Short Sunday Blog 18.02.2024
Writing Challenge Day Eight. Smaller goal for the weekend.
It’s officially my last week in my apartment. Over the course of the next week, I’ll be moving my things out and deep-cleaning everything to make sure that it’s in order for the next tenant. It still hasn’t really sunk in yet. This is my first apartment after moving out from my parents’ place. I’ve lived here since the end of 2020, for over three years. How time absolutely flies by.
I watched Perfect Days at the cinema today with my mom. It’s been a while since I’ve come out of a movie feeling saturated with calm and tranquility. As the closing credits rolled by, the entire cinema hall was silent. It felt like everyone was absorbing the experience of the movie. A few people started talking, but the overwhelming majority of the viewers steeped in what they just watched, myself and my mom included. Just savouring the aftertaste that it left behind. It was truly a pleasure to watch. I cannot recommend the movie enough to those of you who haven’t seen it. Suffice to say that it has skyrocketed to one of my top movies of all time, instantly.
I’ll avoid specific spoilers, but I do suggest watching the movie without any information beforehand.
The movie takes place in Japan, and follows an older man’s routine as he goes about his day job cleaning public bathrooms. Perfect Days touches a lot on small pieces of happiness that we can pick up throughout the day. It truly embodies the joy and happiness at the “smaller things in life”, and is one of my favourite approaches to depicting raw humanity as we actually experience it.
The setting—Tokyo—and the entire message of the film deeply resonated with everything going on right now. I’ll be moving to Tokyo in less than a month. I’m leaving behind a lifetime of living in Europe. It’s going to be the biggest change that I’ve ever experienced. So many ‘big’ things are going to shift in my life. But so many ‘little’ things will, too. The day-to-day little things that bring me happiness here will change. I can’t even imagine what my daily routine will look like a few months from now as I’ve started settling into life and lessons.
I do want to keep looking for and keep finding the small things in life to enjoy though. I want to remember that.
