broken machines

"Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do... Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose... it's like you're broken." Brian Selznick, The invention of Hugo Cabret

Sometimes we feel like broken machines. Except that for machines, it’s straightforward: you know exactly what a clock is supposed to do, what a car was built for, what a microwave does. Machines have a clear purpose. And when they break, we just replace the defective parts.

People, now that’s a whole other ball game. Are we supposed to just know what our purpose is? I watched a very interesting video yesterday, which was an illustration of a lecture by Professor Renata Salecl. She was talking about the overwhelming anxiety created by the endless choices we have. I’ve written about this before, in the “Paradox of Freedom” [funnily enough, Prof. Salecl's lecture is called the Paradox of Choice]. I, for one, am the first to admit that the vast amount of choices available out there is paralyzing. I don’t know what to do with myself. And the mere idea of having one purpose and finding it –now that alone can leave you anxious for a lifetime. What if you spend your whole life looking for a purpose instead of living?

There is this idea that anyone can “make it.” That we can all become that one person who is the best –or at least who is famous for being good at that something. You can now be the unbelievably smart person who decided to create a twitter account for @AngiesRightLeg and have 50-thousand people following you overnight and journalists and bloggers mentioning you in every other article. A twitter account for @AngiesRightLeg. Now that’s purpose.

I have always been a victim of choice. When I was a child, even a teenager, I wanted to be an award-winning actress. I wanted to be famous. I wanted to walk down the red-carpet. And when I watch the Oscars every year, part of me still wants to be that. I look around at the crowd gathered, the Octavia Spencers and the Jean DuJardins, who last year were considered nobodys, suddenly becoming superstars. Anyone can make it, right? But what is it we want to make? I want to do humanitarian work. But I also want to be a writer. And I want to be an actress. And, one day, I want to be a mother. I want to live in Beirut. I want all the cliché advantages of having your family and friends close by, living an easier, bubbled life. And I want to live in Rome. Far away from inquisitive family members and in a vast, open culture. And I want to live in San Francisco. And in Thailand. And in Barcelona.

But now everyone has the same choice. You’ve got self-made men and women everywhere you look. You have a Masters degree and that’s good for you but there are hundreds of thousands of other people who have the same exact degree and the same qualifications and it’s up to you to put yourself out there and find your own unique little thing that will make you shine over everyone else. Or maybe it’s just a little bit of luck.

And then we wonder why so many marriages end in divorce, so many relationships end up in the gutter. To me it makes perfect sense. How can we actually expect anyone to stay in a committed relationship when you always have the choice to be with someone else, someone prettier, someone thinner, someone richer, someone just plain different. If you always have that choice, why would you settle?

And where does that leave us? Dissatisfied.

My Parisian told me yesterday: happiness shouldn’t be in a goal you set for yourself. It shouldn’t be achieved. It should be found in the moments you have all the time. In the lines of a good book, in a glass of good wine shared with friends, in a laugh, in a kiss, in a breathtaking scenery. Otherwise, there is no purpose at all.

There’s no point in thinking “I’ll be happy when I get a promotion,” “My life will make sense when I leave this country,” or “Things will be better once we get married or have a child.” Living in the idea of a future that could make us happier is not living. It’s waiting. And then "choice" has the opposite effect of what it was meant to be: we feel trapped. Just like Oscar Wilde said: “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

there's no merit in loving if everything is easy

Some people say my family is cursed. They say we're "like the Keneddy's." That the series of tragedies never end. I guess I can see where they're coming from...  Two cancers, a rare illness called "Harada", a spinal cord injury, a heart attack, five deaths. And every time, we think that's it, this has got to be the last one, we can't possibly deal with any more. But apparently we can.

And so it has crossed my mind at some point too, that our family is indeed, peculiarly unlucky. Actually we were laughing about that on Friday night, the day my aunt buried her husband, and my cousins buried their father. 22 years before, on the very same day, my aunt walked down the aisle in a church in Paris and married the love of her life. This week, in stead of celebrating a love that was still very much alive, she wore a black dress and walked behind his casket in a cemetery.

That night, as we were gathered around her fireplace,surrounded by the pictures of all those we've lost, we all laughed. It might seem odd to still be laughing, on a day where you just buried someone you adored, but there is something about our family that goes beyond the pain we feel again and again. The entire time of the condoleances, my cousin was wearing a little paper boat clipped on her dress. "This one day, my father was crying," she said. "I didn't know what to do or how to stop his pain, so I clipped on this little paper boat on his shirt, and it made him laugh." We need the silly little things to make us smile, even in the worst of times.



