momentary or eternal value?

Although less often than I liked, I would purposefully leave my camera behind every so often in Rome when venturing out for the day that was always certain to be nothing short of inspiring. The Eternal City welcomed me as a student for one incredible summer; so incredible that when the semester came to an end, I cancelled my flight the night before my departure home and stayed for an extra two weeks in my great friend’s apartment with the Vatican walls as its backyard (I’m not exaggerating in the least). The stories I have about Rome and what I’m sure could be stretched to an encyclopedia’s length of a description of my love for Italy could be a blog on its own. For the time being, this is more about the quality of one’s time spent doing something meaningful, and just how much of that time is truly lived.

The best moments spent in Rome for me were the occasional days I had that were completely void of task or obligation, so I would be able to wake up, throw back a café or due (truly the best shots to take) and step out my front door, facing the Pointe Sisto (so painted with graffiti it could rival Tommy Lee’s inked body) and embrace a day’s worth of the culture I fell in love with so definitively. Within the first few weeks of my stay, I took pictures of every fountain, cute old Italian man and tourist-attracting costumed gladiator I came across, yet after the initial “let’s make sure I get a snapshot of everything” mentality subsided, I could truly sink in and be swallowed in the sea of my most incredible summer…sans camera.

Taking pictures is supposed to make us more fully embrace a moment and preserve it for the special value it held for us at that time indefinitely. But how can the true value of a moment be understood if it is viewed behind a camera lens, and not in plain sight? I of course mean this more than the literal image it depicts: the act of taking a picture, at least from what I have come to witness more frequently than not lately, is that everything from one’s single picture to an entire album has more intentions for its aspired significance than the mere pleasure of having the moment at our hands during the here in now.

We take pictures to remind ourselves of the times we have had and the feelings shared throughout them, yet when within hours we are importing our devices to a laptop, posting pictures online and tagging the included participants in a Facebook album, we have already rushed so far ahead of the time and place of the picture’s creation so that what is supposed to have been a token of a special moment, is now devalued to an all-so-intended glamour bit for others to look at, comment on, and think with perhaps a bit of jealousy of how he or she wishes they had been there to enjoy that wonderful-looking moment as well. “Yesss…I have my new profile picture,” one might think after quickly sucking in the stomach and putting a hand on the hip almost habitually at this point to pose for a picture. Nevermind that the Spanish Steps are sighing a deep and lazy breath in the backdrop.

I will never stop taking pictures, or embracing them for their artistry and the enjoyment gained when viewing the results afterwards. But I hope to rely less on my camera and more on my own eyes and heart when in a situation where photographs are in involved. Are you really on vacation or at an event if you are thinking more about how things will look when your photos are seen instead of the actual seconds, minutes and hours spent during it all? I worry that photo displays (and yes, I am talking mostly about the Internet) are becoming more and more about vanity and arousing praise and/or envy from others rather than a pure and nostalgic sentiment meant for oneself.

Rome is called “Eternal” for a reason: she doesn’t need millions of photographs taken of her in order for others to believe that she’s truly there and to understand her timeless beauty. Let a moment turn into a memory and have its value be judged by the mark it leaves upon your heart, and not on the amount of “Likes” and comments you receive.

D.C.

starry night

For my part

I know nothing with any certainty,

But the sight of the stars makes me dream.

The blues,

Swirls of the sky curling around beams of twilight in perfect accord.

The floating tufts of flickering illumination,

Synchronized like the harmonies of a verse of music.

The glow of the night plays off of the little town below,

All roofs belonging to cozy homes bounce the moonlight back up into the atmosphere.

The crescent cut of the moon resting tall above the hills,

This sleepy town is calm tonight.

Eleven stars to sight, undoubtedly there are more to come, as the darkness grows older.

Each one smiling at each other and winking at the dreaming babes below.

A balance of wonder and comfort that their brilliance secures,

Reminding each soul of what is good and sweet.

Igniting remembrance,

It is our Fathers above us borrowing the stars as a looking glass.

The chapel, reaching high up to the heavens,

Connected by a steeple that holds briefly the hand of divinity.

A magnitude of power,

When the sun descends to the dominance of the night.

