I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul

It's been a very long time since I last visited my blog. This morning I felt torn and tortured and thought it would be good to write things out, say them out loud in the quiet manner of written words. So I logged in and found a draft from when I left the blog at the end of 2010.

The draft was this:
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Nothing else to say. No time to waste.

Moving Places

I have asked myself a question today: "what the hell do you actually want to gain from blogging?" The answer was very easy: I need to write about what is bugging me, my inner tortures and my insecurities. These things are not the easiest ones to write and hard as hell to share. Therefore, I am moving to a more hidden blog to dump my rubbish there. The place for managing this industrial residue of doubts, worries, regrets and hopes  is called www.medioescondido.blogspot.com.

Knock on my door if you want to look inside. 

Lots of love to all who have followed my half grapefruit stories! I hope I will post some fun stuff here too.

October In Krakow

Maybe it's time to start writing again. I miss it bad and I feel like a prodigal son (daughter) who keeps abandoning her home of thought and creativity. But this time I would like to opt for a more private blog - however, just found out I could not. Funny how blogspot won't allow you to make your blog password protected. A tough decision to make between 2 alternatives none of which are ideal - leave your blog public for everyone to view or make it so private only you can view it. I would find that very lonely, as the best thing about blogging is the conversation with others, so I decided to leave it as it is for now and bear the consequences.

Time is rushing by me and so many things happen I don't want to forget about. So here is the first one: I have spent 2 weeks in Krakow, Poland, as part of a training for my new job. I feel so lucky and privileged to have had the opportunity to not just pass through the city but to live it, feel its pulse night and day. I have never been interested or keen on living in any Eastern European cities, including my home town, Budapest, but this experience proved me wrong - I have been feeling great here and I liked every cobblestone and post-communist shop and mad traffic I have seen here. More pictures to come soon, till then czesc for everyone!

Kinesiology - Family Constellations (Hellinger´s Therapy)

As with my previous Kinesiology post, this I write to remember a session I feel was important to me.

Yesterday I took part in a Family Constellations therapy. It is a bit like a psychodrama workshop, although a passionate kinesiologist would probably stop my Qi on reading this and cause it to flow backwards.
It is a method which through dramatic expression tries to help individuals restore their own place in a family system rather than letting them fulfill the destiny of another person from their own family. It is confusing enough as it is and I'm way too skeptical to dig to the depth of such explanations but this is what happened during my Family Constellation session.

I told the Mentor I was looking for the reason why my Dad has been depressed and an alcoholic for the past 30 years. (25?35?) (He's never ever been able to talk to anyone about it.) I told her I was very scared that depression, self-destruction and consequently cancer or suicide would "happen" to me in a way that I would not be able to avoid it. It would fall on me like a destiny. Like the destiny that has finished off my Granddad, my Uncle and now is devouring my Dad. This is a thought I have been becoming more and more obsessed with for the past 3 years even though I don't think I have told anyone about it before.

What happened after this was the most shocking and heart-breaking experience of my life. 5 random people from the group acted out a story with minimal instructions from the Mentor... My paternal Granddad seemed like he had an unfulfilled relationship in his life that he could never break away from. A relationship to a mother? lover? sister? who knows. To someone that came before anyone else in his life. Before his wife (my Grandma), before his sons (my Dad and Uncle), before himself. His sons could see that their Dad was too busy loving someone invisible rather than loving them. They felt furious. Competitive to one-another. Without any peace. My Dad had a constant stomach ache. (He has cancer of the liver in reality. His stomach hurts all the time.) They found it very difficult to approach, look at or talk to each other.
In the play the Mentor gave instructions to my "Granddad" to let that someone go. To tell him/her that he would keep him/her in his heart but he would have to go and live his life now. My Granddad seemed to be happy with this arrangement and together with my Grandma they said goodbye to this "thing", paid their respect and turned back to their sons. It was a happy picture at last. One where each family member faced each other.

