two years of Rhapsodies

It feels like it went by in a flash and I wasn't even sure that I had actually accomplished anything in the last 12 months until I started thinking about it for the blog. Turns out I did okay. I think.

Let's see... Went to Cyprus for a week of delectable vacation, doing nothing but lazying around the beach of Paphos with a bunch of girls. Turned off my phone, stopped checking email, didn't go on Facebook. Remembered what it was like to think about nothing. Shot season 2 of Beirut I Love You. Acting, Casting, Writing. Realized being on a film set is my favorite kind of "workplace". Had my first on-screen kiss. Helped organize a fundraiser that raised more than 400-thousand dollars for children. Wore a (borrowed) designer dress (for the first time) by Reem Acra. Felt like a famous actress walking on the red carpet. Lost my uncle to Cancer a week later. The same exact kind that killed my mother. Met a boy by asking him for a lighter. Had a one-night-stand that never remained as "one night". Went to Thailand with the boys and their girlfriends. Walked on the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. Spent New Year's in a bar with Thai prostitutes/dancers and had my first midnight hug with one of them. Came back to my new crush and started falling in love. Fell in love. Started learning Italian on my iphone. Went to New York for the first time in almost 4 years. Hung-out with one of my best friends in his Brooklyn apartment. Went to my 5-year Grad School Reunion. Did Bikram Yoga at my old Union Square studio. That's yoga in a 45-degree room for those of you unfamiliar with it. Visited Paris for the first time since I was 8 years old. Went to see the old apartment we used to live in. Saw a friend I've kept in touch with but haven't seen in 19 years. Went to the opera for the first time in my life. Did Romantic Paris with my Parisian. Watched Game of Thrones, Dexter, Breaking Bad and Six Feet Under. Won best foreign film at the Beverly Hills Film Festival for "Anoesis." Had two films showing at the Short Film Corner of the Cannes Festival. Quit my job. Got a new one. Celebrated my brother's high-school graduation. Watched my sister get her diploma for finishing her BA. Went to Italy for 2 weeks. Rome, Venise, Bologna, Portovenere, Cinque Terre, Florence. Drove on the Italian highway. Took a 2 hour hike in jungle-like terrain with sandals on. Did the cheesiest thing ever and wrote our names on the"via del' amore". Helped my best-friend/back-up plan pick out an engagement ring. Celebrated my younger cousin's engagement. Went to my prom date's wedding last weekend.

Today I'm at exactly 9 months with my Parisian. 38,875 views on the blog. 128 posts. And two years of Rhapsodies.

"Anoesis" Short Film

                      "Saudade" Short Film

             Hanging out with one of my best-friends in NYC

                Hiking from one Cinque Terre to Another

                   Lazying around the beach in Paphos

 My sister's Graduation

                                 My brother's graduation

                          Writing our names on "Via del Amore"

the better story

In films and in books and in romance in general, love at first sight is a big thing. Two people see each other in a crowd, their eyes meet, and they both immediately know that they are meant to be. And I've heard about stories like that in real life. My dad always says he knew the minute he saw my mother outside his high-school that she would be his wife someday. And the other night, my aunt's friend was telling the story of how she met her husband: they were in Paris, she was taking a seminar and he was teaching it. She dropped her pen on the floor and he picked it up for her, and their eyes met. She immediately told her friend "I have the strangest feeling this man is the man of my life." And they've been married twenty-years or so now. 

These stories are great. They make us all dream and smile, and hope for the kind of love that you see in "The Notebook" which makes every girl cry her eyes out. 

What's funny though is that many a times, these words have been said and things did not work out --so they're quickly forgotten. If things had worked out, the story would be told on every rooftop. My friend Rebelious got engaged 6 months after meeting her boyfriend, because "they just knew." They were married another 6 months later and at their wedding, he told the story of how the night they met, he told his friend that this is the girl he was going to marry. And he did marry her. But then they got divorced two years later. So much for a romantic story.

I'm not trying to poke holes into wonderful romance. I love these stories. I just think they trap us in these little boxes and make us feel like that's what we should look for, someone we're just going to look at and know within minutes that he's the one. I don't believe that anymore.

I think I was in love once or twice before. And each of these times, I had decided that I was "in love" almost instantly. In love with someone I didn't even know. Now I am convinced this comes from watching too much Cinderella and the Little Mermaid as a child, because how someone can love a person they know nothing about now seems completely absurd to me. You're in love with someone first and then you get to know them? And you find out what they're like and you have to accept them with all their faults because you already decided you love them. You love what, exactly? 

Love at first sight now seems  like a recipe for disaster. You meet someone, fall in love, have a picture of them in your mind and what happens next, in most cases, is that they keep disappointing you --they don't live up to that image. They are not want you wanted them to be, and once the infatuation wears off and you realize it, it only goes downhill from there.

And then you meet someone one day, and you don't expect anything. He makes you laugh maybe, something peeks your interest, but wedding bells aren't ringing in your ears, and you haven't pictured what your three children are going to look like within an hour of meeting him. You just meet him. And spending time with him is what makes you want to spend more time with him. And suddenly you find yourself surprised by the way he is. Good surprised. You didn't build-up an image, he builds it for your, little by little. You discover each other and the more you learn the more you like. And I think that's a better story.