oh oh oh 20 in three days.

My birthdays have always been significant in terms of the evolution of my spirit, of my mind, of my ideas.
There was my eighteenth - when I thought life would be made clear to me, when I thought that I'd have everything figured out - because after all I was becoming an 'adult'- and instead I spent the day finding out that my 'best friend' was a traitor and that I was truly not an adult but a little kid all alone, having the worst day of my life.
For one year after that, life was miserable. Everyday that I spent at college, I hated everything about myself, about where I was, where I had come. Then, on my nineteenth birthday, after a small dinner with a few friends, my best friend staged an intervention and in that moment I realized that watching 'The Darjeeling Limited' an excessive number of times had paid off - it hit me like a ton of bricks- one whole year I had been in the depths of depression and then the night of my nineteenth birthday the words of Owen Wilsons mother came to me--- 'stop feeling bad for yourself, its not attractive.' And I haven't felt bad for myself since. I've been a trooper if I say so myself. I've learned to love solitude. I've become fiercely independent and self - reliant, so that if you asked to change anything, I'd say, 'No. Leave it the way it was. It taught me everything.'
And this friday I wonder what life will bring. I know its my birthday and I'm supposed to celebrate but all I want is to eat an exquisite dinner by myself with an exquisite book, go shopping, and watch a movie in theaters. Is that too much to ask? Is it too little?

updates

-newfound love: 30 rock. alec baldwin is oddly attractive. tina fey is funny and quirky. and the show has this subtle humor that has me in fits of laughter. thats just how it is.
-the christmas festival is taking a long time to set up, but i am trying to be patient because patience is a virtue.
-i am a cook. no i am a chef. i cook up delicious new recipes every week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aowl7Wwzyis

one christmas eleven years ago.

Eleven years ago, love, was my last Christmas with you.

In ten days I will be 20. It is such a big number. Smaller of course than 21, which is the biggest number. But big indeed. These are the last ten days of my teenage years as I know them. Goodbye. but not good riddance. I loved my first decade dearly. I loved most of my second quite as much. What will the third bring - happiness, love, joy or will it bring stress and sadness and a fear of everything I associate with getting older?
Will I just live on as if nothing has changed? Will I mature? More importantly will I change as a person? I love the person I am right now dearly and a part of me hopes I won't. But, who really can be opposed to the idea of evolution? Evolution of the mind, the heart, the soul.

what it is.

i feel the days blending into each other. i want to give each day its own significance. i want to remember each day as its own. but before i am too hard on myself, it is third year and this is the hardest year and i cannot let myself get distracted by these things. would i like to sit on my bed, my lamp on, blankets wrapped around me, with a cup of hot cocoa and read tolstoy? yes, very much so. would i like to go home before Christmas? much more. so i think ill get back to my lecture notes. and save the fireside reading for michigan.

101 posts! The Office

The Office is the only show that I've watched for so many years and so consistently and that I still love. Michael Scott got me through one of the lowest points in my life - I'd watch reruns over and over just so that it felt like he was there with me. So now as this season progresses and we get closer and closer to his departure, I feel myself sinking, I feel an awful knot in my throat, and I want to scream "Don't leave me like this!" Not now, not here.
I'm currently in the middle of waiting for the latest episode to load and I thought I'd write about how much I love this show and comment on the characters. What about Erin? She is so loveable and yet I feel like she might be missing a chunk of her brain. But thats just me...
Well its loaded. I have to get back

The Flat is Decorated

I bought all my Christmas Decorations today! If you haven't noticed, I'm really in the Christmas mood :)
I got a bag of tealights, a snowman cup for steaming hot cocoa, Snowman cutout placemats, Christmas cards, and ornaments, and lights, most of all lights. My apartment is a Winter Wonderland. It is spendid and glorious. And Clean. So Fresh and Clean.
I'll put up pictures tomorrow :)
Enjoy the holiday season!

i lit four candles.

turned on my christmas lights.

made myself a steaming cup of hot cocoa.

sat on my bed with the warmth of a blanket.

took in the clean smell, the polished floors, the empty sink.

turned on my christmas music - bing crosby, frank sinatra, dean martin.

