Happy Monday. A short post today because I'm afflicted with a cold. I write now, sitting up in bed but will soon be lying down again I'm sure. I've slept for a bit so am somewhat bored now.

Do you like movies that are a little different? I'm rather famous in my family for picking odd ones, or perhaps I should say infamous. I love to check out the international section where odd ones with subtitles abound. Recently I watched Luna Papa, a surreal and I must say wackily charming movie set in Tajikistan. A dreamy young girl who wants to be an actress and loves all things to do with acting sets off, with the help of her father and demented older brother, to the city to see a performance of Shakespeare. She arrives too late and wanders alone through the night. In a peculiar scene that has to do with falling down a cliff, (this is where it is most surreal) she has a sexual encounter with an unknown man and becomes pregnant. The story is told by the child that results from this encounter, although we never meet the child. The search for this man, the father of the child is zany one, hilarity mixed with the realities of living in this superstition and tradition, where soldiers and dry dusty landscape mix with poverty and small town lack of privacy. The ending was nearly a happy one, but the chance occurrence of a bull falling from an airplane put an end to that. The conclusion was once again from the land of surreal.

What I enjoyed most about this movie were the colours. In this land so unfamiliar and I confess so uninviting to me, I saw sand and sky in soft creams and beiges, tinged with gold and pink. The nearby water, a lake I think but I'll have to check y atlas, was pale aqua. The people, living in a land of pastel, wore brilliant colours and patterns mixed together that no fashion exert could ever condone and yet to me it was so much more appealing than anything on the runway. Sometimes I want to cry when I walk into clothing store after clothing store offering only neutral colours. I walk out again so fast. If I wore to work what the people of this community ( as represented in this movie) wore I would be considered colour blind perhaps, or at the best very boho. We are so affluent that we think it matters if your clothes are colour coordinated and you tastefully restrict your use of prints. So affluent that clothes can be a hobby. Designers create things that we call art and are elevated to must have but only few can afford status. We go shopping to find the perfect something to go with something else. We own more than one coat and one pair of shoes. I'm not saying this is bad; I love clothes an shoes and bags. It certainly is decadent. Art is decadent. But, I was so struck by the art of the artless. Just as nature throws together colours and textures and patterns and it all belongs, we should learn from this and remember that we are like flowers in the garden of the universe. Colour my friends, colour. Toss it around you, toss it on you, mix it DONT match it. Try it just once.