Two nights in Paris is not enough, now all I can focus on is how I must go back

I took a corny picture, I wrote a corny post. Oh well, I happen to love chliche's.
...This started out as being a poem, but I'm not really sure that that's what it is anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am in love with the world.
Not travel, but the idea of travel.
I am in love with Venice and India and Scotland and Santorini and New Zealand.
I am in love before first sight.

I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach- this urge- this pull to lie out somewhere in the English countryside where all I can see for miles is green and all I can hear is a stream trickling or a far-off cow mooing. I yearn to wander through a Parisian street market, buying strawberries and roses from a woman who does not speak my language or ride a horse across the shallow waters of a beach that is too beautiful to exist beyond a computers desktop background. I need to explore some old vineyard in Italy or castle in Ireland. I have to run across a field in Africa, climb through a forsest in Costa Rica.
I need to see the things that cannot be real, that I can not fathom, until I see them.

Not even so glamourous though.
Really, anything will do.
I could ride across the U.S. or just stay somewhere upstate. I need somewhere that's not here- a place with no people or different people. A place with trees and fresh air and good food that I don't have to worry about eating. A place where I can be someone else or myself or whatever it is that I want to be, when I figure that out. Because more than scenic beauty, I need freedom.
I've got what every kid gets at some point- a strong, lasting case of wanderlust.

Sometimes, when my mood is high, and my imagination is wild, I can turn my backyard into a secret, overgrown garden. The old wooden bench becomes a precious, weathered antique and our small tool shed is a cottage with its own story- vines growing up the walls and wild roses at its base.

Sometimes, at night, as I lie in bed and feel the summer breeze slither through the sheets to me and hear the occasional cars passing by, I can close my eyes and imagine the bottle of red wine and slice of french cheese lying next to me- I'm suddenly 22 years old. My window becomes the open doors of a balcony in Montmartre, Paris. Distant chattering is some french dinner party in the next building over.

Everything is perfect.

Then, I open my eyes to see my block in Brooklyn, New York lying beyond the lace curtains and my heart sinks. The distant chattering is my neighbors coming back from a late show, the cars are all American-made. The breeze- which I'm sure, is not nearly as wonderful as the one in Paris's nights- comes through, not a balcony, but a window which, even open, traps me and confines me inside the house and the life that is mine.
Until I close my eyes again.

I wish I could say that Leonardo DiCaprio made this movie what it is...

I never thought I'd say that a Shakespeare play became one of my favorite movies of all time (not to sound like an ignorant, modern-day teen or anything-- I love Shakespeare, of course. But, when thinking about movies, there's always Mean girls and Elf and The parent trap and The Lizzie McGuire movie to consider which top practically everything). Seriously though, This movie is amazing. When we began the Romeo and Juliet unit and the first excited whispers about the about the fact that we would actually be watching a movie in class (as if we've never done that before) began, everyone (or at least every girl (yes, including me)) wanted to know only one thing- "IS IT THE LEONARDO DICAPRIO VERSION?!?!?!?!?!". And when Ms.Robbins told us that no, it was not- it was the Baz Luhrmann version, and that it would not ever (in her class) be referred to as anything but the Baz Luhrmann version, I thought it was just a joke. Just something she established because she was (understandably) sick and tired of thirteen year old girls having panic attacks about how absolutely perfect and exquisite the young Leonardo DiCaprio was everytime he went on screen (especially in those beginning scenes in the sunset/beach/sycamore grove- oh.my.god.). However, along with the many other things that I learned from watching this movie in class, by the end I had come to the realization that that was not at all Ms.Robbin's reason (or at least not her main one) for naming this "The Baz Luhrmann version"-- it was because that man is a creative genius and though he may not be as beautiful as him, he deserves every ounce of credit for this visionary masterpiece.

I wanted to zoom in on one specific thing that may seem a little unimportant but, in reality, adds so much to this movie- color (and when I say color I mean how Luhrmann used color to symbolize, not just the fact that he used it instead of black and white or something). When you're making a movie, you have so much more room for creative-ness and there are so many more visual things that you just physically couldn't have in a play. Baz Luhrmann uses this to his full advantage always and has "creative-movie-things" in practically every single shot+ this shines through especially in his choice of color uses. He chose yellow and blue to represent Montague and Capulet, and if you watch for these colors throughout, it's something that shows up all the time and one of those details that you may never notice, but if you do, you appreciate even more all the thought and work put into this movie and it's intentional craft moves. Color comes up in the backlight they use on characters faces in close-ups, it comes up in backdrops, it comes up in the clothes and the colors of their cars, it comes up in the fish between Romeo and Juliet, it comes up in the church, it comes up really everywhere, and everytime it does, it means something. It's there for a reason. And, even if people don't consciously notice these colors or realize what they represent, I think that having each side and each character on either side being visually affiliated with a color really helps the audience remember and understand each characters strong disposition and opinion and personality even if it's just their brain automatically and unconsciously making that connection.