and reminded myself that christmas will come, oh so soon, and golden lights will light up my life.

fear

i fear that i will always be scared. i fear change so much that if anything were to shift even slightly i might be thrown into some sort of terrifying depression.
i fear that my dreams - when i have finally gotten there - will have changed and i will no longer love what i thought i would love. i fear that there will be nothing to do, no way to fix it.
im scared of so much and i know this is no way to live. but change has never favored me. and im scared that one day i will be all alone. wondering what went wrong.

the year so far.

january - india: night drives through villages and forest in search of leopards. kanha tiger reserve. street cricket. home-made food. moonlit weddings.

february -  i found myself. brilliant independence. turkish restaurant. thoreau. into thin air. yoga. running. such peace. such happiness. such solitude. lemon with water.

march - towards the end of the month things started going downhill but i never let myself go. and i regained my happiness in other ways. outdoor running. dom ter. fire breathers. 

april - yogurt and blackberries by the river. art. drawing. coloring. painting. pittsburgh for break. affirmation. golden eyeshadow. tan skin. family dinners. gardening. pure happiness.

may - gladiators. sandals. and a soundtrack. somogyi konyvtar. the taste of cold mint-chocolate-chip gelato. the wine festival. neuroanatomy. and then exams. spar shopping trips. hummus and bread and ice cream and cereal bars. 

june - the end of a year. in one way. the beginning in another. movies and the library. jekyll and hyde. tennis and bobby kennedy. a new moleskine. the arrival of a friend.

july- the deterioration of my skin. yes. the month revolved around this. around not wanting to leave the house. around dermatologist appointments. all-round an awful month. the departure of a friend.

august - banff. alaska. denali. a cruise. three weeks. and then home. then the summer ended and i said goodbye to what was not the best summer but not the worst either. denali made up for it. i will return i promise. to buy an alaskan husky. to work at denali's rescue center. i will, i will.

september - the start of a year. classes and more classes. mid term tests. the library. and nothing more. 

october - the loss of independence in some ways. i lost a friend. made another. october break: a brilliant time in prague. 

november - you have only arrived. 

for one so small, you seem so strong.

its not that ive just remembered you and who you used to be. but ive remembered who we were once. the life we once lived. its all gone. and more will change. more will leave. more will leave me broken. and feeling so stretched. so small. so alone.

i hope the sun shines, its a beautiful day
something reminds you,
you wished you had stayed.

i just spent the last half an hour reading through all the old posts on my blog and i realized why it is that i do this, why it is that i haven't put up pictures until recently. it is because the way i've written out my posts, ill be able to look back years from now and remember the exact moment, the exact time. reading posts from march and april are exhilarating. to see how things were then, to breathe in the same air and smell the same smells in a different place at a different time.

1. had two hours of karate last night. my body is hating and thanking me for it.

2. i've opened my notes again, pathology and pathophysiology and microbiology. 

3. i am reading more and more about John Kennedy's assassination. it intrigues me and i want to know as much as possible about every key event, every key player. somehow it is so important that i figure this out.

4. i'm reading everything. reading my notes. reading a novel. reading tolstoy's family happiness. reading about world war I and communism, current events and the cia experiments. reading of poverty and starvation. and mapping out ways to help.

5. i am alive and joyful. yesterday a friend asked, "do you ever get depressed?" and after thinking for a minute, i said, "not always, not anymore, not like it used to be. but i did, but ive changed. but i still do every once in a while. and sometimes i don't even know why"

but i have found, in all, it is the sheer vulnerability that makes us real, live, human beings.

what do you do when you love someone so that what you want for them is more than you want for yourself, more than they want for themselves?
what do you do when you are stripped of all power to help them,
when love, it seems, just isn't enough?

bohemia

i just returned from my trip to the capital of bohemia and i dont think i can truly justify the beauty, the architecture, the very feel of the city with words. i would love nothing more than to live there for a few months studying history or art or architecture.

i promised pictures so here they are:

St. Vitus' Cathedral at the Prague Castle

Charles Bridge

The Lennon Wall, Prague

list of love.

