From the weekend couch:

Wong Kar Wai, 2000

David Fincher, 2011

Darren Aronofsky, 2006

The pause, after "The Color Purple"

Few movies have touched me the way this one has. And after having seen it again, now that what I consider the most difficult parts of my life have come and gone, the story has taken on a new path. It has--apart from showing me the beauty in its cinematography, its actors' ability to keep everything within the bounds of understatement, its director's sure hand, and its well-written music--triggered different emotions and jump-started new insight. It's probably my age, and the keener sense to redirect perspectives that I have acquired with it, that are the roots of these feelings.

The book is miles more poignant than the film, and when I first read it, I was young, and angry, and in the middle of the quietest desperation I would ever know, against which I struggled without struggling. The analysis I wrote of it in a Contemporary American Literature class in college was a virtual treatise on the oppression of women and the importance of making one's voice heard. I had found an ally in Celie, and with that piece, I had so valiantly meant to champion her and all the women who had ever suffered in the hands of a man; and all the while, the paradox of my inability to champion myself hovered, like a shadow. The one thing I could do, back then, was to scribble passages from the book that had driven wherever home was for me, during those times.

Needless to say, I attacked the book with a vengeance, and cried my eyes sore when I first watched the movie. This morning, despite familiarity with the ins and outs of the narrative, and knowing exactly how it was going to end, I still cried, but for reasons entirely different from the ones that had so made me sniffle, the first time I saw it.

After all, it was Celie's constant reminder to herself to "just keep breathing," that had helped me through some of my darkest hours, and her heartfelt exclamation of gratitude, "I'm here, I'm here!" that reminds me of the many things I should be, and am, thankful for.

Mood Indigo - Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington

Oh, my gosh, this is just so lovely.
The perfect strains to my sashay with the sunrise.

After the cake

There might you see one sigh, another rage,

And some, their violent passions to assuage,

Compile sharp satires; but, alas, too late,

For faithful love will never turn to hate.

- Christopher Marlowe, "Hero and Leander"

Leander, on my mind. And Apollo, at the heels, but as always. Where is the man who will love like they did, where, the modern-day wooer who will defy distance and speed, and laugh at scorn, who will cross a sea every night for his beloved, who will brave danger and death, or let reason go unheeded?

Modern woman, you are unfortunate to be living at a time like this.

head shake (translate: natauhan)

Well, not really.

Now, back to regular programming. 

Or, put those heels on and step on their ego-coated toes.

Only the chilliest nights can make me bundle up. I rarely ever layer clothing, too lazy to slip on cardigans or jackets, even in the office where it's cold, all the time. Neither am I crazy about shawls, or scarves, and the like, seeing them more as hindrances to freedom of movement, ridiculous accents to this unpredictable weather of ours.

I wear turtlenecks only because I like their chicness, and, too, because they make me feel grown-up, tough, protected. I choose material that's all-weather friendly, most of the time. I'd rather really just wear something that could take me from warm to cool, to warm again. I think to myself, what if the sun decides to stage some grand, unannounced entrance, like it often does, and I'm caught shod in knee-high snow boots (the presence of which in our country, I count as some fashion anomaly, really)?

I practically live in sleeveless tops. The body will sync itself to the temperature outside, in one way, or another. Mind over matter, as the cliche goes.


So, what was the last movie you saw?

These rain-soaked months--

And the moments fall like rain, hungry for pavements to land on, longing for surfaces to find shape in. Most of the time, the dream never materializes, the way raindrops do, and the mind succeeds in containing the chimera of unnamed lines and guises, finding affinity with the lack of symmetry, like how torrents are, when angry winds encroach.

The skies and their sheets of rain. The lonely, stirring their cups of coffee. The waiting, looking through moisture-soaked window glass. The preoccupied, walking on puddles. The others, plodding through the change in weather like they always do, keeping up with the hours as best they can, in boots and raincoats and hot soups and smokes. And the listless, tossing in their beds day, after night, listening to the thunder, cringing at the lightning.

Where are you, these days? Where do your days go? How many times have you sat, indoors, waiting for a downpour to end? What do you do to pass the time, the agonizing wait for a storm to pass? Why are you where you are? Why do you dwell on the thoughts that slip in to your mind? Or, why don't you? And, what do you do, so as not to?

I keep telling myself, this inclement weather will pass, as all things do.

We just have to keep an umbrella nearby.

From the weekend couch:

Richard Attenborough, 1992