(Air)Field of Dreams
2019 has been so far a quite peculiar year. It started with a sequence of not evenly distributed highs and lows (more lows I am afraid) and it developed into a year of grabbing opportunities that do not seem to be there.
Being the odds not necessarily in my favor I decided in the course of the year that I should really try my best to chase opportunities of ticking some of my bucket list boxes, just like that, as a matter of principle.
One of these was definitely attending one of the rare Keane concerts before Tom Chaplin became a way too old to wear tight jeans. Well I can tell you that this box has been ticked with much satisfaction and a principle of pneumonia caught on the North Sea beach of Scheveningen.
In spite of the freezing cold and unforgiving northern wind, the band was on fire and so was I, definitely one of those memories to keep.
This set me on a much more ambition task. Since I was a child I always pictured my life on the fast lane, being a world traveler and allowing nothing to drag me down. The perfect embodiment of this ambition was (in my childish dreams) flying on the Concorde, lunching in Paris and dining in New York as a matter of routine.
Fate and technology came in the way of my plans as the Concorde proved to be so flawed in its design as to be grounded forever before I could get to it.
I told you I was not going let anything drag me down, and indeed I still cultivated this vision of multiculturalism and world citizenship I only needed to give it a different shape.... and a different airline.
The years passed and my life kept unfolding and then this play came along, "Betrayal" by Harold Pinter, a story of love, friendship, wanting more and hurting the ones that are dear to you, in a circle of well educated, sophisticated Londoners.
It entered my life quite sneakily through Instagram (yes I do follow Tom Hiddleston on Instagram and he plays one of the leading roles in the play. The other leading role is taken by Charlie Cox known to me from charming little gem "Stardust"). It was playing in Broadway, quite far away and remote from my quiet, provincial Eindhoven life. But it kept creeping into the back of my mind. Something didn't allow me to let go of it.
You know by now a few things about my job and one of those is that definitely it makes me run quite some tarmac. Which sometimes is a drag and sometimes can create opportunities for adventure.
Then the whole plan came to shape suddenly, out of the blue. I had to be in Boston to give a training and a few days later I had to be in San Diego to attend a meeting and I had the weekend in between to spare. And there it came, right there, the vision of me hopping on a commuter flight from Boston to New York to catch the Saturday matinee and then return back to Boston, yes that was it, better then the Concorde!
How cool is that to hop on and off a plane only with your hand bag, having the cabin personnel think that you might be some South American desperado carrying something in your stomach...well the Italian passport helps keeping it real.
But in the end there I was, citizen of the world, showing New Yorkers the way and enjoying the witty subtle and brilliant performance tremendously in spite of having got up at 3AM to get there.
I was living my personal embodiment of sophistication, worldwide adventure and style. Definitely a thick in the box worth treasuring for the rest of my life!
Being the odds not necessarily in my favor I decided in the course of the year that I should really try my best to chase opportunities of ticking some of my bucket list boxes, just like that, as a matter of principle.
One of these was definitely attending one of the rare Keane concerts before Tom Chaplin became a way too old to wear tight jeans. Well I can tell you that this box has been ticked with much satisfaction and a principle of pneumonia caught on the North Sea beach of Scheveningen.
In spite of the freezing cold and unforgiving northern wind, the band was on fire and so was I, definitely one of those memories to keep.
This set me on a much more ambition task. Since I was a child I always pictured my life on the fast lane, being a world traveler and allowing nothing to drag me down. The perfect embodiment of this ambition was (in my childish dreams) flying on the Concorde, lunching in Paris and dining in New York as a matter of routine.
Fate and technology came in the way of my plans as the Concorde proved to be so flawed in its design as to be grounded forever before I could get to it.
I told you I was not going let anything drag me down, and indeed I still cultivated this vision of multiculturalism and world citizenship I only needed to give it a different shape.... and a different airline.
The years passed and my life kept unfolding and then this play came along, "Betrayal" by Harold Pinter, a story of love, friendship, wanting more and hurting the ones that are dear to you, in a circle of well educated, sophisticated Londoners.
It entered my life quite sneakily through Instagram (yes I do follow Tom Hiddleston on Instagram and he plays one of the leading roles in the play. The other leading role is taken by Charlie Cox known to me from charming little gem "Stardust"). It was playing in Broadway, quite far away and remote from my quiet, provincial Eindhoven life. But it kept creeping into the back of my mind. Something didn't allow me to let go of it.
You know by now a few things about my job and one of those is that definitely it makes me run quite some tarmac. Which sometimes is a drag and sometimes can create opportunities for adventure.
Then the whole plan came to shape suddenly, out of the blue. I had to be in Boston to give a training and a few days later I had to be in San Diego to attend a meeting and I had the weekend in between to spare. And there it came, right there, the vision of me hopping on a commuter flight from Boston to New York to catch the Saturday matinee and then return back to Boston, yes that was it, better then the Concorde!
How cool is that to hop on and off a plane only with your hand bag, having the cabin personnel think that you might be some South American desperado carrying something in your stomach...well the Italian passport helps keeping it real.
But in the end there I was, citizen of the world, showing New Yorkers the way and enjoying the witty subtle and brilliant performance tremendously in spite of having got up at 3AM to get there.
I was living my personal embodiment of sophistication, worldwide adventure and style. Definitely a thick in the box worth treasuring for the rest of my life!
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