"The story of a man ready to make a connection."

Saw this movie last weekend. It's very, very interesting and a "real life" movie, meaning there's no mandated Disney-esque happy ending. And it's sad. Not as bad as 'Revolutionary Road', but definitely not one where you leave the theater in a happy mood. It's a different way of looking at traveling - well flying really - and one man's sort of personal evolution. I won't pretend that I know how to write movie reviews, the NY Times has a good one that will more eloquently assess the movie. There were some REALLY good quotes that I wish I could've written down. I'm sure, with time, there will be more on IMDB. But until then, I will leave you with the gem below which comes before Clooney's character really changes.

How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life... you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV... the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home... I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office... and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.

At home anywhere...

"For the perfect idler, for the passionate observer it becomes an immense source of enjoyment to establish his dwelling in the throng, in the ebb and flow, the bustle, the fleeting and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel at home anywhere; to see the world, to be at the very center of the world, and yet to be unseen of the world, such are some of the minor pleasures of those independent, intense and impartial spirits, who do not lend themselves easily to linguistic definitions. The observer is a prince enjoying his incognito wherever he goes."

Thanks Charles Baudelaire

South Africa Bound

So. Yes, after a year of talking about it, I have officially purchased a flight to South Africa. Wheeeeeeee. June 16-July 4th.

Hello Again.

I deleted all my old posts. There were ten of them, and they didn't say anything good about anything. Now that I've booked my flight to South Africa, I can put this blog to work, with what it was meant to do - talk about Roving.

I.AM.SO.EXCITED.