Week in Seven Words #387

concealment
Bored, he texts me from the party to list all the places where he could hide from the other guests. The shrubs by the pool provide good coverage. There's room for most of him behind the piano in the den.

freshening
I love an early Sunday walk when the light is soft and the streets are mostly empty.

humbling
I'm beaten badly by two children at Settlers of Catan. They rob me of all my resources. They laugh as I lose my lumber and ore.

refusal
There are different ways of saying good-bye. One is to avoid saying it at all, to turn away at the moment of parting and slip into another room.

soothed
She sits in a blanket nest on the bed and frets. I cup her cute bald head in my hand, and she calms.

teeming
A sulfurous odor leaks out of the pails of water he's set up in the basement for his plastic animals. He's lined some of the pails with dirt from the backyard, and without knowing it has invited new kinds of organisms into his collection, alive and bacterial.

unignorable
I don't pay attention to the tendons in my feet, until one of them painfully, insistently reminds me that it exists.

Week in Seven Words #359

defended
The robin perches in the heart of a brambly shrub.

denied
Her life has been set to a soundtrack of slammed doors.

farewell
Our good-bye has a taffy-like quality. We say it and stand close, and after talking some more, repeating ourselves, we part slowly, the distance between us stretching by inches.

headgear
My first sight of her is the bike helmet she's still wearing, as she hunches over her phone, her upper body framed by a dark window.

seen
She may not know who has sent her the note expressing thanks, but she's happy that someone has appreciated her efforts.

spangle
They've strung up a few lights to give an otherwise steely, soulless street some color.

splat
The egg he cracks in a neat stroke, but the yolk plops on the floor.

Three visually beautiful movies

Title: 35 Shots of Rum (2008)
Director: Claire Denis
Language: French (and some German)
Rating: Unrated

35 Shots of Rum keeps the dialogue sparse and lets the camera linger on people's expressions and gestures, the light and shadow surrounding them. A widower, Lionel (Alex Descas), and his college-aged daughter, Josephine (Mati Diop) share a close, affectionate relationship, but they're each facing profound changes in their life. Lionel is approaching the age of retirement and watches a former colleague struggle with finding meaning in his life now that he no longer works. Josephine, meanwhile, is in love with a neighbor. Lionel and Josephine are devoted to each other and comfortable sharing a home, but they know they won't keep living as they are indefinitely, and it's difficult to cope with.

There's a lot of visual beauty in this movie. Some of it geometric - trains traveling in the dark with their windows as squares of light, while the windows in buildings are lit rectangles. The play of light is wonderful too, like with the rails that glow in the afternoon or early evening. The combinations of color are also lovely - creams and coffee colors, grays and navy blues, with pops of red. (It reminded me of Edward Hopper paintings.)

And I like the movie's quiet emotions. The tenderness conveyed with few words between father and daughter. The regrets and disquiet, the closeness and loneliness.

In the mood for an 80s music video

Though I rarely listen to Cyndi Lauper's music, I've always liked this video - it's sweet, wistful, and very 80s; the first time I heard this song, it made my heart ache.