The most important experiences we can have are those that take us to the very limit. That is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage. - Paulo Coelho
SHOP: PLANT CORNER ON LENOX AVENUE
3 years ago
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
if only we could see
We are all family.
"There’s a writer named Robert Johnson – he has no relation to the musician. His autobiography, I think it’s called Balancing Heaven and Earth. In it he describes, he had not much of a family structure growing up. And then as an adult he decided, 'Because I wasn’t given a family by birth doesn’t mean I can’t have one.' And so he began to nominally create his family and say, 'This person is my grandfather, this person is my uncle, this person is my brother,' with the idea being that these people, your family, are the unconditional ones. The ones that even when they do wrong, that’s when the rules go out the window. That’s when you embrace that person, even if that person has done what you might not accept in a friend or in a colleague. That you continue to support and, ideally, be supported by those people ... Because it does feel like when everything else falls apart that those relationships will be there and that they will stand tests of endurance that other relationships will not."
"There’s a writer named Robert Johnson – he has no relation to the musician. His autobiography, I think it’s called Balancing Heaven and Earth. In it he describes, he had not much of a family structure growing up. And then as an adult he decided, 'Because I wasn’t given a family by birth doesn’t mean I can’t have one.' And so he began to nominally create his family and say, 'This person is my grandfather, this person is my uncle, this person is my brother,' with the idea being that these people, your family, are the unconditional ones. The ones that even when they do wrong, that’s when the rules go out the window. That’s when you embrace that person, even if that person has done what you might not accept in a friend or in a colleague. That you continue to support and, ideally, be supported by those people ... Because it does feel like when everything else falls apart that those relationships will be there and that they will stand tests of endurance that other relationships will not."
- Bonnie Prince Billy
Sunday, November 13, 2011
on patience
Stalactites hang from the ceiling. Stalagmites grow from the floor. All are fragile crystals, born from the sweat of rocks in the depth of caves etched into the mountains by water and time. Stalactites and stalagmites spend thousands of years reaching down or reaching up, drop by drop, searching for each other in the darkness. It takes some of them a million years to touch.
They are in no hurry.
-Edwardo Galeano
Friday, November 4, 2011
life is beautiful
Last week a good friend of mine sent me this poem, which appeared in The New Yorker in June 2009. I loved it so much that I decided to send the author, Stephen Dunn, a Pulitzer prize winner, a letter in the mail. I told him I had recently been introduced to his work and that I love his poem and told him thank you for writing it. My friend also sent a letter, separately. And today, we received his response!
Dear Chris + Meghan,
Very sweet of both of you to write to me about my work. Know that it matters to me, and that I'm grateful.
Sincerely,
Stephen Dunn
Dear Chris + Meghan,
Very sweet of both of you to write to me about my work. Know that it matters to me, and that I'm grateful.
Sincerely,
Stephen Dunn
Saturday, October 22, 2011
on Love
If you want a loving relationship in your life and can't figure out why one is eluding you, remember this: you can either choose Love or choose fear. When you choose Love your options narrow because you have chosen to walk a narrower path of trusting your intuition and feelings over the five senses ... And if you have Love this means you must give it away with no expectation of return. Any expectation of return is not love, but the fear of not having love creeping back in ... Trust that you are perfect Love in this moment and only allow in a person that resonates on this vibration.
The Truth is that finding True Love is effortless for those who sit in Trust that they already have everything that could ever be sought after. This Trust will attract a person who is equally fulfilled;
this is the only type of person capable of Love, one who has Love to give away.
The Truth is that finding True Love is effortless for those who sit in Trust that they already have everything that could ever be sought after. This Trust will attract a person who is equally fulfilled;
this is the only type of person capable of Love, one who has Love to give away.