right now i love,
the basement dance crew that i pass every night
the light in the third window that lights up every night without fail. in an otherwise empty building
somogyi konyvtar - the small library: the first floor during day when the old people are reading and the third floor at night. little lamps on little tables. otherwise dark
i love to study. everyday at the library. knowledge is empowering.
i love the waffle shop on somogyi utca. chocolate pudding waffles.
the coat lady at the library with curly white blond hair. shes such a dear.
dressing up everyday! its a record.
spar. its a ritual. even if i need nothing. i like to stop by.
the cold, crisp air reminding me that fall is here, christmas will come, and lights will light up my life.
the christmas lights already decorating my room
karate on friday nights with jibo

i am happy to be alive. i am overwhelmed by classes and tests and studying. but i love every minute of it. i dont want anything to pass me by, i dont want to feel like i didnt appreciate the time i had. i want to embrace everything, live now. not for what will be in a couple months or next summer of five years from now. i want to know that i was happy because i allowed myself to be that way. i hope i read this years from now and i am able to see the person i was and compare it with the person i am then. i hope that some parts of me stay just the same.

the light in the third window

the now. not whats to be. just the now. the past the present the future are very much intertwined, no denying that. but whats important is to recognize that what is, is what is. embrace. love. and live.

dear God,
when are you going to stop messing with me?
-liz

denali

when i last spoke of the mountains, of the rivers, of beautiful, rich land, it was not something i had immediate plans to return to. but as summer made its way along and plans were made and remade, alaska is what finally came and what finally stuck.
denali was breathtaking. i became enamored with the land, the raw beauty of it all, with the tundra at high elevations, the grizzlies at lower, the savage rivers. enamored with the beauty in the names- nenana, and teklanika. de'naina. and i wanted nothing but to stay and to live.merely living was enough. every breath, every thought - these were amplified and i felt like i have never felt. i have fallen in love with the mountains, so that even if i tried i could not leave them behind.

summer is in the air. i can smell it. i can feel it.
summer is in the way we live. for three months. uninhibited. truly, a freeing of the soul.
to make plans and to fulfill or not to fulfill. that is the beauty of summer.
for everyone, here and there. all across the world. here is to a fulfilled, happy summer.

mama

heres to family
to love and peace
and being sunburnt
to chinese for dinner
dessert for dinner, really
here's to feeling safe and warm
with the chenille blanket we've had for years.
shades of royal purple and vermillion and forest green
and truly isnt that what mothers are for?
tintin marathons and iced-ginger-honey-black-tea.
here's to unconditional love, to boundless happiness
to mirrors that reflect only what we want to see
and nothing more
to golden eyeshadow and sandals.
the kind roman gladiators once wore.
to step into their shoes for a night.
to dressing up for dinner
to long car rides
and longer bike rides
on even longer dirt roads
and what about wanting?
only the best, not for yourself, of course
but for the others, for the ones you'd do anything for
yes, its all part of this story.
here is to gardening and landscaping
digging and planting
fertilizing and then the abundance
here is to manual labor and sweating
to a dirt streaked face, a grimy body
and then when the sun has begun to set
showering and watching the water turn brown,
and when thats over,
the thunderstorms and the lightning,
black currant scented candles,
and black currant on toast,

but the best part,
was doing it with you,
yes, with you mama
and with everyone,
once separate but now whole.
love is abundant. love endureth when all else fails.

infinitely.

to infinity and beyond.

oh what a day!

i wrote a post and then deleted it.
i feel empty and lost.
today i feel hateable.
i feel as though i'm a hateable person.
so, if you hate me today, i understand.
i accept.
i dipped my feet in the fountain today.
then i thought about drunk men peeing in it at night.
drunk men with aids, even.
i wondered if dilute pee could spread aids
so i rapidly withdrew.
thats what she said.