Finally I had to go and join the group. My "Dad" looked into my eyes and said he loved me. I felt silly, because I didn't need a proof of his love. He's always been a loving and caring father. With depression. I wanted to know if his sadness would stay with us. He said he had to go but I needed to stay. And I needed to make the most of my life. The mentor made me repeat his words. It was godawful difficult. I was sobbing at this point beyond control. It felt like I was saying good-bye to him. When I finally said I would stay and make the best of my life my whole "family" held my shoulder. My Granddad, Grandma, Uncle, Dad and even the unknown person. The Mentor asked the participants to tell me:
"All you need to take with is our strength. Not our destiny."
And I could actually feel their strength. I cried so hard. Even they cried. It was a moment of realisation that I didn't HAVE TO be depressed. Neither suicidal. Neither addicted. Nor sad forever for an unfulfilled love. Instead, I HAD TO make the most of my life. With the strength I can receive from far away times, old destinies, ancestors, brothers. All that love me.

All you need to take with is our strength. Not our destiny. All you need to take with is our strength. Not our destiny.All you need to take with is our strength. Not our destiny....

Me. Myself. And I.

I've recently seen too many of these games but never actually participated in any. This time I couldn't resist and asked Dora to send me her questions.

If you would like to take part, here are the rules.

1. Leave me a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I’ll email you five questions, of my determination not yours!
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

These were Dora's questions to me:

1. Name one unpopular (yet to be discovered by the tourist crowd) place in Europe that one should visit. Why?

Slovenia. That is where I spent my last holiday in August and I thought to be awesome. This tiny little country has it all: the Alps for hikers, mountain bikers and white water rafters. Ljubljana for culture, good studenty vibe, restaurants and night life. And the Adriatic sea for sun-lovers. It is still relatively cheap and unpopular plus definitely bohemian. (Deep down I'm thinking I should have written Budapest because I would love to show you and Nasty around! But then Budapest is, I think, pretty touristy...)

2. You went backpacking in South East Asia once. What surprised you most about the area?
You seriously want me to write a full list? It was a culture shock. My first time ever out of Europe. Here are the LITTLE things from Thailand:
-everyone eats with fork and spoon. the fork is not to be put in your mouth.
-chopsticks are only ever used to eat soup (?!)
-beer is drunk with ice-cubes
-you sit down in a bus. ticket-vendor guy comes over to sell you a ticket. you buy ticket. 1 minute later inspector guy gets up from his seat and comes over to check ticket. inspector guy tears ticket up.
-road-signs only apply for pedestrians
-everything is misspelt in english: toliet, upstirs, pleas....
Shall I go on? :)

3. What is the best dish you can cook?
I make an awesome Hungarian dish, called layered potatoes. It has no official recipe, kind of gets passed on word of mouth and goes roughly like this:

-cook 4 big potatoes in salty water. (30 mins) peel them, let them cool. hard-boil 4 eggs for about 15 minutes. peel them, let them cool. slice chorizo-type sausage into thin slices.
-mix a big box of sour-cream with 1 egg-yolk, salt and pepper in a bowl.
-spread some butter in a casserole-type dish.
-make layers of above ingredients in the following way into the dish: thin slices of potatoes, salt, slices of eggs and sausages. spread sour-cream mixture on top. Repeat it once more.
-finish off layers with sour-cream spread on top. add salt and pepper, maybe even some grated cheddar.
-put dish in pre-heated oven for 25 minutes.
-serve with gherkins.

4. When you are down, what is the best way to cheer you up?
I have a few coping methods. I'm very fortunate I can choose the one I best like whenever I think I should choose one:
-hanging out with the most fabulous friend in the world, Erika. she is one cheerful, positive bubble
-going to an art cinema to see a truly sad film
-cycling in town
-going clothes shopping to H&M, Zara, Mango, Pull&Bear and Stradivarius. those are my favourite shops
-blogging
-eating out
-drinking good cappuccino in a nice cafe and reading a book

5. What do you want out of life?
A healthy family somewhere, where it is mostly sunny and sophisticated. Somewhere I understand the language. Somewhere I can work between having children. Sharing the whole experience with someone I can laugh/talk/travel/have sex with.
Greedy. I know.

Gap Filling Exercise

Here is something to fill the gap in my blog till inspiration returns. These days I find it hard to think/talk/write about anything that's not related to my break-up so I'm making super-human efforts right now to review all the movies I saw in January.

