Intonation & Atonement - Sunday 02012026

Chronology, Connection, and Distance

Last night I went to the movies and saw The Chronology of Water.
I’m still processing.

The cinematography was intense — not just visually beautiful, but invasive in that way certain films are. You don’t simply watch them; they insist on being experienced. I don’t mind blood on screen. Violence, strangely, feels less personal to me than sex scenes. Sexual imagery is intimate in a way violence isn’t, and when it appears unexpectedly, it can feel less like storytelling and more like intrusion. That’s my reaction — not prudishness, just awareness of where my comfort lies.

There’s also the proximity factor. I know Lidia. I’ve met her sister. I’ve met Andy. That changes how you watch something. It collapses the distance between “art” and “person.” The story isn’t abstract when you’ve shared physical space with the people whose lives inspired it. It becomes less voyeuristic and more… complicated. Respectful. Maybe cautious.

Her story, like most human stories, is messy. And I mean that in the truest sense — layered, nonlinear, emotional, contradictory. Many people are gushing about the film. I find myself more reserved. Not critical, just contemplative. Some art doesn’t land in a single viewing. Some art needs to settle, to be revisited, to be understood from multiple angles. I suspect this is one of those films for me.

There’s also a subtle dissonance I feel around literary circles in general. The name-dropping, the shared references, the unspoken assumption that everyone in the room has read the same canon. Half the time I haven’t. And I don’t know that I want to pretend I have. The writers who shaped me are Baldwin, Angelou, Walker, hooks, Lorde. That’s my lineage. It doesn’t make me less of a writer — it just means my bookshelf is arranged differently.

Which brings me to an unexpected realization.

I own many books, but they live in boxes. I’ve never owned a proper bookcase. My walls are full of art and images of women who inspire me — visible lineage, visible influence — but my books, my intellectual inheritance, are tucked away in cardboard. I’ve been waiting for the “right” bookcase. Real wood. Heavy. Something that feels like a miniature library instead of a temporary shelf.

Watching a film about memory, trauma, and storytelling reminded me that stories deserve space. Not just in the mind, but in the home. Maybe putting my books up isn’t about décor. Maybe it’s about acknowledging that these voices live with me.

What I appreciated most about Lidia’s work — both on the page and on the screen — is the nonlinearity. Memory rarely arrives in order. Emotion rarely behaves. I don’t write the same way structurally, but I do think I’m good at making someone feel a scene. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s my strength.

I’m not leaving the theater declaring this my favorite film.
I’m leaving it thoughtful.
Sometimes that’s the higher compliment.