yellowstone. i miss you dearly.
im recollecting. so that i never forget
the pure joy you brought me.
lamar valley and the multitudes of bison
the tetons and jackson hole.
the three merry piglets.
up the mountainside. the valley, snake river, a sunset.
a sunburnt face
7 miles down the mountain and sore legs after
bears and bear cubs. oh so many.
a moose. which i spotted.
the long car rides and the even longer walks
family solidarity
the old man and his piano at the old faithful inn. oh how we bonded over our love of les miserables.
the couple from romania.
amazing grace.
fire side in the oldfaithful inn and bagels at night before the old faithful erupted
montana side trip. steak. wooden benches.
grant lake and a horrible dinner.
mammoth springs and the old fashioned tub.
another mountain. a higher altitude. a heartfelt poem. ovis canadensis.
i never wanted to leave. but i had to.
and then back to reality. to work. to people who go to beaches and vegas. to people who smile and nod and can't understand.
"sweetheart would you like a childrens menu?"
"im eighteen"
and then a hateful letter. and then exploitation.
trout lake and the spawning trout swimming upstream
i will return. i promise.

sunscreen

it all falls into place.
last year, at this time while studying for finals, i'd put on coppertone waterbabies sunscreen lotion to motivate me and to calm me down.
i dont need sunscreen. during finals week i rarely leave my house. i dont burn, i brown, so i have no use for it. but that doesnt hold me back. these things never do.

how it all falls into place.
last semester we finished neuroanatomy and when we had finished, we learned about the limbic system, how it is associated with memories, how the olfactory system is connected to it and so on. moral of the story: smells are quite often associated with memories.

when i was four years old, going on five, my mother's best friend would take us to the local lake. it had a beach. her children, my brother, and i would play in the sand, jump around in the water and frolick in our little bathing suits. but before we frolicked, she would lather coppertone waterbabies sunscreen lotion on our little waterbaby bodies.

two summers ago, before i left for university, i was wandering through costco as i often do with my family.
and sitting perched near the checkout lanes, was bottle after bottle of coppertone waterbabies sunscreen lotion.
it looked familiar so i opened it and smelled it.
and when i smelled it, i sort of squealed with joy. in that instance i knew, as we all do. we just know. i knew that this bottle of coppertone waterbabies sunscreen was the same i had used fourteen years ago on a little beach far far away. i knew that in fourteen years, coppertone waterbabies sunscreen lotion hadn't changed their formula. i knew that i had to buy it. because it smelled of summer. nothing smells like summer the way coppertone waterbabies sunscreen lotion does.

and so,

i bought it and when i began to study for exams and got disheartened at the sheer amount of material and my general lack of interest in it, i'd squirt a little bit of coppertone waterbabies sunscreen lotion, and just like that everything would be ok again.

i took it home for the summer and forgot to bring it back with me. and now, as i study for finals i have nothing to calm my troubled nerves and it surely is a troubling thought.

find me, will you?

she shifts her weight,

first on one foot and then the other,

pauses and breathes again.

the floors are mustard.

with little stone chips embedded. 

yellow like mustard

someone moved our toys,

she whispers.

fairies?

yes, fairies.

and the komodo dragon?

among the bamboo?

near the river?

with poisonous saliva?

he wont bite will he?

run! she shouts. run!

so they run and run 

until they cant breathe

and they tumble and squeal and laugh

with gravel crunching

and the smell of cookies and nutmeg

of nutmeg skin

a hint of happiness

of holding on 

to a swollen river

not this one, not now, but then.

far and long ago. 

fortune cookies.

i live to open fortune cookies.
i hate the taste of the cookies. i also hate chinese-american food.
i live by the fortunes.

last week, i went with my family.
i went to open my fortune cookie.
so when the time came i was ecstatic.
i ate dessert for dinner.
tapioca pudding. chocolate chip cookies. jello.
crushed and mixed and pounded in a bowl.
then when the fortunes arrived,
i picked mine with a confidence, with a knowing.
you always know which is yours.
everyone picked the fortune that was destined for them.
rightfully theirs.
and alan picked one that said:
a cookie is everything to the hungry man.
which when i read i burst out laughing.
alan is always hungry. always looking to make the perfect meal.
it was
destiny.
fate.
it was
the magic of the fortune cookie.

to pause. is to breathe. is to make known.

i have one month until finals and it scares me. i have so much work to get done until then. to list all of it would scare me more, but i have a plan and im going to work with that.

heres a list of what is keeping me motivated:

1. being able to read. everything and anything. my list of summer reading includes, but is in no way limited to:

crime and punishment

the gambler, fyodor dostoevsky

the national geographics i've amassed at home (from the 1930s until present day)

the old man and the sea, hemingway

2. taking classes - i'd love to do history, lit, art, and photography. one or all. and maybe a spanish class.

