Walking the right streets

A friend of mine did a brave thing a few days ago: although he was one inch away from getting a certain job in Bruxelles - very badly I may add, as I saw his enthusiasm from the beginning of the application - he still had the inner strength to put down all the pro and against arguments, and decided against taking up the position. The decision involved a financial component, but it was ultimately the fact that the job would have made him sway from his chosen professional path that convinced him to renounce.

It takes a lot of nerve to do against your heart's bidding - but as long as you feel that is the right decision for you, just walk on. Dreams are often fulfilled just around the corner.

Aint no angel gonna greet me
Its just you and I my friend
My clothes dont fit me no more
I walked a thousand miles
Just to slip the skin
(Bruce Springsteen, Streets of Philadelphia)

Octavian Paler - thoughts

"Când aveam posibilitatea sa-mi îndeplinesc visul, mi-am dat seama ca si pasiunile îmbatrânesc. Nu stiu daca pot pretinde ca am stiut ce vreau de la viata. Nu mi-au lipsit tintele false si entuziasemele naive. Cam toate certitudinile mele, câte au fost, sunt acum ciuruite de îndoieli, ca niste haine roase de molii. Mi-ar fi greu sa numesc una intacta. Nu exista fericire de care sa-ti amintesti fara tristete. Am început sa-mi dau seama ca, din actor pe scena vietii, deveneam un figurant. Tot ce pierdem, pierdem pentru totdeauna. Ceea ce nu traim la timp, nu mai traim niciodata. O viata mediocra poate fi justificata. Mai ales într-o lume mediocra. Dar mediocritatea iluziilor nu are nici o scuza. Nimic nu ne opreste sa visam fara masura. Forma cea mai subtila în care se poate înfatisa un mister este banalitatea. Dumnezeu a creat lumea în asa fel încât sa regretam aproape totdeauna prea târziu. A muri înseamna a te muta într-o stea."

Sweet sweet sweet....

At some point in your life, after being smothered in the childhood thrills of knowing and controlling everything that goes on around you and indulging in the belief everybody tells you everything (count in the part where friends would come and whisper in your ear “Do you want to know a secret”) -- silence falls. You hear little to nothing from others, so you have to create your own secrets and stories, and plans.

And yet, sometimes these plans don't come out quite as you had drafted them. People around you will make sure you will have more obstacles than initially thought of, they will try to keep you from your stories and your dreams. Perhaps it is legitimate that they do so – it is all but legitimate to claim another person's life, when you love her and want what is best for her. How do you manage to merge these two, though? How do you lead a happy family life and follow a great career without hurting the one you're with?

It takes great strength to try and follow both - and sometimes you just wonder if loss is worth what remains behind. But I guess it's all up to what you really wish for in life.

Sugar wishes don't change what is real
Or how it feels in the bad times
For whatever is he is mine all the time
And we'll get by with our troubles
(Macy Gray ft Erykah Badu, Sweet Baby)

While travelling

What do people on the bus do while they are travelling? Well, they listen to music on ipods, watch movies on laptops, look out the window, comment about the length of the road, the technical abilities of the driver, talk on the phone loudly enough to piss everyone off (about family inheritance, children and the technical abilities of the driver), and there are people who make up stories about the ones who are travelling. Like me. I saw a guy's female best friend trying to attract his attention. It was clear they were sharing something - reading in the same positions, both wearing glasses, he showing her certain landscapes or giggling over certain lines from the books. The girlfriend was a bit resentful, however compensated by owning the right to kiss the guy, at which point the best friend looked out of the window. Quite funny to watch, actually.

Tonight she told me she'd known I had been rushing back to you.
What she didn't know was there was nobody to come rushing back to.
Or is there?

So now you've got the best of me
Come on and take the rest of me
Oh baby
(The Real Thing, You to me are everything)

Those things we will never say

There are, for every one of us, things we will never say. Be it that we like someone to the point of melting, or we have our own secret little plans, we are not able to verbalise those things, speak about them properly or even touch upon them in daily interaction with others. At times, they come up in our mind Even then, we cannot let them out of our head, because we constantly think about either what the other will think, that we will scare him or her or be scared by what the other will have to say – or even worse, that it will not matter to him or her as much as it matters to us and we will then be so disappointed.