All the world is at peace,

The elements unified by the ties of brotherhood.

A beauty more exquisite than a mere diamond,

Colors of lily, gold, aqua, cobalt, sapphire, lilac, plum and silver.

Staring up into infinity, one can see all the phases of time,

A simplicite, yet limitlessness aura the night sky shares.

There is a comfort of this unknown; an inspiration and belief,

All hopeful feelings conjured up in the dancing light,

Of Van Gogh’s, The Starry Night.


D.C.

delphica

D.C.

people watching

There are always one or more reasons behind every decision made.  Even the impersonal ones.  Even the ones we try to deny as having any sort of thought behind them beyond the subconscious act of doing. And, there is a particular emphasis made on the decisions whose results will be seen outwardly.

I note:

Sometimes, we want praise and gratification for a deed well done, assumed to be selfless yet the merit received is unavoidably ego boosting. Or, we chose to present ourselves in a means that will generate a response, whether vocal or non-vocal, that will give us that temporary flash of self-satisfaction that makes the decision worth all the effort. We are not wrong in doing so. We cannot be wrong, for as humans, to err is what we do naturally. Yet occasionally, an outsider’s perspective will view a person, a demeanor and a motion as so intentionally forced it comes off as unattractive.

When and where can we send ourselves the message to not take a destructive next step and turn to act in reverse, preventing that craved temporary high bound by universal law to end in a feeling of doubt and desolation?

I wish myself that luck.

D.C.

monday night extraordinary

A huge and melodramatic problem of mine has always been giving in to the time of day, the day of the week, the time of year and/or the general aura of whatever state of mind everyone else had seemed to have allowed themselves to also fall into. 3PM? Starting to bonk. Solution? Starbucks and $4.25 later. 7PM? Mindlessness. Click on the TBS Seinfeld rerun to hopefully shift your aloneness to an American connectivity. Today, for instance, is obviously a Monday. Maybe 1/5 of my office either called in sick or simply didn't show (despite darling Bruce, the English gent who publicly escaped away to London for the week to enjoy the homeland (jealous is my soul)), and the majority of us remainders fell into the gray and gloomy slump of the appropriate outside overcast weather and cloud that loomed over this Monday. So did I, truthfully. Who cares if a day is fully wasted? I admittedly enjoy making myself almost purposefully miserable sometimes. I like (or I at least sometimes think that I like) falling into a funk every now and then...and perhaps more often than conventional...to give myself a declared excuse to isolate and screen my phone calls and even tangible connections. But why do it? Why not push to make things better?

I strangely hate working. I love and hate it all at the same time. Mostly, I naively hate working when it feels like work, ie., the idea that waking up and getting ready during the two hours before your punch-in of the time clock hits is irrationally infinitely worse than the workday itself, yet it all meshes into the necessity of it all. What can be done to enjoy this thing, this absolutely terribly important thing that happens day-to-day that constitutes your life? Make it interesting. Spontaneous. Give a day something different that it doesn't deserve by typical Monday standards.

Today, I pushed my lunch hour back to about as far as my empty stomach could stomach so I would have a significantly shorter afternoon to work than my morning hours endured. I was productive but not overly, conversational but not enthusiastically. Yet a surprise was given to me once 6:20 came along and I stepped in my door. It wasn't particularly earned or needed (as I thought) but who wouldn't take an ordinary day and make it something more, if it didn't ask for any of the effort?

A savory and nothing less than a delicious smell of risotto being tenderly stirred over the stove with an incorporated and sensational blend of garlic, red and white wines and pumpkin aromas lingering over the heat in unbalanced proportions nearly made me go weak at my heels upon entry of my foyer. I'm handed a glass of Pinot. No questions asked, just a greeting. What could be more acceptable than acceptance? And no explanations? My cocker spaniel chews on the tail of my cat. There's love in my home without any sign of it, and yet, it's so definitively there because of the pure and simple un-enforcement of such a feeling. It's natural, imperfect, and thus...pretty damned good. Great. More than the earlier parts of the day would have allowed on your own.