- Jackson Kiddard
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
my little rainy mornin prayer
May I always believe in magic and miracles and God's grace, until my last breath. If I ever stop believing in these things in the core of my Self, may I die soon thereafter, for life will no longer be worth living. May I then be granted a fresh go at it. May I remember that I will die, and may this recollection give me Courage. May I release the physicality of things so that even when it appears that my beloveds are absent, I may know that they are on their way to me, or - when I am mindful enough to pay attention - already abiding in my heart. May I be ever compassionate and kind toward others, no matter how difficult I find it to overcome my own suffering. May I recognize that every other creature is also suffering and striving for happiness, and may I reach beyond my pain to try to help others overcome theirs. May I always live in Love and may my heart never become bitter or angry. May I always be able to laugh at myself. May I always acknowledge the universe's abundance and be grateful. May my Love always conquer my Fear. May I always keep the Faith. May I wish all of this not just for myself but for all living beings. Amen.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
share this with someone you love
the laughing heart
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.
- charles bukowski
PS this one is also incredible.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
truth + light
Too often we do not say what we are feeling in our hearts and we hold back our true words of love, courage and compassion that should be said. When you become courageous enough to express the Truth of how you are really feeling, you set yourself free and align with the vibration of your Truth. This is when miracles, synchronicities and amazing things begin to happen.
At first it might be a little rough, because you are clearing out everything that isn't true for you. But it's my promise to you, dear friend, that once you've reached a clean slate, your Truth will set you free, your Truth will make you happy and your Truth will always provide for you. My biggest promise to you is that your Truth will deliver a life greater than you have imagined. All you have to do is let go of what is not true for you and let in what is.
-Jackson Kiddard, yogi+writer+lover
I really need to just get a tumblr. Mostly now I just re-post others' words + insights. As of late I'm struggling with organizing my own.
Monday, September 26, 2011
on yoga
The big thing with me lately is that the past is present as I'm working to manifest my future. I've always thought of the past as the past and the present as the present and the future as the future, but I'm learning that things aren't often as simple as that. This straight line of chronology through which we all think we move is not so straight at times - it bouncily doubles over on itself like a seat in a movie theater, it loops around and sometimes it pauses in a space that feels like it's outside of time altogether. I suppose I've always "known" my past experiences are part of my present, because they've led me to this moment - but never in my life has my past been such a tangible presence. Never has my own understanding confused me so much.
It seems that my yoga studio - or, more likely, the yoga itself - is a wormhole to the past. Near the end of my training as a teacher, with my heart as wide open as it had been since before I moved to New York, I thought about A, in passing. (Remember?) It was a Saturday evening. I was walking from the studio in the East Village to meet a friend for drinks in the West Village. I thought, "I wonder what I would do if I ran into A in the city." I watched myself have the thought, wistfully interested in why I was thinking about this man who (I thought) broke my heart, and whom I had not even passively considered in more than a year's time. I also asked myself why I was thinking that thought specifically, when (at least as far as I knew) he doesn't live in New York. Piggybacking on that thought, more thoughts bubbled to the surface, and memories from the time we shared together, and then I found myself thrashing at my covers, trying to shake him out, wondering why the fuck all these images still live within me when I so unequivocally banished them.
A sort of bizarre sequence of events led to us having a conversation, A and I. He told me he had been in the city the day I thought of him. I had no way of knowing he was here that day, nor did I have a reason to think what I thought. He also told me he thought the same thing about me when he was here, what he would do if he ran into me. Synchronicity. Since that conversation there has been a revolution in my heart, a sort of open-chest surgery I'm performing on myself, blindfolded.
Then the other day, I taught class at the studio. After class a student approached me. She said I looked very familiar to her and asked me where I'm from. I told her Birmingham, Alabama. She said her too. She asked me my name. I told her, and as my name escaped my lips, I recognized in her a glimmer of a young face I once knew. I said her name as she told it to me. She went to my middle and high school. She was a grade above me, and we were never close friends, but I remember her because she was always performing and singing at school concerts and plays. We talked for a while and she told me she moved to the city just two days after me, on Jan. 1, 2009, to pursue a career in theater. She told me she had also just done a show down in Virginia. I befriended her on the book of faces, and learned that she is friends with another actor friend of mine who I just visited in Virginia last weekend. And so the past folds in on itself, and that fold folds in on itself again, like one of those wooden Chinese toys where you hold the end of a chain of blocks that tumble over each other repeatedly in an irrational way, clink clink clink clink clink.
