I was young once

My dad and I always said that one day we would visit London together.  This is important because my dad and I are two of a kind.  Particularly this is true because my dad and I are able to sit on a Saturday afternoon and listen to old love songs and talk about life and poetry and heroes and very particularly we can talk of certain feelings of nostalgia as if they were books or paintings- understanding each other quite well.

"I walked by the gas station last summer on a very hot day- and I heard children's chatter.  It has been so many years since I took the time to listen to children's chatter." - My dad says.

And so- we chose London because my father at twenty went to live and work there for a while.  I had never been before and I wouldn't have wanted to under any circumstance.

"September 28? Until October 4th?"
"Yes."
"Done..."

And so began our little trip together.  Might I mention that my father and I had never taken a trip longer than a weekend together in all 27 years of my existence.

Our flight was as expected. Upon arrival in London my father suggested a taxi to our hotel.  I wanted to take the train.  He was hesitant at first, but allowed me to take a bit of a lead in the matter and this was the first unusual little happening.  Our train ride to the South Kensington guts of London was a beautiful and significant moment.  The train was unfamiliar to my dad and seemed very much like the layout of Paris or New York or any large city to me.  And so I watched my father as I stood guarding the luggage.  I watched his nostalgia for the old and forgotten awaken along with some fear of the new and unknown.  After observing the people around him for a while I saw a smile emerge.  Surely this was the beginning of what would be a beautiful experience together.

Our hotel was situated very close to his previous habitation.  And so generally speaking our trip was the brilliant balancing act between my youthful familiarity with what's current and my father's classic tastes and general romance with this city.  We had teas and coffees and selfies and shopping and proper breakfast every morning.  We also just so happened to be there for fashion week- London.

Our days were spent with no specific plan just a general location where we would head.  Yet somehow we always ended up in Piccadilly.  We had long walks in Hyde Park and talked about the 70s and how in time there are always rebells that live life as if it were a little game- reminiscent of Antoine Doniel.  I wondered about his youth there and how the city had changed in 40 years.  For the first time in a while I was enjoying the present while remembering a yesterday I never intimately knew.  My father took me to a musical about the Kinks and we ended up sitting next to the writer. We went to discover the new Notting Hill which now sold $300 underwear.

Dad and I Selfie in Hyde Park

This trip was in a way the marking of a new beginning.  My dad and I are in the middle now, where he offers me advice and wisdom and I offer him  a sense of insight to a changing world. Together the world is ours and this time in life is a beautiful place to be.

The Ring Thief

One late night, not too long ago, I came around to watching a movie that was overdue.  A classic.  The Bicycle Thief.  I so often avoid movies that I know I will like quite a bit because whenever I am exposed to something that touches the very base of my soul, there is a certain level of unease that arises and torments me.  I did like the bicycle thief as I knew I would.  It wasn't the grand characters or the alluring plot that made me chuckle at the all to familiar.  Rather, it was the reiteration of some known truths that are so well portrayed in the simple tale.  The circumstances in the movie are not so extraordinary, they are transcendent beyond the specifics.  The movie reminded me of a small event in my youth that aimed to teach me the same lessons at such a young age.  When I was about 13 years old I went to visit my grandmother.  She always woke up and headed to the local market quite early on Wednesdays in the summer, mainly to avoid the heat which ruthlessly beat on the foreheads of those not too wise to it, or too young to notice.  I found myself on such a Wednesday, waking up quite early and keeping my grandmother company.  This hot summer day in particular was close to my birthday.  And so, as many times before on special occasions, my grandmother decided to take me to choose a birthday gift.  I found in a small jewelry store the most elegant ring of yellow gold that tied in a perfect bow in the front.  This was quite a unique and meaningful gift given to me at age 13.  The ring was very meaningful to me and continues to be so.  When I went back home and ultimately to school after that long summer, I often wore my ring.  One day I took off this ring before my gym class and left it on top of many other things in a small locker.  Under some evil spell of unawareness, I must have forgotten about the ring and flung it as I removed my belongings.  The following day, as if this evil spell were continuously plaguing me, I caught sight of an elegant, golden bow enchanting the finger of another girl in my gym class.  I asked her of course if she had found the ring.  Then more and more aggressively I pleaded.  Oh I pleaded and begged and promised that I wouldn't tell anyone and that I wouldn't even remember her misunderstanding and that this ring meant a lot to me.  Had I the mind then to buy a heck saw and retrieve what was mine.  But I didn't.  And I don't.  This is the lesson of The Bicycle Thief.  I never got my ring back, and I probably never will.  And that is the rotten luck of some people.  How easy such things come to some people! And yet some, even when their life and happiness depend on it such as Antonio Ricci or myself at age 13 cannot sum up the courage to be ruthless and we suffer as we silently watch.  The movie teaches us that when we act forcefully out of character, the universe will tame us with a whip so taught, it will make us wonder with awe at how anyone can sum up courage to execute such deviant tasks.  And so the real retribution comes not in an eye-for-an-eye philosophy, but in the brutal memory.  Surely as I remember the theft of my grandmother's ring, she who stole it remembers how she was able to carelessly hurt someone and a shadow of shame must weigh over her.  But ultimately honesty does not triumph.  Because now, I do not have anything to hold that will remind me of a sweet lady that cared for me so much.  My grandmother passed away 11 years ago on this day.  I have stories of her. Stories of a nurse during a war that crawled across a mountain with a wound in her leg.  I have memories of a sweet woman whose meals were made with love and who traveled far to see me at an old age.  Yes, it will take more than a ring thief to affect the good memory of my grandmother.

