Move, Learn, Eat…Then Nurse Your Wounds

These videos by Rick Mereki are what I call “jealousy inducing videos,” the ones that leave me wailing in front of my computer screen, full of blind rage and despair that I couldn’t be a part of these videos by filmmaker Rick Merecki. Hell, I would’ve booked my own flights (18 over 44 days).

I guess they’re inspirational, really creative, and well-produced as well, if you’re the typical mindless viewer. But for a day dreamer like me with severe bouts of wanderlust, each one of those smug smiles by actor Andrew Lees is like a punch to the face. Enjoy getting beat up for three minutes.

In an effort to calm me down, I took the three words in the video series and wrote a small stream of consciousness from my travels.

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

MOVE – Down Chapel Street…past Fuel coffee shop, I walk and poke my cell phone, trying to to Foursquare check-in to Wooster Square Park while avoiding cracks in the sidewalks, dogs, and neighbors. All are heading to the Saturday’s farmer’s market every Saturday…a few feet away from where Sally’s and Pepe’s have lines of eager pizza enthusiasts. Keep walking, past the church with the Sunday jazz service and the line out the door of hipsters and/or homeless. I still haven’t figured out what they’re waiting for. Past the 9th Square and the English Market where I pop in to say hi to Carol and Robert, sometimes working from The Bourse. Further down, through the New Haven Green, past more homeless sitting on the benches. Another block and through Yale’s quad, with the young and collegiate sitting on the benches. Onto Broadway, to pick up a shirt at Urban Outfitters or a tea at Blue State. It’s not a faraway land, but it counts as travel to me.

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

LEARN – One of the farmers led me up to a hill to a clearing exposed directly to the midday sunlight. In the clearing was stacks and stacks of rice stalks. In the middle a basic hut of sorts, square in shape with a small roof. Along the perimeter was a railing of wood with a metal net over the center of the hut. A tarp lay across the group underneath the net. He proceeded to throw down stacks of rice by me. Then he hurled a bunch of rice stalks over his shoulder and slammed them into the railing. Upon impact, rice separated from the stalk and rained down onto the tarp. I was going to harvest rice for the next few hours. I got bit by a fire ant about an hour in.

EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

EAT – The best meal I ever ate was in Paris in a very small, low-key restaurant called Lui L’Insolent a few blocks from the apartment we were staying in by Montmartre. The chef was a jovial pudgy man who insisted we struggle through ordering in French. The duck was incredibly cooked. And that souffle sampler for dessert. Far too often there are times sitting when I’m eating back at home that my mind wanders back to that meal, and then I wonder how much longer do I have to wait to go back.