A Lazy Day
Permission to be lazy, rewatching a classic and a poem from Pultizer Prize-winning Poet, Louise Glück
It’s that time! I’m happy you’re here. I hope you enjoy all the things. Seventh substack post here. we. go.
film-of-the-week rec:
A River Runs Through It (Dir. Robert Redford)
I mean… where do I begin?! Rewatched this classic recently and was overcome by how pitch-perfect it is. I bawled. It’s incredible. I usually loath voice-over in films, it’s so difficult to do well. It typically comes across as cheesy and insulting to the audience’s intelligence in some way. But not here. We need it. We need to hear the ache of Norman Maclean’s words. The voice-over is perfection. Redford (who also directed) says the words, simply, honestly and that’s all that’s needed. He doesn’t act the layers of meaning he just exists within them and it becomes an offering to the audience. There is so much room to feel as a viewer because his VO isn’t taking up all the emotional landscape. He’s allowing us to wander in it. Brad Pitt and Craig Sheffer are dynamite in this and Brenda Bleythn (all hail) - although not given much to do because this is a story about men and males and brotherhood - is sensational. The scene where she breaks up her boys’ fight in the kitchen is one for the books. It’s elegantly directed and the writing is so good it reminds you how simplicity is the most searing when the story is so strong.
mindfulness practice:
Give yourself a “lazy day”.
* Film still from Daisies by Věra Chytilová
Thich Nhat Hanh, founder of the International Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism describes a very structured way of living and practicing mindfulness. He also describes the necessity of having a “lazy day”:
Lazy Day
A Lazy Day is a day for us to be truly with the day without any scheduled activities. We just let the day unfold naturally, timelessly. It is a day in which we can practice as we like. We may do walking meditation on our own or with a friend or do sitting meditation in the forest. We might like to read lightly or write home to our family or to a friend.
It can be a day for us to look deeper at our practice and at our relations with others. We may learn a lot about how we have been practicing. We may recognize what to do or not to do in order to bring more harmony into our practice. Sometimes, we may force ourselves too much in the practice, creating disharmony within and around us. On this day, we have a chance to balance ourselves. We may recognize that we may simply need to rest or that we should practice more diligently. A Lazy Day is a gift for us and the Sangha to enjoy, in our own time and space. It is a very quiet day for everyone.
* The Sangha is the Buddhist community. It’s a Sanskrit word used in many Indian languages, including Pali meaning "association", "assembly", "company" or "community".
Film still from Daisies by Věra Chytilová
a poem, as promised:
The Wild Iris by Pultizer Prize-winning Poet, Louise Glück
Read below and/or listen here
The Wild Iris
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.
It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.
Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.
You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:
from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.