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