Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man

"Jonas Mekas: [voice-over] Images... images. It started... I think it began long long ago when I was sitting on the bed next to my father, I think I was maybe five... maybe five. And telling him singing, in this kind of singing voice, I remember it very very clearly like it was today... telling, singing about what happened that day, what we did... what we did in the fields... we went to the mill. Every detail of that day I sang to my father with such intensity, such involvement in it. I was completely transported into this kind of recreation of the day to the very... like essential details of the day. I remember it so clearly and I know that all I'm doing now, all I have been doing since; trying to reach, to regain that kind of intensity, that kind of closeness to reality when you see, you sing and it's there in front of you. Right there! Every detail, every detail of... the day. And it's happiness, happiness when I can come close to it and then I look at it, I record it, I sing... and then it's all there and I look at it and... it's there! And... [laughs] Jonas Mekas: that it's there, that I did it! I managed to catch some of the beauty, some of the happiness, some of the beauty... that's all I care, that's all I care to catch: some of the beauty... around me, that daily, daily, daily... beauty that is there. Ever, ever since age five and I'm still trying, trying... to be as then at age five, the age of innocence. So I'm here, so many years later trying to do... the same and it's also a late late evening... night, deep into the night. A late evening like then, many many years ago. Age five. Sitting on the bed next to my father. And... singing, singing, singing... [whispering] Jonas Mekas: Singing."