For the past year or so my actions have largely been fueled by the belief that a higher power is guiding me to a destiny of its design, but lately I'm considering the possibility that I was born, that we are all born, to find and courageously follow our own hearts - that our hearts are our destinies. For me, yoga is a portal to my heart. Everything that comes along with that - past, present, and future - all present themselves to me, in ways I never conceived. Yoga helps me harness the power to transform all three, however I see fit.
Today I practiced yoga and the woman next to me in class had a tattoo on her forearm that read, "You have everything you need." And I think it's true.
It seems that my yoga studio - or, more likely, the yoga itself - is a wormhole to the past. Near the end of my training as a teacher, with my heart as wide open as it had been since before I moved to New York, I thought about A, in passing. (Remember?) It was a Saturday evening. I was walking from the studio in the East Village to meet a friend for drinks in the West Village. I thought, "I wonder what I would do if I ran into A in the city." I watched myself have the thought, wistfully interested in why I was thinking about this man who (I thought) broke my heart, and whom I had not even passively considered in more than a year's time. I also asked myself why I was thinking that thought specifically, when (at least as far as I knew) he doesn't live in New York. Piggybacking on that thought, more thoughts bubbled to the surface, and memories from the time we shared together, and then I found myself thrashing at my covers, trying to shake him out, wondering why the fuck all these images still live within me when I so unequivocally banished them.
A sort of bizarre sequence of events led to us having a conversation, A and I. He told me he had been in the city the day I thought of him. I had no way of knowing he was here that day, nor did I have a reason to think what I thought. He also told me he thought the same thing about me when he was here, what he would do if he ran into me. Synchronicity. Since that conversation there has been a revolution in my heart, a sort of open-chest surgery I'm performing on myself, blindfolded.
Then the other day, I taught class at the studio. After class a student approached me. She said I looked very familiar to her and asked me where I'm from. I told her Birmingham, Alabama. She said her too. She asked me my name. I told her, and as my name escaped my lips, I recognized in her a glimmer of a young face I once knew. I said her name as she told it to me. She went to my middle and high school. She was a grade above me, and we were never close friends, but I remember her because she was always performing and singing at school concerts and plays. We talked for a while and she told me she moved to the city just two days after me, on Jan. 1, 2009, to pursue a career in theater. She told me she had also just done a show down in Virginia. I befriended her on the book of faces, and learned that she is friends with another actor friend of mine who I just visited in Virginia last weekend. And so the past folds in on itself, and that fold folds in on itself again, like one of those wooden Chinese toys where you hold the end of a chain of blocks that tumble over each other repeatedly in an irrational way, clink clink clink clink clink.
For the past year or so my actions have largely been fueled by the belief that a higher power is guiding me to a destiny of its design, but lately I'm considering the possibility that I was born, that we are all born, to find and courageously follow our own hearts - that our hearts are our destinies. For me, yoga is a portal to my heart. Everything that comes along with that - past, present, and future - all present themselves to me, in ways I never conceived. Yoga helps me harness the power to transform all three, however I see fit.
Today I practiced yoga and the woman next to me in class had a tattoo on her forearm that read, "You have everything you need." And I think it's true.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
on my heart
The thing about the human heart is that, like the earth, it is much deeper than most of us immediately give it credit for. Sometimes we plant seeds in its soil, and the stems grow, and the flowers blossom for a time, and then the winter freeze rolls in and we know that those tender petals we once caressed to life are dead and gone. We imagine them reabsorbed into our very being to be re-distributed for another use, another season, galvanizing us against the next winter, whenever it may come. And then a strange turn of events can reveal to us, still swaying in the wind and reaching for the sun, the garden we long took for dead.
