What does the Smell of Warm Concrete Mean to You?

Can a smell truly conjure up a memory? Is it possible to long for a place like you long for a person? What is the essence of an emotion? What does missing something truly mean? Am I living for a past that will never again be? Or hoping for a possible future and a reality that is different than my memory?

Walking downtown a few days ago to pick up my lunch the warm sun was beating down on the concrete of downtown. It smelled like New York in the summer. And a wave of nostalgia rolled over me and I wanted to cry from the passion of it. Cry with missing a life that I adored and a love affair I was involved in with a city. Cry from the jagged way I had to break up with my city just at a point when we had come to an understanding and supreme appreciation for each other. Cry because I didn't get to see another New York fall, didn't get to run the NYC Marathon as a New Yorker, cry because I never have that feeling walking home from work, that this is my dream and I'm living it.

Perhaps if I had spent a few more awful winters in the city my memories would be tainted with bleak thoughts of dirty snow, and cold so sharp it hurts your teeth when you smile and the short days and long dark nights. Perhaps if I had a few more years of making a good salary and yet feeling poor from the effects of living on the money sucking island, transporting myself back and forth from The City to Texas and and living where opportunities abound to do and see and shop I would long for the sunny Texas sky and ease of life here. But I didn't. And I don’t. And now I must life with the ache.

AFI DALLAS International Film Festival

My sisters and I got tickets to the Dallas Film Festival last week to see Then She Found Me. A delightful, albeit bitter sweet saga of family relationships, lost love, and soul-mates discovered. (You see, we all three harbor secret crushes on Colin Firth the films leading man, or perhaps its just his rendition of Mark Darcy in both the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice and the modernized Bridget Jones Diary portrayal of that oh so delish character). It was really by chance that we were there on the opening night gala event. As we walked up to the stately Majestic theater, and saw the press crowd hovering and the red carpet entrances of Mickey Rooney, Josh Brolin, Bill Paxton, Lucile Bacall, Sydney Pottier, and the honoree Helen Hunt. (Not to name drop or anything). We were thrilled to the very core of our closet movie star obsessions. We all looked cute I'd say, but seeing the fashionable entrances of the stars and fellow Dallas socialites, we resolved that next year we will come dressed to the nines and pretend we are some aspiring soon-to-be-discovered actresses or song wrights. (Pictures to come later ANNA SEND THEM TO ME!)

http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2008/mar/28/afi-dallas-2008-opening-night-gala/