A world more beautiful after Amélie
During a season of loneliness, in the autumn of 2020, one of my housemates saw a listing for a piano. A few weeks later, we set it up in the corner of our dining room. None of us were sophisticated players, but its soulful presence brought us together, filling in the empty gaps, and making our house feel more like home.
One afternoon, my housemate began to play “Comptine d'un autre été l'après-midi,” from the French-language film, Amélie. As I listened, I found myself returning to the first time I’d heard this melody. I felt struck by the same aching familiarity—as if it had always been tucked away in the back pocket of my dream world.
Last week, I rewatched Amélie for the second time. Once again, I was taken in by the delightful quirkiness of Amélie, for whom the film is named. Shy and highly inquisitive, the 23-year-old quietly notices and absorbs the conditions of her surroundings.
Though she spends her free time alone, her world appears to be a charming, tragic, and mysterious stage, where she pulls the strings of those in her path, orchestrating chance encounters, reuniting strangers with their beloved objects, or sending broken-hearted neighbors long-lost letters.
Despite her involvement in other people's lives, Amélie hasn’t formed any intimate relationships of her own. Instead of being in the company of friends, she prefers the simple pleasures she can experience by herself.
Pleasures like “plunging her hand deep into a sack of grain, cracking crème brûlé with a teaspoon, or skipping stones on the Canal Saint-Martin.” Soon, though, her time alone begins to unravel as she befriends one of her neighbors and finally feels emboldened to pursue her crush.
Amélie’s isolation reminds me of my own insular pandemic self, of the solitary patterns I’ve befriended since the beginning of quarantine. How I wake up early to write and drink my coffee alone or take evening walks down my favorite streets. Having these pleasures in my life has been comforting and grounding in our chaotic world, but these solitary rhythms have also become stale.
I can see now that my habits have become my life. I tend to keep to myself and I’m far less open to tangible connections in my comings and goings. Even when I go out, I rarely make an effort at new social gatherings or make small talk with my neighbors, even when I know I’d be happier if I did. It’s become safer, and somehow easier, to disengage.
It may be impossible to go back to the openness we lived before. Covid has changed us and continuing to engage in normal activities can feel reckless and risky as waves of covid find strangers, friends, and family members.
No matter how hard life continues to be, I hope we will continue sharing the complexity of our lives with one another. Opening our doors again, in the ways that we can.
Two years into a pandemic, Amélie has reminded me of the deeper dimensions that exist between us. Like the roots of a mycorrhizal network, our connection is always there, even if we must go underground for a while.