The discovery can be so shocking that it casts a new light on everything that’s happened in our lives since we first thought we laid our garden to rest. Maybe everything we’ve done since that moment has led us to this singular re-discovery. Maybe all the work, all the growth, all the choices, the mistakes - maybe it was all some cosmic plan to till the soil of our hearts, to ready us for the season of harvest. It's been said that an insight the size of a mustard seed can bring down a mountain-sized illusion that's holding our lives together. It’s at this point that maybe the anger comes, the protest - we thought we knew ourselves so well. We thought we had sufficiently healed the heartbreak that came when we turned our backs on those blooms, casting them in a shadow to ensure their demise. How dare they continue to thrive in the darkness, and how dare they reveal themselves to us again, now.
It’s not like we’ve been miserable. We’ve been the opposite of miserable - we’ve discovered levels of joy and exhilaration beyond what we believed possible. We’ve gotten to know ourselves better than ever before, we’ve grown to love ourselves more than we ever considered permissible. We’ve been so happy we cried and cried so much we laughed. We’ve gotten healthier, we’ve gotten stronger, we've gained understanding. We’ve learned, we've loved. Which is why this discovery is all the more unsettling. How could we, in our happiness, have been so unaware of the truth? Where was our secret garden this whole time?
So the problem becomes what we do with what we’ve found. Do we simply sit and observe for a while? Do we pick the buds and string them purposefully through our hair as it grows long? Do we water them, thereby encouraging them to grow taller? Do we one-by-one yank them out by their roots, painstakingly making room for some new breed to grow in their place? The whole venture becomes increasingly absurd and unreasonable - we begin to legitimately question our sanity, and we feel so painfully alone, as if we're sure that no one else in the history of the world has ever felt this way - it's too foreign, too strange. None of it makes any sense. We might ask ourselves, we might ask the universe, we might ask God: what is this trickery? What is going on? We feel like an old piece of rock being polished - run through a spinning buffer and then tossed around in a river with no banks in sight. But why? What is this strange alchemy?
The answer, of course, is Love. The answer is always Love. And if Love isn’t the answer, we’re probably not asking the right questions. Love isn’t black and white, it isn’t linear. It doesn’t fit inside any chronological framework we’ve created to interpret the events of our lives. It doesn’t adhere to the rules we’ve written for ourselves, nor does it acknowledge the density of the walls we've built. It doesn’t implore us to focus on the bad times, only on the good. Or, rather, it humbly turns our attention to all times equally. Winter, spring, summer, and fall are all the same in the eyes of Love. A field of flowers is the same as a field blanketed in the thickest snow.
Someone planted in me the seeds of Love long ago, and it took learning this lesson for me to finally see them begin to mature: in loving others, I am actually loving parts of my own heart, a perennial garden of buds only beginning to break through the ice of a long and stealthy frost. The polishing continues.
The discovery can be so shocking that it casts a new light on everything that’s happened in our lives since we first thought we laid our garden to rest. Maybe everything we’ve done since that moment has led us to this singular re-discovery. Maybe all the work, all the growth, all the choices, the mistakes - maybe it was all some cosmic plan to till the soil of our hearts, to ready us for the season of harvest. It's been said that an insight the size of a mustard seed can bring down a mountain-sized illusion that's holding our lives together. It’s at this point that maybe the anger comes, the protest - we thought we knew ourselves so well. We thought we had sufficiently healed the heartbreak that came when we turned our backs on those blooms, casting them in a shadow to ensure their demise. How dare they continue to thrive in the darkness, and how dare they reveal themselves to us again, now.
It’s not like we’ve been miserable. We’ve been the opposite of miserable - we’ve discovered levels of joy and exhilaration beyond what we believed possible. We’ve gotten to know ourselves better than ever before, we’ve grown to love ourselves more than we ever considered permissible. We’ve been so happy we cried and cried so much we laughed. We’ve gotten healthier, we’ve gotten stronger, we've gained understanding. We’ve learned, we've loved. Which is why this discovery is all the more unsettling. How could we, in our happiness, have been so unaware of the truth? Where was our secret garden this whole time?
