“I feel as lonely as a plastic bag flapping in the wind.” This thought popped into my head on my way home from my voluntary job: supervising 400 over-excited 6 to 12-year-olds at a Saturday morning cinema club. Normally, we just watch one film, but this time we watched five shorts: 

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895) - the first film ever made - a 30 second silent black and white portrayal of men and women streaming out of a factory at the end of the workday. 

A Trip to the Moon (1902) - the first colour film ever made - 1½ psychedelic minutes about building a spaceship and flying to the moon.  

The Immigrant (1917) - with Charlie Chaplin - I dozed off half-way through this and woke up in the middle of The Zoo (1961), where crowds of people were pointing and laughing hysterically at terrified animals in cages. 

Le Petit Dragon (2009) was my favourite of the five-part animation/part live action - think Bruce Lee meets Toy Story; and the last film, whose name escapes me, was about a boy’s obsession with Portuguese football star, Cristiano Ronaldo. Not my cup of tea at all, but the kids loved it. 

I envy the insouciance of children. I never had my own, although I am godmother to one, aunt to six, and great-aunt to seven. 

For those of you of a certain vintage, you might remember a cardboard tube-shaped toy called the kaleidoscope. You looked through one end, twisted the middle and an endless array of rainbow-coloured fractal shapes appeared at the other. My childhood was by no means idyllic but in retrospect, it was magical. In my head, I genuinely believed that I was going to grow up, become a movie star, and men would swoon at my feet.  

A plastic bag is stuck in a pine tree in the garden. It appeared after a storm. Until recently, a deflated birthday party balloon was also stuck in the branches of another tree in the garden. The sight of the plastic bag made me realise that the balloon had gone, and I felt a distinct sense of loss.   

Nothing major happened in my life between the end of last year and the beginning of this year, except for spending time with family in London. However, since coming back to Switzerland, I have noticed that my outlook has changed. I am more chilled, less irritable, more patient.  

Here is my conundrum:

Does your outlook depend on how you feel? Or does how you feel depend on your outlook? 

Cappuccino

A Moodscope member