Our Perfect Days

chasing that post-breakup high

Perfect Days (Japan/Germany, 2023)

Once upon a time, I rented a home in Nebraskan corn country. I moved there to start writing my second book, Trespassing across America, for which I’d received a respectable advance. The house only had one floor (and a basement), but it was massive and weird. Designed by a successful farmer in the 1970s, the house had couches that were suspended in the air by chains, carpets that were tacked to walls, and bookshelves that were diagonal.

But it was also adorably normal. Adorably and conventionally American. The weird bookshelves contained hardcover volumes of Reader’s Digest books. The kitchen pantry had decades-old spices and Hershey hot chocolate mix. There was a rabbit-eared antenna on the TV in the kitchen. While I cooked meals, I’d watch the weather on the local news station or insects fight on PBS. Some nights, I drove to the nearby town of York to an old-timey cinema in the middle of town.

All the roads were perfectly north-to-south and east-to-west. At night, under the stars, with forests of corn on each side of me, I’d jog straight toward the north star. I’d come home, and leap into an in-ground pool. I’d watch something weird — Twin Peaks — and whisper to myself, as I readied myself for sleep, I love my life.

A lot of us are familiar with the feeling. We often get this feeling after a much-needed romantic separation—when you’re no longer around someone who bores you, annoys you, or resents you, when you’ve claimed unlimited autonomy to serve your desires, and when you can eat what you want, go where you want, and sleep until whatever unforgivable hour you want. It’s when you inadvertently become Buddhist: taking pleasure in everyday nature, walking with a silly lightness in your step, being persistently grateful for your existence…

The movie, Perfect Days, captures this feeling. It’s about an older man — a toilet cleaner in Japan — who takes pride in his work, gazes admiringly at urban trees, and feels moved by his collection of mostly American music on tape cassettes. “Now is now,” he profoundly tells his niece.

Of course a good breakup — or perfect freedom — isn’t enough to be able to enjoy this everyday Buddhist serenity. Our Japanese toilet cleaner had created a life of purpose, art, intellectual stimulation, romantic possibility, nature, routine, financial security, respect, friends, good food, and no dishes to wash. In other words, it’s no surprise that our toilet cleaner is an older person—he had time to establish the conditions for a life of steady joy. It’s not so easy when you have a wailing child or debt or mortgage or poor health or the thousand other stresses the majority of us contend with, so don’t fret if your days aren’t perfect yet. Jonathan Rauch in The Happiness Curve, says contentment may be difficult to get ahold of until our mid-fifties—when the tough part of parenting is over, when we’ve established financial stability, and when we’ve developed the philosophical tools to keep things in perspective.

Why do most of us trade our perfect days for something else? For me, I remember being drawn away from Nebraska by biological imperative. I suddenly craved the heightened sensations of romantic adventure over the simple joys of my northward walks and Netflix menu. And, as good as life was, I remember merely craving something new. Plus, my book project was winding down and it was time to find a new job. Maybe our perfect days aren’t meant to last. But Perfect Days seems to suggest that the feeling, and this autonomy, doesn’t have to be ephemeral. Perhaps the childless cat ladies are onto something. A-

What else am I watching?