So the problem becomes what we do with what we’ve found. Do we simply sit and observe for a while? Do we pick the buds and string them purposefully through our hair as it grows long? Do we water them, thereby encouraging them to grow taller? Do we one-by-one yank them out by their roots, painstakingly making room for some new breed to grow in their place? The whole venture becomes increasingly absurd and unreasonable - we begin to legitimately question our sanity, and we feel so painfully alone, as if we're sure that no one else in the history of the world has ever felt this way - it's too foreign, too strange. None of it makes any sense. We might ask ourselves, we might ask the universe, we might ask God: what is this trickery? What is going on? We feel like an old piece of rock being polished - run through a spinning buffer and then tossed around in a river with no banks in sight. But why? What is this strange alchemy?
The answer, of course, is Love. The answer is always Love. And if Love isn’t the answer, we’re probably not asking the right questions. Love isn’t black and white, it isn’t linear. It doesn’t fit inside any chronological framework we’ve created to interpret the events of our lives. It doesn’t adhere to the rules we’ve written for ourselves, nor does it acknowledge the density of the walls we've built. It doesn’t implore us to focus on the bad times, only on the good. Or, rather, it humbly turns our attention to all times equally. Winter, spring, summer, and fall are all the same in the eyes of Love. A field of flowers is the same as a field blanketed in the thickest snow.
Someone planted in me the seeds of Love long ago, and it took learning this lesson for me to finally see them begin to mature: in loving others, I am actually loving parts of my own heart, a perennial garden of buds only beginning to break through the ice of a long and stealthy frost. The polishing continues.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
in memoriam
I walked from the East Village to Bryant Park today, where A Tribute 9/11 has been set up for the past few days. There are 2,753 empty chairs on the lawn, one to represent each person killed on 9/11. It is quite eerie and beautiful.
An interactive public art project called Collective Memory included a pool of typists set up at a table each day from 12:30 to 2:30, recording people's responses to the question, What would you like the world to remember about 9/11? I didn't get to the park until around 4 today, so I missed the typists, but there was one lone typewriter still there, and I sat down to write. Someone is collecting the writings and will eventually display some of them at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. You can also see them here.
An interactive public art project called Collective Memory included a pool of typists set up at a table each day from 12:30 to 2:30, recording people's responses to the question, What would you like the world to remember about 9/11? I didn't get to the park until around 4 today, so I missed the typists, but there was one lone typewriter still there, and I sat down to write. Someone is collecting the writings and will eventually display some of them at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. You can also see them here.
Friday, August 5, 2011
just cuz
It's been a while since I blogged. Life has been amazingly hectic but mostly hectically amazing. I'm in training to become a yoga teacher. It's a 200-hour program stretched out over 10 weeks, six of which I have completed. I started in late June and will complete at the end of August, if all goes as planned. I'm training at Yoga to the People in the East Village. It truly has been a life-affirming, inspiring and altering experience. I feel like I am on my way to finding the truest expression of myself - which maybe sounds crazy considering that I only started practicing yoga in May - but when I found yoga it really did feel like I was coming home and unfurling at the same time, both coming back to my true self after so much searching and simultaneously branching out into the unknown parts of myself that also comprise my core. To have even an opportunity, as a future teacher, to help others also find this amazing gift - is an honor and a privilege.
Remember that short film Love Sand I wrote last summer and filmed with Zac? The leading lady, Haley Strode, just booked a film with Sean Penn and Ryan Gosling. I am so happy for her and honored to have participated in her journey - what an incredible thing. I knew when I met her last summer that she had something special and significant inside her. I wanted to re-post the film here so you can watch how wickedly talented and beautiful she is. She's gonna be huge.
Remember that short film Love Sand I wrote last summer and filmed with Zac? The leading lady, Haley Strode, just booked a film with Sean Penn and Ryan Gosling. I am so happy for her and honored to have participated in her journey - what an incredible thing. I knew when I met her last summer that she had something special and significant inside her. I wanted to re-post the film here so you can watch how wickedly talented and beautiful she is. She's gonna be huge.
