Broccoli Avocado Salad

20230124 #breakfastdiary 658, -18°C/clear, 36min/workout This morning, half-asleep with my eyes barely open, I read something that really struck me. Still, the reason our lives are better than a movie is that they have a warmth we can actually hold. There are moments when I think to myself, 'wow, that just felt like a movie.' Like during an exam, when time is racing by second by second and my hands, moving in a hurry, feel strangely satisfying. Or in the late-afternoon hallway after school, when the sunlight stretches long across the floor and the only sound is a single set of footsteps. Some days it rains and yet my heart feels oddly dry and warm, or someone touches my hair without warning and the back of my neck tingles. Ah, just a little more — I wish it had lasted a little longer. Or that I could come back to that exact moment whenever I wanted. I kept looking into some living room from some particular day, glittering through gaps in green leaves, until the sun sank all the way into the sunset. So how wonderful would it be if only these moments were like a movie. But the moments that feel like a movie without my wanting them to are the long, endless mock exam when I buried my face in the test paper and cried in secret. The times I ended up getting angry at moments I shouldn't have. The times I was swept up in feelings no one could understand, because no one was patiently watching me the way an audience watches a character. It's strange — in dramas, it's fine to cry and wail like that. The characters just pour everything out, become as miserable as they possibly can, and then, cut — that's it. But it was only by actually living through it that I learned that's not how it works for me. No matter how sad I was, I still had a duty to keep going to whatever came next. I have no choice, even if I don't want to. Because there's no one to call 'cut' for us. Unlike the villain, for whom everything felt meaningless, nothing felt meaningless to me — and that was exactly what made it so painful. Everything mattered too much, so in the end I wanted to pile it all onto the same bagel anyway. Dividing things into take A and take B, unable to cut out a single scene of my own life in order to create the most efficient possible emotional payoff within a limited time. So how precious is this inefficiency we're allowed. Since I'm the only one watching everything anyway, I don't have to worry about any other audience. If I want, I can stretch out and replay a scene I love for as long as I like, endlessly. If I don't like something, I can change the genre halfway through on a whim, cry and laugh like in a movie, and clean up the mess afterward without it looking graceful at all. That is exactly the freedom we have outside the movies. A human warmth you could never feel on the other side of the screen is born in this very moment. Most of it will be scenes that are cut, skipped, left unpolished — messy but diligently cleaned up, one way or another. #Seogaeseo, January issue A salad full of the kind of warmth you can actually hold, - Blanch broccoli in boiling water. - Cut half an avocado into cubes. - Shell pistachios and chop them finely. - Mix olive oil (3), wine vinegar (1), and wholegrain mustard (1/2) for the dressing, and finish with pepper, pepper. #BroccoliAvocadoSalad with pistachios