The Darjeeling Limited

A road-movie or rather, a rail-movie set in India, in the train called the Darjeeling Express where three mad American brothers set off on a several-week-long journey. The aim of the trip is a bit of a mystery for the viewer and also, for two of the brothers, who would like nothing more than being back home. However, along the rails, they do find brotherhood, spiritual peace, their lost mother, a new girlfriend, a new goal for their depressing lives, a poisonous pet snake and many other things. The brothers are Owen Wilson (totally mental, big-headed and I think autistic) Adrien Brody (neurotic, secretive and snobbish) and Jason Schwartzman (addicted to prescription drugs and Indian waitresses). The story develops slowly, as if in real time on an eternally long train journey, the whole movie has a very laid back and relaxing atmosphere. Whatever happens cannot be called real action, it is more of a light-hearted and bitter-sweet comedy of the characters with no important plot to it. A great movie for a boring Sunday evening for those who don't mind slow-paced stories about… well, not much.
7/10

Fuera de carta - Chef's Special

This typically Spanish movie has all I like about Spanish cinema. It is energetic, the story spins at a mad speed, the characters are all in love with each other, they live their lives as if it was all for the sake of entertainment and I kind of believe it watching them. Starring Javier Cámara, who is the ever so credible gay chef with no respect for anyone and anything but good food. The film is very roughly about a love-triangle between two men and a woman but it is more about accepting, loving and forgiving yourself to be able to accept, love and forgive others. Heavy subject hidden in a light-hearted comedy jacket.
7/10

Dirty Pretty Things

The main story is about a gang of self-made illegal surgeons who operate kidneys out of immigrants in exchange for a new passport and identity. Pretty gross stuff and heartbreaking to think about it. The drama within the main drama is the lives of two illegal immigrants living in London and fighting a miserable battle against bureaucracy, corrupt employers, homelessness and hopelessness. The two characters are played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Audrey Tautou which is an interesting role for her after all the romantic comedy type roles she has been doing for the past years. The most interesting aspect of the movie is that not one character is a native English speaker, every single person in the movie has an accent of some sort. Which I think is the reality of London. The film could have been good but it felt too miserable and depressing in a way that made me want to look away.
5/10

Waltz with Bashir

An animated documentary film, which in itself as a genre is revolutionary. The film documents the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon in 1982, the beginning of a long and bloody war between Israel and Lebanon. Director, Ari Folman Israeli war veteran sets off in a quest to find his lost memories of the events, in which he did take place at the age of 19. He interviewed several of his friends from the army, the documentary also reports several conversations with a psychologist and the reporter who was in Beirut at the time. The movie was originally recorded to be a traditional documentary, however, many of the interviewees did not agree to appear in the final version for fear. That is why director decided to convert it into a dark-toned, almost comics-like animation. A very interesting experience, great movie, even if a bit too long for my taste.
9/10

Revolutionary Road

I have already written a bit about this film, which is my film of choice for the month. It tells us the story of Frank (Leonardo Di Caprio) and April (Kate Winslet), once rebellious, artistic and wild but by the time of the story a mundane, suburban middle class couple. We can see how they are dying a slow death of those who feel they failed their dreams and abandoned their aspirations, till one day April convinces Frank to move to Paris and live the lives they had always wanted to…I won’t tell you more about the story but it is definitely one I can very deeply identify myself with, one I fully understand. Kate Winslet’s acting was extraordinary and to me, fully credible. The motto of the film is: How do you break free without breaking apart? I’m looking for the answer myself.
10/10

Fargo

A long-time debt to myself, I have wanted to see this film for over 10 years, most precisely since 1996 when it won 2 Oscars for best actress ( Frances McDormand) and best screenplay (Coen brothers). As with most films and books that we really want to see / read because everyone talks about it – Fargo was a huuuuuuuge disappointment. I won’t even bother writing about it, I found it boring, depressing and disturbing in a bad way, full of irritatingly stupid characters and very bad acting. The falsest acting I found was without a doubt Oscar winning Frances McDormand’s and the only good thing about the whole movie was Steve Buscemi’s dumb face. Another proof for me about how overrated the Oscars are.
1/10

Evening Wisdom

Last night we broke up with Gingerman. It must have been the fifth or so time in our relationship but it had never felt so final ever before. It doesn't feel like the beginning of something. It only feels like the end of everything.

My arms, legs and eyelashes are coated in lead-like sadness. My heart and mind echoes silence. It is very possible to feel empty and heavy at the same time.

Morning Wisdom

When there are only ten minutes left till the alarm clock goes off after a tiring and stressful sleepless night spent tossing and turning and wrecking your brains - that's exactly when you experience the most peaceful and deep sleep of your life.

Ten unconscious minutes that feels like two seconds.