3. the trip i'm taking with my family. right now its either manali and agra or Africa. either would be splendid.

4. a solo road trip somewhere. i'd welcome company but when or where i'm not sure. i have some ideas.

5. rock climbing. i've missed it so.

6. running, maybe some tennis. i have this weird love hate relationship. i love to hit but getting out on the court takes an effort. i've missed it more than anything but i'm scared in some ways to get back into it.

7. taekwondo. i've been doing kyokushin karate for a while here but i've had so much fun with taekwondo. 

and now i absolutely have to get back to anatomy. 

i go back to the bobby kennedy speech (from an earlier post) quite frequently. truth is, as powerful as his speech is, there are parts so simple, so straightforward that we quite often overlook them. 

"The victims of the violence are... most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed.

...whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded."


when my mom was younger she thought that the people around her were more of a background than anything. that their purpose in life (as they had no other) was to fill the spaces. 
it's a five year old's thought, you say. but it's more than that. it is the state of mind we're in. it is the mentality and the attitude that we have toward others.
i see bloodshed in the news; life goes on for me. 
behind the scenes, after the film crews have left, well, there's a family that has to pick up the broken shards and try to move on with life. if they are able. 


so often we say things to people not realizing that they may go home and ponder over these hurtful words, maybe for a day, maybe for years. and violence, well what has it ever achieved? apart from ripping apart the lives of those who have to stay behind?


until i lost someone, and even for a while after, i always thought that those who die, those who leave, are the ones we are to feel sad for. but its not so. they're the ones who get off lucky. the people who stay behind as mortals and succumb to feeling are the ones who truly suffer.


robert kennedy talks about "the fabric of life which another man has so painfully and clumsily woven" and isn't that so? isn't that the way our lives are? that we work for something to give us a bit of purpose, to ensure the bit of happiness that is rightfully ours. that in a heartbeat what we've put up can come tumbling down. it may be fate. it may be the "mindless menace of violence". but if it is something that we can control, why don't we? why don't we try, for once, to be nicer, more polite but more sincere. why don't we help what we can save?

there you go again.

love,
in april it will be ten years. ten long years. however you want to look at it.
the truth is i've missed you longer than i knew you. and i wonder if im allowed to miss you still.
each year it gets better and worse. some years i've missed you more than others. some years i've wondered what went wrong. and this year i've stopped remembering all of it. the day. the minutes. before. during. after.
i've pushed it to the far corners of my mind. there have been years where you've been at the back of my mind. always. like a humming, buzzing noise. always there but subtly so.
and this year you're not there. i dont think of you and when i see the photos of us that i've tacked on my wall, all i feel is a numbing sensation. like you're someone i once knew. someone i've lost touch of.
i found the furby that dad brought when he came home for your funeral. he brought three. i put two in your casket so you wouldn't be alone. it's the only thing i've held onto from that day. from that time.
and when i found it today. everything came rushing back. that day. that moment. that loss.
it's real.
you're gone. i've accepted that. last year i looked up the stages of grief. i'm in the end stage of it. acceptance, they say. i remember denial and bargaining. i used to play this game with myself. i'd try holding my breath for a minute and i'd say that if i could do it, you'd come back. that never worked, did it?
love. it may be that you no longer consume me, but i will never stop loving the days that i loved you.

embargo lifted

today's been a good day. i studied at the library for five hours! (an unprecedented length of time)

the weather was absolutely beautiful. sunny, warm, but just warm-enough-sandal-wearing weather. 

and i snagged a great deal. 15 dollars for a zenit-e camera with a lens. 

now i don't know too much about cameras, and even if it ends up not working i figured, 'hey it looks artsy and cool, why not?" 