I think that, in general, people learn a lot more when they do something in school than at home. Maybe it's because they're paying attention or because teachers are there, pointing out smart things. But, either way, it's really remarkable how much more I got out of watching this movie once in school than the millions of times I've seen it at home. It's one of those movies where you know it's beautiful and thought out and special for some reason but, as a thirteen year old not-film-expert, you can't seen to put your finger on specifically what that reason is. It's everything- it's the way that the light hits their faces- a bit sharper for Tybalt and softer for Benvolio, it's the way everything means something. How Romeo and Juliet's meeting foreshadows and represents what their future will be-- on opposite sides of the fish tank, fish of Montague+ Capulet colors and layers of water pushing them apart always. It's the beautiful modern costume party take on the Capulet dinner and how each costume represents it's wearer. It's how he changes the whole ending without adding or taking away a single word. It's how he makes everything fit together, work just right, even hundreds of years later. Watching the movie now that all these things are brought to my attention is overwhelming because every thought I have is "blue there!", "yellow over there!", "close up!", "what.does.it.mean...?". I've never taken a film study class before or even heard anyone talk about it so, maybe this little taste has gotten me anxious and it will soon ware off, but either way, I'm excited. I'm excited that I got so much out of this, and I'm excited to finish dissecting the play, and I'm excited about how I will view the movie when I, inevitably, see it again, and I'm excited that I'm actually excited about this, and I'm really excited to go out and rent all of these.

"Like fleas or the smell of cheap cologne, she is hard to get rid of. Smiling, smug, arms crossed, her pixie-toes tap out a tap out a metal rhythm that sounds like the smack of surgical tools falling onto a metal try. Like genius or sorrow she has curled up inside me and censors no evil, no criticism.

Sometimes she's British. Sometimes she is a poet. Sometimes she has a drawling southern accent when she mocks me. Other times she is long-nailed and pure JAP. She's got a rough cat's tongue and a debutante smile. She's got a Chanel bag, and outdrink me any day, and is the skinniest girl I know. But she is always, always right.

She likes to skip around and wear transparent victorian nightgowns even on the coldest nights, in order to mock my shivering mortality.

Occasionally, late at night, she is kind: she lights my cigarettes, pours me drinks, and waits quietly for some mutual banter to emerge.

But more and more, she resembles a lion-woman: her hungry iron gaze is trained on me, never wavering. Her eyes penetrate; she is always prepared, always ready to pounce on the slightest vulnerability. When I stumble on the street, she laughs: proof. But when I slip into my clothes, and they hang a little looser, she pats my back and hands me an extra sweater, my lion self.

She is incomplete, a succubus: trigger-happy, toilet-mouthed, knife-wielding, blue and white and sometimes green in the face from screaming, from telling me all I cannot have. When I manage to beat her down, tie her into a chair on the far side of the room, get her to eat some food, she smiles her sanguine, toothless grin. She starves proudly, waits, like a saint, she waits for death by fire or baptism.

--'This is when' she spits, when it is three o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep from hunger

She is holy, wholly my own, and when I reach out to touch her image in my face, she hovers an inch or so before my skull. Then she flicks her tongue out at me like the enraged lion she is; she snaps my fingers between her feline jaws; a barrage of dead spiders, splinters of wood, and bone.

--'This is when I love you the most' "

Even after I had finished reading the book "Skinny" by Ibi Kaslik, these two pages out of all 256 were what stood out the most to me. Like a poem or a catchy song, I had them stuck in my head for weeks-- or at least parts of them. Everything from this excerpt, in my opinion, is beautiful, real, raw, and completely and utterly heart-breaking. This girl that Giselle describes is everything she is, desires to be, or fears the most in the world.

This girl is her.

She is each fragment of her imagination.

She is her perfect self and her weakest self

Her beautiful self, and her hideous self.

She is her conscience and confidence or lack thereof.

What I think is so interesting about this is the whole concept of a war against yourself, of you being your own worst enemy, of your greatest fear being yourself-- what you can or cannot do to or for yourself. I know that this is something I've experienced- maybe not as deeply or vividly as Giselle, but an experience is an experience, right? Though I've never felt an image like this one so graphically or robustly, I know what it's like to be afraid of yourself or what you've done or become, and I think that most others do as well whether they realize it or not.

Some may think that the notion of battling yourself seems silly. Now, think about it some more. You know yourself better than anyone or anything else in the whole world. You know every single strong point and each and every weakness. You know what makes you vulnerable and what will have no affect at all. You know what has happened to you and what hasn't. You know what you want and what you fear. You've spent more time with yourself than anyone. You could navigate your mind or your heart with your eyes closed, you could even do it asleep.

And, you do.

Every day.

Which is, when you think about it, the key to defeating anyone- knowing every single nook and cranny of their inner workings like the back of your hand.

And that is what's so terrifying about a battle against yourself-- you will never win.