Love Sand from LBO Productions on Vimeo.
Thinking about being the girl who wrote (and, at least partially, lived) the sad story of Love Sand is a weird thing. I opened this blog post hours ago and watched the cursor blink at me for a while - I felt an unexpected inauthenticity as I thought about what I would say here about my life over the past few months. So much has happened, so much has blossomed for me, and I am more my Self now than ever before. I am so happy. I experience sadness but I have finally learned that the sort of destruction I experienced before resulted from my own hand. I am coming into my power as a woman. I am teaching myself never to say I'm sorry unless I truly mean it and to love myself unconditionally. As women we are conditioned to apologize at every turn - for raising our voices, for extending our bodies in space, simply for being ourselves - and I am undoing years of that. I am not sorry. I have a voice, I have a body, I have a mind - and I have a power inside of me. As a child in Alabama, I dreamed of living in New York City, creating a space for myself and living a free life where I could dance and write and use my heart. I'm on my way to that very life - one might say I'm one foot in, or maybe just a toe or two - and what a gift. What a power lies inside me! I don't say this to selfishly lift myself up, but rather to shine a light on the Source of this power, which is something I'm only beginning to become intimate with.
I saw this written in a bathroom stall. It's important.
Because, beautiful as you are, you hide so much of what you are, which of course is part of what you are: the hidden and the hiding.
Xx
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
subway kids rejoice
In January, I turned 25. For my birthday, a friend of mine gave me The Alchemist. On the title page, he wrote a note: "MCB, I found this one of the most inspiring books I've ever read. I hope it resonates as much with you." It took me a few weeks to finish the book. As I was reading, I knew something important was happening. The book served to reflect aspects of my spirituality that I had learned over the past six months or so. I put the book on a shelf, feeling cemented in my beliefs, but also feeling like I had missed something, that some of the metaphors were lost on me.
I pulled the book from the shelf yesterday, to share it with a man I've been seeing. I put it in my room to remind myself to give it to him, but decided not to take it with me yesterday. It sat on my dresser all day. This morning before leaving for work, I decided instead to re-read it myself, and I put it in my bag. I pulled it out on the train at 86th street and started reading. I stood from 86th street to 14th street reading, then some people got up to exit so I took a seat. I was sitting there reading, and the man sitting next to me looked over and said, "Your first time reading that book?" I said, "No, my second." He said, "Ah. It helps just to re-read it every now and then."
I agreed with him and pretended to keep reading, but there was an incessant pounding on the inside of my chest, demanding that I keep talking with this person. He was older a bit, probably in his 30s, and he seemed really nice and I liked his vibe. I ignored the pounding for as long as possible until I couldn't ignore it anymore.
"How many times would you say you've read it?" I asked him.
"Ummm, about three."
"Yeah."
"Why are you re-reading it now?"
"Um, well. I just read it for the first time a few months ago."
"Oh really? That's pretty soon to be re-reading it already."
"Well, I feel like I missed some of the metaphors so I want to go back through and get a better understanding."
"I see. Are you in the middle of a big life change?"
In my heart: yes.
Out loud: "Um, well, I really want a new job."
"Ah. What line of work are you in?"
"Well, right now I work in magazines."
"And what do you want to be doing? Healing?" He laughed.
"Well, I write magazine articles, but I really want to be doing something more creative. Like writing books or screenplays." Mind you, this is a complete stranger and I've never even told some of my closest friends that I want to write screenplays.
"Have you thought about taking a loan out to pursue higher education?"
In my head: Um, wow. Damn. Straight to the point.
Out loud: "I've thought about grad school but haven't done any in-depth research on it."
"Well," he said, "I'm throwing caution to the wind and taking out a $100,000 loan to go to school for psychotherapy. I feel like it's my calling."
"Holy shit. That's a lot of money."
