The Grand Budapest Hotel has not opened in Kansas City, so I went to see it Sunday night in New York in a humongeous multi-plex with escalators and balconies.  That alone was its own eye-opening experience (as was paying admission.  Yikes.) I had seen previews and posters and read reviews of the film, but it hadn’t occurred to me that I would be inspired by its pastel palette.  Once tucked in to my seat with my popcorn and my Milk Duds, however, I realized that the lighter shade of pink that glows throughout Mr. Anderson’s film is very close to the one on my dining room walls.

The true surprise, the delight, the inspiration, however, came with the combination of the aforementioned pink and this mustardy yellow, a color I love, but thought I was a bit past.  In a few rooms on the set, this golden hue appears on the dado with the pink above.  And there, right there, on a Sunday night in that crowded movie theater, slightly cursing the woman next to me who thought the arm rest was hers alone, I could see it on my dining room walls.  Perfect, not just in its combination, but  referencing the parts of me that have not changed even as I begin anew.

Photo swiped from IMDb, with no further credits available. I hope that Mr. Anderson and his people will forgive my using it if I tell you that the movie is a visual delight not to be missed.

I was in New York last weekend and spent a long stretch at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I used to plan my days in the city in half-hour intervals to make sure that I was able to see everything I could: people, exhibits, shops. Now I am easier on myself.  I schedule time with friends, mostly around meals, then I tend to wander.

I hadn’t planned on being at the Met for four hours.  I walked in, turned right and let go.  I said to a man later, “The Met is so greedy.  It has so much.” He smiled at me and replied, “But it is there for all of us.”  Lucky, that.

So I gobbled it up.  I strolled through period rooms. I leaned close to study the detail of intaglios from half a dozen cultures or more, careful not to touch my nose to the glass. I stood back in wonder at large abstract paintings that never fail to lift my spirits.

Through all of it I noticed the occasional visitor who moved through galleries with a phone about a foot from his face, recording all that was there.  Sweeping the rooms with this device, never looking with his eye.  “You’re missing all of it,” I thought.  “You cannot feel the energy of these things that way.”  Certainly, a better quality video could be purchased.  What was the point of standing in that place, if you could not feel the personal intent and the passion of the creators?

Readers email me fairly often to tell me stories they think I will like, or recommend something, or just say, “hello.”  I share a lot of personal things here and it gives them the freedom to share back.   Recently, someone stopped in to let me know that she was glad I was blogging again.  In her short email, she briefly mentioned a recent personal tragedy that made me put my head on my desk and weep.  There is so much pain.

But as I walked through the galleries at this grand museum, I saw as I have not for a while, that there is so much beauty. We have this need to create, to enhance our lives with objects that could be utilitarian, but instead are decorative. To express our love, our wonder, our frustration, our disappointment, is so innate.  It has been there since the beginning.  If we take the time to see it, it is there for all of us.

Old houses that are new to us offer mysteries.  When I was readying to move in I wondered at the number of high hooks on the doors.  Closet doors, bedroom doors, the door to the attic, all secured from the outside.  I don’t think the previous owner had children, so after my initial alarm I dismissed the idea that she was locking someone in.  I unscrewed them carefully, placed them in a box in case I need them though I can’t imagine why I would, and began to fill the holes.

Later, when I wanted to close doors that wouldn’t quite shut, I wondered if she had latched them to keep her cat from pulling them open with his inky paw.  Wondered further if his nocturnal roaming, the soft creak of a door, might have been unsettling to someone living alone. And if that were the case, wouldn’t it have been better to fix the door rather than take this sloppy short cut?