that way you know what the hell you're talking about.
This is the motto I tend to live by. It probably has more to do with my indecisive nature than actually knowing what I'm talking about. What I'm beginning to realize, in more ways than one, is that the quest for the perfect title is not only impossible, but also kind of unimportant (for the un-neurotic, at least). So, in an effort to be less compulsive or whatever, I bit the bullet and named my blog. Also, if we're talking about perfection, I don't think any words can get closer than Jonathan Safran Foer's.
When Oskar takes his journey through the five (six?) boroughs of NY in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, he explains "I shook my tambourine the whole time, because it helped me remember that even though I was going through different neighborhoods, I was still me." I guess that's what this blog will do for me. When I'm being exposed to all of the unpredictables (which I'm still trying to anticipate while packing six months into one suitcase), I will have this place to come back to. I will take the world in, rearrange it into words and perhaps even some pretty pictures, and send it back to you - the people I love and will be missing oh so much.
This title is also the first step in an attempt to spend more of my time with less deliberation (which may be futile given the amount of edits done to this single entry). After all, I don't want to be Esther, sitting at the foot of the fig tree forever. I'm going to listen to the brilliant words of a dear friend instead. She told me, so simply, but so perfectly:
It is critical to make big decisions really fast - don't think too much about them. Be your own fictional character.
Now, readers of ze blog, let that marinate for a bit. I don't leave for Istanbul until February, but New Years Day (if nothing else) is good for making big life changes. So tomorrow I will take her advice.
Until I leave to begin my adventures abroad, I may use this blog as a place to catalog my month of nothing. To see if I can not only survive, but embrace la dolce far niente. So far so good, seeing as I have begun to melt into my purple corduroy couch. And I certainly have embraced the second season of Dawson's Creek that my family so wonderfully gave to me for Christmas. I suppose I'll also use this as a place to share the things that inspire me, instead of flooding people's gmail with favorite youtube clips and mushy quotes (don't worry too much caro, I can't spill it all on here), which means that many of my posts will be more like tweets (is that what they're called on twitter?) and less like this (long... I apologize).
So, here goes my first blog post, did I share too much? Oh well, a very Happy new years eve to all!
Ciao