The Delmonico is sliced, fresh parsley is chopped and blended into the parmesan creaminess of the rich risotto and more wine is poured. We all eat quickly, of course. Why sit and stew over a meal that is too fantastically tasty to hold yourself back from and eat daintily whist enjoying every individual ingredient and flavor? Yes, this is a sporadic and truly enjoyable evening, but it is Monday after all, and we are all still human (myself being unfaltering the most flawed out of them all) and have to eat up before...well, something else commands our attention.

It's all good. Very good. From out of the dress clothes and in to the... hah, well...the absolute crap clothes that are so very lost of their elasticity but too full of comfort and nostalgia to ever toss into the hands of the Rescue Mission and that you can't help but reach for when you want to put on something in your downtime when there is no one there for you to impress. A great meal on a cool night approaching the Fall, and all the reason in the world to sigh in contemplation and in delight for the season to come has been mine. Thank you, family. Who cares if it's Monday and dinner along with the evening hours should be convenient? You loved ones proved me wrong. Gladly. It is becoming more evident to me that a goal of mine is to blend each day into one: to not look forward to Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but to see each day as a mini-playground that is to be explored and made fun as a day of living, just for the hours that it consists of, and not it's place in its seven-day schedule. I'm not saying every day should be great and spontaneous and spent doing something 112% out of the ordinary so you are sure to enjoy life. Hell, I'm usually too cynical and not in the mood enough to do that. But why not try a little? Would that kind of work be so bad? I don't think so. Look at how it served me today.

Make a Monday good; make yourself good.

D.C.

gasp

I got a job. A real one, as in, I am earning a LIVING for myself. It is incredibly triumphant, yet moderately depressing. So long ago seem the sweet and sinful days of my youth. Now, I am behind a desk from 8:30AM-5:30PM writing, writing, WRITING about sports and outdoor products. I...don't know what to do. First things first, I am absolutely elated to be employed, with an income, and a purpose for the day. I will have a paycheck and a damn reputable thing to say to relatives the next time the encounter arises. And let's face it, I get to walk throughout the downtown web of streets with the rest of my kind, as one of the youngest of the crop, in smart casual clothing and an air of promise. But there are downsides, and I see many of them at this early stage. I miss my runs, my reading and writing leisure, the sunlight. Sitting indoors for nine hours each day with minimal discussion (it is a copywriting firm, thus everyone keeps to themselves at their respective desks, silently) makes me gasp for noise when I leave the gorgeously ornate building where I am located. If I only give it time, it will get all the more normal. And rewarding. There are many contradictions I now so face.

Perhaps what I am enjoying the most is being young and in the workforce in my downtown city. I have always found it a perfectly good place to have grown up because of the seasonal climate, city and rural settings, and truly hundreds of other worthwhile attributes that I have loved from my youth into early adulthood. My city is at the most prosperous point I have ever seen her in, with astounding architectural erections, renovations, and job creation that city officials have a right to be proud of. They all equally have a goal for the young talent remain here, and I feel perhaps worthy to do so and that I am be contributing to the good of it all in my semi-narcissistic way. I'm happy with that. Very. I also have another job: a small retail position to give my PR two cents on clothing sales during the weekends. So...I am busy. There is a lot of adjusting to do, and if I know myself at all, I will do so quickly. It's just a little bittersweet. As a student, the next year of my life was always guaranteed and always certain with a set place for me to fall up into. Not anymore. I could get fired tomorrow and be unemployed again. The firm could go bankrupt for all I know, and I would be pleased as punch to be sent to Dunkin' Donuts. I suppose it is the monotony I fear; doing the same thing all day every day and not having much control over changing it. And don't you dare tell me that I have control over my attitude and can in fact change the way I perceive things. I know. I will...it's just...(for lack of a better word) transitional.


D.C.

le porn

I know how to cook well for my age. I know the difference between fresh, in-season produce and those that have been dehydrated of all nutritional value. I also know that you eat first with your eyes, then with your mouth. If you have a hankering for something you can't quite get your finger on or need some culinary inspiration, look no farther. Feast your eyes on this online delicacy:


http://foodporndaily.com/


Between this, smittenkitten, and anything published by Bobby Flay on Food Network online, you have absolutely zero excuse to heat up a Lean Cuisine. 


D.C.