinematography, very little dialogue, no loud explosions or car chase scenes - just held long shots of nature (which was perfect for my slow jungle brain), lots of intentional poetic details, and just beautiful. It's a beautiful film about a guy named Hirayama who cleans public bathrooms. That's right. The filmmaker somehow managed to making cleaning toilets feel meditative, like it a beautiful sacred ritual. The whole point of the film is how even though everything from the outside looking in seems (no pun intended) "shitty" - with the right perspective, pacing, and approach it can be artful.
Hirayama heads into everyday knowing he is about to clean the same gross toilets, TONS of them, and yet he still walks in with the best tools, a clean uniform, a trimmed beard, and a packed lunch he looks forward to eating. He approaches it with pride. Only to get up again and do it all over again.
Hirayama's pace is reflective and attentive in everything he does. He slows down enough so it's easier to notice the beauty around him. The park bench he sits on for lunch, even if it's right outside a public bathroom, it's still bustling with nature. The crazy old man in the park who holds strange abstract poses, instead of judging it and looking the other way, he watches. He's curious about it and finds it fascinating instead of brushing it off as weird. His apartment is quiet, without glowing screens or running machines. Which heightens the world around him, nature and neighborhood sounds. To the point where he doesn't need an alarm to wake him, just the reliable sound of his neighbor sweeping first thing in the morning.
The mindset and perspective, even the tone of the film, was the fact this very simple, low-income lifestyle was so rich with poetry. There was one scene I loved where he became too detailed and obsessive in his cleaning, he almost threw away a hidden piece of paper with the start of a tic-tac-toe. In his haste he decided it was a piece of trash. However he caught himself and decided to respond with the next play of the game, and returned it back to the hiding spot. Showing that not only does approach and pace matter .... but the perspective that poor can be rich and a piece of trash can be playful.
We have yet to finish the film, we are at a part where he has an unexpected visitor from his past. So the next question is how will this effect his sacred routine...how will his pace, approach and perspective be threatened.
So far though I can't help but appreciate the timing of this film. A man who turns a "shitty" job into a beautiful art form, even on the hardest days. Because what is ironic is my husband and I actually work in the arts. On these harder pushes, busier, colder days - we can make the process feel shitty. We can both be very detailed and obsessive in our work, caught up in it and forget to look up. We would throw away the piece of paper and skip the fun part on the inside. Maybe we need to take a page out of Hiramaya's book and approach our day with pride, pace ourselves so we can see the beauty in the small in between moments, and reframe our perspective so that we can turn a daunting routine, or even a colder darker season, into a playful time.
This week I want to play with shapes, inspired by both the incredible imagery in Wenders film and also the old crazy man in the film. Because I too agree he was onto something with those poses, like Jedi Tai Chi moves. We all know it's easy to move through things, it's harder to hold them. It's even harder to hold them long enough where we can reframe them into something beautiful.
Excited to make your bodies sweat, smile, and slow down enough to see the beauty in the smaller moments. Maybe even smile...and play along.
XO,
Celeste
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