I cook an egg with a spoon, amélie
considering life's small pleasures
I rewatched the world’s greatest comfort movie, Amélie. Side note: I love the movie Amélie but this MBMBAM bit is all I hear in my head when I think of it.
I think what is particularly interesting about Amelie and why it resonates so deeply with me at this time is the ways in which it both feels like a fantasy, especially in these times, and somehow is a love letter to the mundane real life we experience every day.
Amélie Poulain’s favourite activities include dipping her hand in sacks of grain and cracking the top of a creme brûlée with a teaspoon, the latter of which is extremely relatable to me, a person who loves creme brûlée. It is one of my most missed things in the pandemic because I can’t make it at home. Don’t text me and tell me I can because I will not be buying a tiny blowtorch even though it seems like a really cool and fun purchase.
As a person who currently lives on their own I am of course not socialising or going outside, meaning that many of the small pleasures featured in Amélie are unattainable to me, but I have tried to find them elsewhere. I make a ritual out of every cup of tea. I have been eating a lot of shortbread. Every night I read one very short chapter of the book The Beekeeper of Aleppo, which is unbearably sad and has taken me a month to get through despite how good it is.
It is difficult, though, to find joy in the mundane when everything is is so mundane. I can hardly delight in the particular habits of strangers when I don’t even see any strangers. I go from my bed to my desk to the couch to the kitchen, and I see nobody along the way. It is hard! But you know what’s easy? Sitting down and watching Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain.
I'm sure there is some irony that a film about finding joy in the world is in fact the joy I find in the world, but whatever. It just warms my heart. It’s kitschy and quirky without being twee, it’s effortlessly funny but still dark when necessary, and the plot is kicked off because Amélie is taken aback by hearing about the death of Lady Di on the news, meaning one could argue John Mulaney is responsible for the events of the film Amélie.
John Mulaney would have actually been fifteen and in Chicago, Illinois at the time of Princess Diana’s death. What’s he hiding?
Watching Amélie I became keenly aware of how the pandemic has forced me to reckon with my own personality and sense of self, and how I’m trying to curate a version of myself that feels interesting. I spend all day with myself, I may as well make my only companion a person I find entertaining! I knit and I write stories and sometimes I make pancakes for dinner, all in an attempt to collate a version of myself built up of interesting quirks and anecdotes. In some way is that not why I started this newsletter in the first place, to give myself another artificial personality trait?
That, I think, is too unkind an opinion of myself. I do like these things! They make me happy, when so much of every day is filled with boredom. Amélie would probably appreciate the life I’m living, and that’s enough for me right now.
Some of the small pleasures I have been indulging in to varying results:
Looking after plants - I am very bad at this. Currently I have one dead orchid, one dying houseplant that I refuse to give up on and one miraculously still living monstera
Painting my nails - a thing I have never cared about but is quite soothing actually
Knitting - I now have one blanket (at my parent’s house because the cat likes to sleep on it), one poorly constructed (but warm) jumper and one tiny sweater vest that I made for my teddy bear