What people don't know about our family is that we're actually one of the luckiest. The love that bonds us all so closely together only grows every time another tragedy hits. No one is left alone, not for a second. The other day, I was looking at my father's and my uncle's girlfriends, and I told them "What are you still doing here?" And my aunt joked: "Run! Run for your life!" Run for your life quite literately. But deep down we all know why they haven't run yet.




There is no merit in loving someone when everything is easy. When they are always perfect, and healthy, and kind, and full of qualities. Anyone can love if that's that. But when you go through the flaws, and the years and the pain, when you've seen the ugly, the poor, the sick... that's when you know you love someone all the way. My aunt said even if she knew she would lose her husband 22 years after she got married, she wouldn't have missed a minute of it, she wouldn't have exchanged him for anything. My father said the same thing about my mother. Even I look back and say that although the days when my ex-boyfriend was sick were the hardest, they were the days I loved him the most, and I can still admit that now.


This post is a tribute to Joe.

It's hard to put words together and do him justice, it's hard to write anything at all because none of us want to accept that he's gone. But there's no merit in loving someone if everything is easy.

seasons of change

Summer is peaking out its nose.
It's been a long winter and we are all craving lazying by the pool, showing off tanned faces, drinking on rooftop bars and acting like we're on vacation even when we're not. There is a feeling that comes together with the change of seasons... something about renewal, feeling happier, rejuvenated, more alive. And after months of gray skies and cold nights, the sun is something to look forward to.

I was speaking to a friend this morning, and we realized that all our friends had broken up at some point during this winter, including the both of us. All long, serious relationships that came to their end, each for their own reasons, each in their own way. We each try to overcome it as best we can, we each have our own process, but it's not easy for anyone. It's crazy how one person missing in your life can create such damage, such change.

For weeks at a time, everything can seem fine. And then someone tells you he saw your ex kissing another girl. Or you spot that girl on Facebook that seems to "like" everything he does. Or something really great just happened to you, and your first instinct is to share it with her --and then you remember you can't. Most days you've moved on. He doesn't even cross your mind, until you see his car parked in front of you. You see her best-friend walk out of a shop, and you wonder if she's close by. You open a random folder on your laptop, and you stumble on dozens of pictures of the both of you. And then the wound bleeds a little.

Sometimes it's a song. A movie. The other day, it was a book. I read a passage that gave me the chills, as I felt I was reading the exact scene of my breakup. It was kind of creepy actually.

But then the stings get more and more rare. One day you see the car and you forget it was his. Her picture still evokes a memory, but doesn't hurt as much. You meet someone else that makes you smile and feel special, and suddenly it doesn't feel as hard anymore.

They say time heals all things. That as seasons change, things that seemed to have died come back to life. Right now, there are rays of sun one day and gray clouds the next. It's 30 degrees in the shade, and then all of a sudden, it starts to rain. Summer is peaking out its nose. And we're not there just yet; but we're close.

the shadows of loss

There's been a lot of loss these past few weeks. A friend from high-school who succumbed to a ravaging cancer after a year of courageous fighting. A friend who lost her father. Another who lost his mother. Makes me pause and think about what remains.

The first person I know who died, was my grandmother. I was nine years-old, and she was my favorite person in the world. I remember how she hid chocolates under her pillow, and I would sneak in and steal them. I remember her hoarse voice, her hugs, her pineapple cake. I remember sleeping next to her and feeling safe. And I remember how she loved me.

The thing about loss, is that it tells you what's real. When someone physically disappears from your life, your realize what this person really was through the memories he leaves behind. When my mother died, my brother was 7 years-old. He doesn't remember what job she had, how she dressed, or how she wore her hair. But he does remember that she used to take him fishing on the Manara, with makeshift fishing-rod she put together with string, a wooden stick, and a borrowed hook. My sister lost her best-friend when she was 17, and when she thinks about her, she talks about her adventurous spirit and their late nights of confidences. Not what grades she had in school or she wanted to study at university. My 11-year-old cousin died, less than two years ago, and everyone remembers his smile. His sisters remember his mischievous eyes, his friends remember the pranks he played. His father remembers his generous spirit, his mother remembers the feeling of holding him tight against her.

Everything that is important, remains. The courage of those who fought, the smiles, the kisses, the I-love-yous; the moments only you two shared, like laughing your head off because of an empty toothpaste --something no one else will ever understand, but that still makes you feel like you share a joke, from across heaven and earth.

We spend so much time on things that will never matter. We get upset about materialistic objects that in the big scheme of things have absolutely no value. And sometimes we neglect the only things we will be able to take with us --or leave behind. The things that, in the end, make us who we are. Maybe the best way to learn how to live life, is to learn from those who already lived.