The end of August,the September Issue, and Leaving Work Behind

The end of August gives me the impression that time is somehow uncontrollably slipping away from me.  "Where did the summer go?" Now, once again I find myself on some adventure somewhere for the long weekend of Labor Day in the US. Usually, this is prime opportunity to run away from the every-day.  Two years ago exactly, I followed my dreams... 

Amid the turmoil that a young life can bring, my sub consciousness had provided me with a dream in the depths of a forest where no one had the ability to find me.  I was in some exotic spa, sitting on a window ledge leaning on my knee looking out to endless depths of green.  At the end of this dream, I woke up feeling tranquil.  I hadn't felt so in a long time.  Following the impulsiveness that this tranquility brought me, I booked a spa for myself in the middle of nowhere for the Labor Day weekend.  A three-hour drive from Chicago into Michigan there is a small charming place called Castle in the Country.  It has little rooms resembling Victorian décor.

The guests of this place were primarily enamored couples looking for a small getaway.  So it was with little surprise that upon arrival, the concierge looked puzzled to see me arrive alone.  With no discretion she asked me what my plans were, to which I replied that I was looking for a quiet place to work.  Not entirely untrue, I had at the time lugged with me the second edition of Bird, Steward, and Lightfoot.  Similar in weight came The September Issue of Vogue.  And so, I was shown to my room.  I immediately kicked my shoes off and plugged into the issue.  Not long after, I scheduled a massage at the spa for the following afternoon. 

Castle in the Country is type of place that prides itself in the little tricks they play on food and on the infinite coffee and tea they can serve you.  They offer picnics and other charming details that would make a weekend special. Breakfast time was entirely uncomfortable for all the guests and they mainly whispered.  I wonder why guests of these types of places so often feel unworthy of the relaxation they paid for.  I had a few questionable stares as I read my magazine and sipped on quite a few cups of coffee.  After my massage that day, I had a bath and a small nap appropriately so.  In the evening I was taken to dinner in a nearby restaurant by my brother who happens to be a great friend of mine and who also frequents this area.  We went to a patio restaurant serving good classic dishes with a modern twist in Kalamazoo.  So often these small treasures are found in small places.  The evening passed with hands applauding the musicians that set the mood of mischief with tunes of rock and roll, accompanied with whispers of secrets about past love affairs underneath breaths of bittersweet wine.  There must be something that dark skies with speckles of lights bring out in us.  Knowing we are far away from anything familiar might even give us a chance to say with small hesitation what thoughts we deemed unspeakable in close proximity to our daily lives.    

The Resurgence

I don't take it for a great coincidence that the timing of my awakening post Master's and my desire to express myself again have coincided.  In fact, it has been a year of awakening.  Things have changed, yet I have decided to keep the same blog, just give it a bit of a refreshment and hopefully more commitment.  After all, we must build on our past, not destroy it.  As it were, where I have last left you off...  The Frenchman is no more the one we yearn to hold in the bitter bites of the winter nor the exhausting passion of the summer.  We are wiser and have seen a few things.  We are now 26 and more or less the same pant size.  The world around has changed, yet I do not so freely differentiate between the now and then.  It's still the same songs that make me ache for the autumn and I am still shade 02 light/medium.  I will try to alight you in a painless manner, to the roaring racket that is myself at the tender age of 26.  Welcome to 2014, August.

Green Velvet is in bad taste...

An appointment of fun with a friend brings you into a cab with a female cabbie who is not entertained by you clever conversations and neither are your unintended +2 attendees.  The cab in turn brings you to what is under absolute false pretenses a prestigious place to be.  I write of Violet Hour, Wicker Park, Chicago.  Curtains curtains curtains! Curtains of green velvet.  Oh as if that is not pretentious enough, a full line of people waiting to enter this pathetic excuse for a waiting room playing dentist office lounge music, expect you to be at your best behavior.  And if that were not enough a mere strange hand over your lips telling you not to sing off key loudly in the entrance hall.  This event speaks of the pretense that haunts our generation.  It is 2012 and we have no new ideas! So we cling!  We cling endlessly and selfishly onto things which are familiar to us.  We build up the infinitesimal music and art we know in order to give the appearance of security. Andy Warhol comes to mind.  A can of soup is a can of soup and  I spit on the Violet Hour and anyone who ever took it seriously. I had a deep disgust for this place for some reason.  