There are small things – such as what we like about the cloudless weather – or what we fancy about ice-cream (like licking the ice cone when it melts) – or even bigger things – such as what we really think or how we would go about seducing a green-eyed blonde. Or how we feel about being betrayed. It never matters what it is, we just cannot talk about it – because it has taken a deep seat within our emotions and ration tells us this is uncontrollable. The interesting part is that everything that is in our head is looking for a way to get out, and so we start dreaming about what we cannot speak about. We draw it. We sing it. We ultimately do it, or even worse – we come to be it.

I've known the secret for a week or two,

Nobody knows, just we two.

(The Beatles, Do You Want To Know A Secret)

Those things that we will never say, we will do (such as, being fatty, you tend to go out with slender people, in the hope nobody will notice). If we do not find a way of expressing them, they will express themselves – like it or not. And some of them we will come to regret we haven't said ourselves.

Old habits get worn off

Seeing somebody from my past almost always brings back good memories, and having them around sparks very inspiring discussions. You might say I am a nostalgic, but sometimes I like dipping in the years gone by and try to find a meaning in them, a red line that leads to an ending. It is not always this way. Past really is only what we make of it... and sometimes it makes no sense. There are people who have meant something special to you at some point or the other, and later on, when you lose them, you try to find a meaning in their presence. There even can be one at times, but remember even that is deceiving. People and things only bear the symbols you invest them with. A necklace I have got from a friend will only signify for me the good memories and times I have enjoyed with this friend. My mum's photo holding my dog will take me back to the moments when we had the dog and it woke me up by licking my face in the morning :)

The point is: although it's nice to walk the shadows of past, hooking into it can make you lose grips with everyday reality. My experience has showed me that living the moment provides for the brightest memories, and that past is no place to live in.

We haven't spoken in months

You see i've been counting the days

I dream of such humanities, such insanities

I'm lost like a kid and i'm late

But i've never taken your coats

Haven't no block on my phone

I act like an addict, i just got to have it

I can never just leave it alone

(Mick Jagger & Dave Stewart, Old Habits Die Hard)

Me? To sew and iron?

My first newspaper article (back in the days.. :)) was about a street ad featuring a smart-looking blonde in a suit, who sat and looked daringly into the camera. Above her you could read "Eu? Sa cos si sa calc?" ("Me? To sew and iron?"). The obvious idea was that she would never-ever-in-a-million-years-touch-those-despicable-instruments, and it was one that spread very fast. The modern woman has no time for sewing - let's face it, she is much too busy advancing her career or going to the gym to do (any) kind of housework. I made copious fun of the smart-dressed (possibly a consultant? :) ) girl in that article, quoting an old couple who stood looking at the ad: “Pai ar cam trebui, mai fata...” (“You kinda should, lassie...”) This is actually a reproach I've been hearing a lot – that we women are now so emancipated we hell don't have clue about what a (sewing) needle is and how to use it. Plus, it is said that we have no desire to cook and to see to a partner's well-being, our only wild ambition being to climb the social ladder and hit the poor losers who follow us with our high heels in the head and then have a glorious laugh at winning the battle of sexes.

Well, please allow me to disappoint you and blow up my own myth. In this historical evening it was I who spent two (2) whole hours fighting my way with a needle through a pair of trousers and then ironing them. O gods! Could it be that I am no capitalistic ladder-climber and instead an old spinster in disguise? Huh, if this were the only criteria, maybe I could make it to the pantheon of traditionalist relics. I'll keep you posted on this one anyway, for Thursday I've planned cooking for friends, so perhaps I will qualify, after all... :)

Pay my own fun, oh and I pay my own bills

Always 50/50 in relationships

(Destiny's Child, Independent Women)