Mary Lou Sanelli
A perfect day for me begins like this: I sit on my small balcony, surrounded by a garden of potted plants. I call it “my garden” because its size fits into my life. Because I’ve grown more comfortable with low-maintenance over involved. Because when the morning light lays itself over the plants so that the new growth sparkles brighter than the undergrowth, for about fifteen shining minutes I don’t think about anything except what is most important to me, and that’s the definition of a garden. Because leaving worry behind is not easy for me and never has been.
For years, I’ve wanted to give up worry. I’m willing but barely succeeding. Some days I think that I am getting there, that I am nearly there, that I’m there.
Because the woman who worried about things (so many things!) beyond her control isn’t me anymore. She’s become someone who relaxes in her garden before she goes to work, and this may seem a small thing, but it’s huge. She’s become someone who can finally spot the red flags and not ignore them, thank god, or try to call them something else.
So here’s what I do after I sit in my garden: I sit at my desk.
And after three to four hours of working out what I want to say by finding the words for how―because that’s what it takes to write, you write―I start to fidget because I want to get to the public pool before it closes for lap swimming. And if I get a lane to myself, it’s a perfect day indeed. I’m not great at sharing my swimming space. I don’t know if its because writing is such a solitary endeavor and it’s hard to make the transition, but when I see three, four, people sharing a lane by swimming in a tight circle I think, you’d have to shoot me first.
But honestly, the best part of a perfect day is still to come: I go to the movies.
I especially like to go to the older theaters, like the SIFF Cinema Egyptian.
The feel of the Egyptian is so different from new theaters. Maybe it’s the lack of fake butter smell. Maybe it’s because the feel of the place is unpretentious. Definitely it’s because the films don’t bore me. I’m always hungry for something more honest and independent. I like to sit in the dark and get lost in the story.
I also like the popcorn.
I know you can buy a TV screen the size of Rhode Island and download one of a gazillion movies at home, so why go out?
I’ll tell you why. When you make the effort to support something so genuine, it’s as if you can feel the point of being human all the way through.
A few movies ago, I listened to a woman refuse butter for her popcorn. Butter, she said, is just one of those things she doesn’t tempt herself with. So I said―as if it were a dare, which we both know it wasn’t―that I bet she could enjoy butter at the movies and still respect herself in the morning. Her voice came out a mixture of surprise and thanks. After the movie, we talked and got to know each other a little better.
Is this any way to meet people in this day and age?
Yes, it is.
Because this kind connection doesn’t usually happen in your living room with Netflix, no matter how many other devices you are monitoring.
I have a friend, Diane, who loves films as much as I do. And she remembers everything, the year it was made, the director, the actors even who designed the costumes if the wardrobe met her approval. She will sit through the entire length of the credits, absorbed.
She thinks it is nothing, all this remembering. But for me, it’s mission accomplished if I even recall the title. I remember a conversation between us back in March. After I quoted something I’d read about Ash Wednesday, because as a kid that day actually meant something―or my family pretended it meant something, which a lot of Catholics are really good at―and here we were, two heathens going to the movies instead of to Mass, “Soon enough, every one of us, and everything, will turn to dust.” And Diane said, “except plastic.” And that’s a perfect comeback, don’t you think, on a perfect day?
When I set out this morning to imagine a perfect day, I saw one as many things, needless as well as necessary things, things that are nothing and everything I have ever wanted. And that thought alone is an ideal end to a perfect day I am lucky enough to enjoy now and again.
Mary Lou Sanelli's newest collection of essays about living in the Northwest, In So Many Words, is due out in September. Please join her for a launch celebration at Elliott Bay Book Company on Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. or at Third Place Books on Oct. 3 at 7 p.m.
Visit www.marylousanelli.com for more.