High on a Sunday

It’s an Aimee Mann day; her melodies have drifted through my plans, my successes and my setbacks this past week. Her voice puts ice on my stinging skin and sets a light bulb up at the end of a dark hallway.

All week I have been trying to maintain my equilibrium on the tip of my toes, attempting to shift my weight away from the edge of tears. Here is a short list of things that made me tear up or cry this week (possibly for no explicable reason):

Hearing The Association’s “Never my Love” on the radio while driving past a cemetery
Watching a short doc on Stephanie Nielson
Reading the edible Wasatch website
Talking to a really nice person at the San Francisco Film Commission on the phone
Having timed something perfectly today
Eating a fresh tomato with salt
The Extras Special Series Finale- that bit where Andy apologizes and tells
Maggie he’d be a penguin so he could eat the “glidey-flappy fish”
Sitting behind a baby at church

At work, we are producing mini-docs on people who are trying to make the world more habitable through kindness and good deeds. Under normal circumstances the cynic in me might do a little eyeball-hula but I love the project and my team and all this inspiring stuff makes me feel a little less suspicious of people. I know that human beings are capable of unthinkable things. Even trusted people can betray us in surprisingly cruel ways, but seeing people give up their time and energy to do their part has reminded me that people are good, too. There is this scene toward the end of P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia, and if I remember correctly, there is a montage of all of the tragic characters underscored by, you guessed it, Ms. Mann herself. At the end of their destructive paths there is this narration:

“Most people don’t know how hard it is to do the right thing. Sometimes people need a little help, sometimes they need to be forgiven, sometimes they need to go to jail.”

That line has stuck with me. It is hard to do the right, kind, and good thing. I fail. A lot. Everyone does. But there is joy to be found in reaching out for help and also in extending an arm or hand in a gesture of love. All we can do is just try and sometimes give in to the tears.