"There's this school out in Boulder, Colorado called Naropa. Have you ever heard of it?"
"No."
"It's a Buddhist-founded university with graduate programs in writing. They focus on contemplative learning, meditation and stuff like that. It's really cool, you should look into it."
"All right, sounds awesome." Or something equally inane.
"Have you ever heard of Allen Ginsberg?"
In my heart: fucking Christ.
Out loud: "Yes."
"The library there is named after him. He was involved with the writing school somehow."
My stop came. I thanked him and told him to have a great day.
I got off.
I walked upstairs.
The sun hit my face. It was warm.
I went to get an iced coffee but I didn't really need it.
I held back tears as I walked to my office.
Synchronicity.
I pulled the book from the shelf yesterday, to share it with a man I've been seeing. I put it in my room to remind myself to give it to him, but decided not to take it with me yesterday. It sat on my dresser all day. This morning before leaving for work, I decided instead to re-read it myself, and I put it in my bag. I pulled it out on the train at 86th street and started reading. I stood from 86th street to 14th street reading, then some people got up to exit so I took a seat. I was sitting there reading, and the man sitting next to me looked over and said, "Your first time reading that book?" I said, "No, my second." He said, "Ah. It helps just to re-read it every now and then."
I agreed with him and pretended to keep reading, but there was an incessant pounding on the inside of my chest, demanding that I keep talking with this person. He was older a bit, probably in his 30s, and he seemed really nice and I liked his vibe. I ignored the pounding for as long as possible until I couldn't ignore it anymore.
"How many times would you say you've read it?" I asked him.
"Ummm, about three."
"Yeah."
"Why are you re-reading it now?"
"Um, well. I just read it for the first time a few months ago."
"Oh really? That's pretty soon to be re-reading it already."
"Well, I feel like I missed some of the metaphors so I want to go back through and get a better understanding."
"I see. Are you in the middle of a big life change?"
In my heart: yes.
Out loud: "Um, well, I really want a new job."
"Ah. What line of work are you in?"
"Well, right now I work in magazines."
"And what do you want to be doing? Healing?" He laughed.
"Well, I write magazine articles, but I really want to be doing something more creative. Like writing books or screenplays." Mind you, this is a complete stranger and I've never even told some of my closest friends that I want to write screenplays.
"Have you thought about taking a loan out to pursue higher education?"
In my head: Um, wow. Damn. Straight to the point.
Out loud: "I've thought about grad school but haven't done any in-depth research on it."
"Well," he said, "I'm throwing caution to the wind and taking out a $100,000 loan to go to school for psychotherapy. I feel like it's my calling."
"Holy shit. That's a lot of money."
"There's this school out in Boulder, Colorado called Naropa. Have you ever heard of it?"
"No."
"It's a Buddhist-founded university with graduate programs in writing. They focus on contemplative learning, meditation and stuff like that. It's really cool, you should look into it."
"All right, sounds awesome." Or something equally inane.
"Have you ever heard of Allen Ginsberg?"
In my heart: fucking Christ.
Out loud: "Yes."
"The library there is named after him. He was involved with the writing school somehow."
My stop came. I thanked him and told him to have a great day.
I got off.
I walked upstairs.
The sun hit my face. It was warm.
I went to get an iced coffee but I didn't really need it.
I held back tears as I walked to my office.
Synchronicity.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
beautiful no-sun
I wish it were
r
a
i
n
i
n
g
and that I could burrow
where you couldn’t see me
and I couldn’t see you
until my heart stopped beating
and my stomach collapsed
and my brainstorm short/circuited
like number five
(but)
i am alive
i am alive
i am alive
and the sun will rise and i
e
s
i
r
with it.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
88 days/89 nights
I had this awful dream last night, or this morning, that you told me you didn't love me, you loved someone else. You were my lover and my trainer; you were training me to be a gymnast. You were trying to get me to do a release move, something very high in the air, and I was just swinging so high in the air above water, and I couldn't let go. You got angry. I told you I was too scared, it was too high, I couldn't let go. You disappeared into the bowels of the ship and when you came back you said so many mean things to me, that I was weak and you had never loved me and what we had together was fleeting and meaningless. You said that you had found a woman who was brave and real to love. She was there too, and though I don't remember what she looked like, I remember her cruelty. It felt like when I was a child and people used to make fun of me for being a little bit chubby, or wearing pants that didn't flare quite enough at the ankles, or having bangs that stairstepped down my little forehead.