plus inscribed on the bottom is "made in the ussr" 

that itself made it worth it,

its a model that i think was released around the time of the soviet games because it has an olympic logo on it. well i have yet to figure out how to work it. i read a manual online and i couldnt figure it out for the life of me.

but i had just spent the previous five hours figuring out tracts and nuclei and what not for neuro, so my brain was functioning a bit slow. ill give it another shot tomorrow...

well, i'm off for a run by the river. enjoy the weekend :)

The Philadelphia (cream cheese) Story

i was shopping at spar the other night, and in the dairy aisle, i happened upon a tub (well, several) of philadelphia cream cheese. which doesn't seem like a lot. but here, it is everything.

i didn't buy it. i wouldn't have used it anyway. but i liked knowing that it was there, that it was available. that it was waiting.

and it got me thinking about myself. about the way i am with these things.

how i loathe materialism
of the life i seek in india, when most people seek to leave it.
how i want what most "normal" people turn away from

and it got me thinking. is it because i am a product of a rich-enough-family? of parents who never have to turn down my requests? it it because i've always had, that i have the ability to turn away? is it because i have the luxury of turning away that i do?

i think whats at the core of it all, is choice. for, the poor strive to be rich because they don't want what's given them. and the rich, well some strive to be richer, and others, like mccandless slip away, trying to fight it all. because we have that choice.

if i were born and brought up in india would i love it as much as i do? if i were poor would i embrace a simpler lifestyle?

to be different? or to live? or are they just the same?

what i love (this week)

lower case letters -e.e. cummings was ridiculous in his own right
running
my celadon green blanket
black nailpolish
my blog. i love it. it's an outpost for all my emotions and thoughts.

drawing, painting, coloring, and the like
lists. but i always do.
clementines
snickers. i eat them religiously
catholic mass. nothing is more calming than mass in a language you don't speak. 
catching up with long lost friends. 


what i don't love:
school work. but hey, what else is new?

new acquisitions.

the gladiator soundtrack
an in-depth knowledge of female genital mutilation
mrs. dalloway by virginia woolf
snickers bars :)

it's been a good week.

fornetti

hungary? you ask.
i can hear the doubt in your voice. the questioning.
but guess what, i love it.
and here's why.
the city i live in possesses a sort of charm that grows on you.
and then there's fornetti.
what's fornetti? you ask.
it is just the best thing on this planet.
fornetti is an eastern european company that makes the most delicious, savory pastries.
i could eat them everyday.
i do eat them everyday.
as a result, i have to run for at least two hours. everyday.
but its worth it, every bite.

what i've come to know

This past year has been a challenge, to say the least. I've had what seems like an eternity of silence to think. 
Silence, in large doses, is both a blessing and a curse. It evokes emotions and thoughts that we once thought were absent from our being. There are portals of our soul that we are forced to enter, forgotten parts that we are made to extract and make known. It opens us to our own judgment, which is, and rightfully so, the harshest form of evaluation. 
Up until last year, the better part of which I spent in bed, immobilized by my own doing, I hadn't taken the time to evaluate. Self-evaluation at crucial points in our lives is vital, for without it we are prone to slip into a state of existence that is noxious to the human spirit. I desire lifestyles and not transient states of being. Lifestyles require commitment, an obsessive passion, a furious loyalty. What better way to live than with a purpose to which we are thoroughly committed?
Alan has always had his goals in front of him, easy in reach; not because they are easily attainable, but because he has an unmatched sense of direction and posseses a rarely seen form of passion. Some people are born with a bold character; the kind that happily exploits every available resource. Others slip into the gaps and the passes, waiting and hoping, for a time that will be their own. For eighteen months, I lived passively, blindly, without purpose. I am now coming to terms with the knowledge that the perfect time and the perfect tide are the stuff of fairytales. Life requires of us an aggresive nature, if we are to expand. 
I take pride in the changes that I've made in my life. I see myself evolving into a person who loves to learn, simply for the preservation and expansion of knowledge. While I can look at my current predicament as a stripping away of my rights, I can also look at it as an unparalleled opportunity. It may not be what I want right now, but to see each and every setback as room for growth is a much better approach. 
Eighteen turbulent months. And now, they are over. I've been to hell and back, but I have emerged, stronger and more resilient. Along with sorrow and heartbreak, I was gifted shreds of sage-like wisdom. And, the greatest lesson yet? That happiness isn't contingent on circumstance; it's a state of mind, of attitude, of personal endeavor. I have found happiness, and it is sublime. 