A ride with windows open and some reminiscent summer air approximately a fortnight post strikes in my head a memory.  A childhood memory non-the-less.  Schneiderin.   The german word for seamstress is schneiderin.  My mother had a schneiderin named Nada.  I had gone with my mother once for her measurements with Nada.  Nada's apartment was a live image of what the vomit of a velvet monster would look like.  Green velvet everywhere!  On the tapestries on the walls and the couches and curtains.  One might ask what kind of a person decorates an entire apartment in green velvet?!  Perhaps the same seemingly knowledgable snob who creates a dental office lounge and calls it chic.  I remember this night in my adulthood as a night that evokes a certain aura of mystery and a bit of fear.  A fear of what other deep little memories I am capable of probing as I think on the life I used to have as a child of two prominent members of  a society in a small European city.  

My experience is narrow, but the message remains... Green Velvet is in bad taste...

Falling Behind and Catching up

I am ever so thankful when I find energy on a Saturday Morning to prepare and do something productive.  At the tender age of 23 I am brutally awakening to life.  The life of an adult with only few responsibilities is intriguing, but there is always the resistance of youth which increases the frictional force of time relative only to the person's perception.  Time inevitably is continuous none the less. So I have come to study for yet another examination in my endeavor to become a professional engineer.  I fail to understand every fall that the intensity of material does not decrease but only increases with time.  Thank goodness for fall.  A reminder that things can always get better and also a reminder that something new and fresh is a brew.  There is a reason that 'New Year's" in fashion is September.  Leather jackets never looked so good as they did on a 23-year-old petite female on a mission to reveal the equal nature of women in the entirety of history which has so much distorted it, and a female that is the real version of Mrs. Cathy Gale in her leather outfit without which a certain Mr. Steed could not have completed one mission.  There is something about the yellow in the leaves that makes our minds a bit stronger and in full determination to mix and layer as we please setting trends and redefining class as we do.  So, my friends, wake up a little earlier next Saturday.  Put on your leather jacket and have a fresh start on me! For all that we  ever have thought of accomplishing is ever so feasible in the fall.

A Night at the Opera

Somewhere in the depths of my memories I stumble upon myself in Paris on a hot Friday in May.  My French boyfriend's best friend offered us tickets to La Walkyrie at the Opera National de Paris because his father happens to be a violinist for the orchestra.  It was a general repetition, but the opera non the less.  Lucky was I to find that the same evening had been chosen for a protest by immigrants for equal rights.  The venue had been double booked.  I had to be picked up from a very busy metro station near the opera by the Frenchman.  I had decided to go with my instincts and wear tout noir! I seem to always want to dress in all black outfits, but with the veil of poisonous pollution that the late spring eve was offering in the city it seemed only appropriate.  Do not underestimate the power of matching various black pieces.  I had a dress that was entirely too short to wear without skin tight snake print spandex leggings (also black).  The only sandal that would accompany such an outfit was a satin black boot-like sandal with studs, and do not let us forget the uprising of the black nail polish of the summer called black lingerie by REVLON.  And of course such an evening would demand a silk black suit jacket. 


The Valkyrie was simply amazing!  The tale by Wagner is of a hero who is helped by a warrior woman Brunnhilde.  She is one of nine sisters known as the valkyries.  They are the warrior women of Norse mythology.  Ultimately, the bravery of Brunnhilde causes her expulsion from the heavenly kingdom by her father Wotan.  The tragic ending is of Wotan telling Brunnhilde that she may return no more.  Alike most of Wagner's operas The Valkyrie deals with many trifles of life: a daughter's love for her father, and her call to disobey in order to be true to her own heart, of illegitimate lovers, and of a man's duty to appease his wife.  The opera has also inspired Brazilian author Paulo Cohelo to write of his journey to see his angel with the help of warrior women in The Valkyries.  In the book Cohelo pays tribute to the strength of his own wife which isn't always exhibited and he takes mainly the role of the tragic hero Siegmund who is in pursuit of one thing, yet whose faith relies solely on the decisions of those around him.  The book's contribution to the reader is its ability to remind that we are all young, yet still quite foolish even as we age on.

The Parisian soir ended with what is possibly the fastest dinner I have eaten during an intermission, some champagne and a fulfillment of having seen a classic opera in Paris.  The air was full of bravado and it smiled at all of us, reminding us that Paris is never dull in the summer time and that good times were ahead.  That night I learned that when French people ask you what do you do, they always mean for a living.

This brief blog begins with "stumble upon" as an expression which serves as a tribute to me having today joined the site.  It is truly a great way to occupy the mind.  A site built to take advantage of the speed of delivery of information for the amusement and growth of the mind.