Girls Night In

Often on Thursday evenings, hubby does manly things with his best friend across the street ("man-dates" I call them). While I vocally protest these times apart from our matrimonial bliss, secretly I lavish my girl's night in. I order my Netflix queue to send along period pieces and biopics and chick-flicks on my Thursdays in; and, I ready my cocktail shakers to create an array of pink drinks.

Tonight, I had the pleasure of screening Bright Star, the painfully romantic film that details the relationship between the poet John Keats and an enigmatic and creative seamstress Fanny Brawne. The film anoints its viewers with words and image alike. A simple shot of the female lead in her lush flower garden or a carefully choreographed scene of a dance or the reduced simplicities of the early 19th century British domestic spaces, the film delights and captivates. But most of all, it reminds us of the joy of poetry and the inimitable grace of a well-chosen word:


A Thing of Beauty from Endymion
by John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.