the road has always led west

i miss the mountains.

the valleys.

the rivers snaking through.

brilliant white teeth.

and tough beef jerky.

driving through idaho,

idaho potato.

endless roads, 

and endless views, 

a sleepy darkness.

a moonlight dance.

and where, after all,

the sky meets the dust. 

we'll meet again, won't we?

the beautiful and the damned.

Revolutionary Road is the story of the Wheelers, a couple floundering in the mediocrity that is mid-level suburbia. Their desperation for change is painfully evident, but their dreams are balanced on a wavering stack of inability, fear, and as more of a side note, infidelity. 


The Wheelers make an impetuous decision to move to Paris, but as the story progresses, Alice Wheeler finds that she's pregnant. Well, bitter arguments ensue, and she ends up struggling to accept that she won't be going anywhere. As though Paris doesn't have hospitals! As though children can't be raised in Europe! 


I think we all have an inherent capacity for excuses, but it takes a certain strength to dream and to fulfill. To begin and then to end. 
Sometimes what we really need is a dramatic, upending change to begin the process of living, to realize that there is a difference between living and merely existing. 


Well, there's more to the story and I hope I'm not giving away too much as I write this. 
And for the record, I stand by my word. It deserved an Oscar!

Now, I'm only halfway through, but why didn't Revolutionary Road win an Oscar?
more on this later

pitter patter. the rumbling of a truck. skipping rocks. vibrant green. fish vendors. bamboo fishing poles. cold samosas. desire. breathlessness. the sunset.

what i love

the streetlights

rainy, overcast days

open windows 

establishing order

water with lemon

the possiblities in a new sketchbook

the middle road

where the paddy fields meet the horizon

monsoon thunderstorms

picking up a new classic- it's thrilling and daunting at the same time

the mountains

simple beauty- it is everywhere

solitude

feeling beautiful 

creativity -it feeds the soul

self-reliance

anthropology class

july 4, 2010

the ghost of dirty dick is still in search of little nell.

i want

to quit college and move to the mountains
to study philosophy and art, history and literature
to be able to sleep for more than two hours straight
to read and re-read
to immerse myself in what i love


to leave this place. 
to be in a different place doing different things.


what i don't want is what my parents want for me. i don't want to drive an expensive car or live in a big house. i could do without. we all could. but how do i tell them?

Put yo thinkin' caps on!

I'll admit, my interest in the Kennedy assassinations is verging on obsession. In the past two days, I've watched multiple documentaries on the subject and I'm currently re-reading Bobby Kennedy's biography.
I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject; I've only scraped at the surface of the conspiratorial mystery surrounding the assassinations. But, what I have come to realize, is that the government is intent on wiping out free thought; they would rather have us blindly follow the Warren Commission's assessment of the crime, than piece together a much more logical explanation. I find it a brutal insult to my intelligence. 
What I believe is more important than having "knowledge", or more fittingly, an illusion of knowledge, is continually seeking after it. We are more inclined to believe what we hear from the mass media and from our peers, than challenge what we're told. Challenging our belief system not only takes a considerable amount of effort, but it removes us completely from our sense of false security.
The fundamental problem is that many of us have lost the ability to think for ourselves. When was the last time you questioned what someone told you, that you did what you wanted to do, not what others would have you do? Our minds are the only resource we have left, and when we yield to greater or lesser powers, we have lost everything.

Bobby

I watched Bobby for the second time, tonight. 
I've posted the transcript of Robert Kennedy's final speech. There's such potent inspiration in his words. 
I hope you enjoy!  


"This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives. 
It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours. 
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.
Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.
"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs." 
Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them. 
Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul. 
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter. 
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all. 
I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered. 
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers. 
Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence. 
We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge. 
Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.
But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. 
Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again."