Packed Rat and Pinotage

Things have been quiet around these, normally, opulently verbose parts; changes of the magnitude that would make our favorite Thin White Duke call for more milk, more milk. Or something. Bucking the surprisingly potent shackles of stagnation, I abandoned the suburbs of the polarized, adored and abhorred, Garden State, now find myself a mere block from Prospect Park in Brooklyn. While it pained me to bid a teary farewell to some truly incredible colleagues, friends, I have survived my first few days at my new and exciting position, strong and assured and unscathed. The level of meticulous process and attention to project routing is a bit daunting, to say the least, for one with my enterpreneurially chaotic background, but, acclimating to new environments is a welcome challenge after the initial shock of discomfort and change.

With the overwhelmingly generous and dedicated help of my filmmaker, I have very nearly packed my entire apartment and moved into the new space. As even a brief perusal of some of these random ramblings and visual accompaniments will indicate, I am a violent pack rat. Armed with a suburban pad with enormous closets, I much needed a gleaning of my belongings, particular in the clothing department. Although it had been long postponed, the process was less painful than I anticipated; it was, tritely, a therapeutic cleansing. As we shed old garments, we also shed former skins; decisions, moments, relationships, emotions, we regret, or we harbor pride for, and can reflect briefly, again. Simultaneously building anew, building stronger, and a sort of homage rite, to the past. Sentimentality is, depending on perspective, a strength and a weakness; to search for greater meaning in these mundane quotidian.  

In an effort to avoid using my kitchen and dirtying my dishes, which needed to be gingerly wrapped and placed in boxes, the filmmaker and I went to our favorite local sushi joint one last time. Combating that hoarding tendency once more, I spontaneously brought this bottle of pinotage rose, one of four stowaways from my trip to South Africa last October, one trip, of many, in which I am still delinquent on sharing photographs and waxing nostalgic about the glories and beauties and challenges of travel. The wine had an incredible flavor to it, light, as a rose generally promises, but with that titillating hint of unbridled wilderness associated with a pinotage. Pairing well with fish, and with a day of exhausted packing, I am delighted that I resisted the urge to save it for some more appropriate occasion. Celebrating life, the new, the now, is occasion enough.