The film Cleo de 5 a 7 by Agnes Varda is close to my heart. It was cited in a Twitter thread about great films by female directors and briefly pierced my severe mood. I remember the first time I saw it in film class and how completely it transported me out of myself. The story is about a vain, self-centered woman waiting for a medical diagnosis who wanders around the city seeing life in a completely altered way. "Life is Beautiful" goes the refrain, but there's a war of attrition between those lofty sentiments and the constant niggling assault of mundane disappointments and grounding defeats. If you meet the world halfway, the little details will find you if you're looking for them. On a cold cold morning I was rushing to meet the train when I was stopped by the mountains. Bathed in a pinkish morning light I don't remember ever seeing....

Things like that. Stuff that's there every day...the care a barista takes in shaping the foam on your coffee   - even though there's a long line and it will disintegrate with a few sips or disappear under a lid...("It kind of looks like a swann," today's said as way of explanation for a heart gone awry.) The simple joy of an enriching piece of toast buttered just right or an egg fried just long enough to solidify the yolk. Or the comfort of returning to a home knowing where all your favorite things live and being able to see a day's routine as a form of security instead of oppression...Your favorite coffee beans tasting exactly how you'd imagined them tasting as you longed for that first cup on the train...Or how the flowers in a bouquet of peonies opening up slowly at their own pace, with just a hint of inner colour showing to indicate their potential before fully blooming...

We all read endless inspirational quotes and life advice - which itself has become an industry - but nothing compares to our small interactions with the world, whether natural or man-made, that make us feel like part of something bigger. I got great satisfaction today from the fact that the sparrows that perch in my backyard bushes didn't fly away when I walked past after filling their bird feeder, telling myself that they now "trust" me.  Small threads we pull here and there.