I woke up this morning feeling some type of way, a kind of abstract restlessness I get when I feel like I haven’t done my share. The best way I can describe it is my sense of the absence of enough.

I’m sure you can relate? For me, enough is that sunrise just over the horizon, if only the horizon would get out of the damn way. Enough is that rabbit-shaped lure that speeds around a greyhound racetrack. It goes away when the race is over, but win or loss, the dogs have a taste for blood and want to beat the ever-living hell out of that shitty, manipulative trick of a machine.

Whenever I feel this way, I more or less self-medicate, either with food or something cathartic. I opted for the latter this morning.

When I first met my boyfriend, we talked a lot about stuff we consider Important. You know, the OkCupid-structure of dating. While chatting, he exposed me to the film here, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, the film draws inspiration from Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz and Hurricane Katrina (the film was produced in Shreveport, Louisana).

Charming and sweet, it is a magical 15 minutes paying homage to the power of story. Now, two years later, it’s a film that has become one of my own Important Things. On each view, it helps me face the book-shaped lump of restlessness I’ve often ignored but am learning how to address, while also adding some color back into my day.