I wake up crying and the sun hits my face and I slowly realize it was only a dream. I think of my high school philosophy teacher, who said dreams were more a reality than our waking hours. Dreams, like all the times I built you in my bed, bringing a pillow close to my face and remembering when your blue eyes glowed back at me as we fucked. I try my hardest to remember, to re-create their explosive sheen from so, so long ago; I graze my lips across the surface of the pillow and remember how you kissed me, the breath that lingered between our mouths. I think that’s when it happened, when we exchanged those pieces of ourselves, whatever this thing is that makes me invent you time and time again, that haunts and thrills me. My gymnastics coach once took my 10-year-old pointed foot in his hand and looked at me and told me I would be in the Olympics some day. He was wrong; I never made it to the Olympics. Instead I got real sick and spent a summer in the hospital and missed a vacation with roller coasters and, much later, thanked God for keeping me alive.
I close my eyes and pull the pillow even tighter to me. I don't mourn the back handsprings or cartwheel beams or my Olympic dreams, but I do still thank God for life. I have no reason to love you, except that I have every reason not to, and of all the dreams I've had of you, this was but one. The open road reveals itself to me, and I drive on.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
i shoot the lights out
I woke up this morning and I had a headache and my whole body hurt. Two nights ago I rode a mechanical bull in fishnets and sequins; I wasn't even drunk, I just wanted to do it. I stayed on for 55 seconds and I have a big bruise on the inside of my right thigh, but it was fun. Kanye West's song 'All of the Lights' was playing, my favorite one on the album, and it seemed like a sign, an appropriate way to round out New Year's Eve, begin 2011. The thing about that song is that Alicia Keys and Elton John both sing on it, but their parts are tiny and they're not credited. I didn't know until later. The thing about riding a mechanical bull is that no matter how hard you squeeze your thighs together, you're going to fall off. It's inevitable.
Patti Smith once said about New Year's Day, so as today, the rest of the year. Meaning whatever you do on that day, you will do for the rest of the year. I don't know if it's true though, and it makes me anxious. I slept until 1:30 on New Year's Day and then showered and put on a full face of makeup and sat around watching a movie and just nothing particularly interesting happened. Then later before dinner we were all talking about resolutions and sort of went around in a circle stating them as fact. All I could say is I want to make more money in 2011. Which is true, but really what I want for 2011 is to do more than I talk, and to start surrounding myself with doers, weeding out the talkers. I felt bad all day yesterday because I can tell 2011 is going to be a year of difficult decisions.
When 2010 started, I had no confidence that it would be an amazing year. I didn't think it would be bad, it's more like I didn't think about it, I just moved forward and did stuff and then amazing things started happening. I did a lot in 2010, produced a lot of work, and I'm happy about that, and I feel thankful. But in its aftermath I feel a pressure that I didn't expect to feel. I'm trying to force myself to be positive going into 2011, but in a way it feels false. My dreams are bigger than ever, so the pressure follows suit. Last night we went dancing and it was so crowded and hot and a large man stepped on my little toe and it hurt really bad and I limped home alone and thought, what if I never make myself stand out.
I don't think this year is going to be bad, but I can feel that it's going to be hard. I believe in my purpose and I will do anything to achieve it, and when that's your starting point, you know it's going to be hard, people are going to get hurt. I'm not a good diplomat. Someone once told me I seem to care about no one but myself, but I think that's just a burden ambitious women carry a lot of the time. Is wanting to achieve a dream fundamentally selfish, and is being selfish even a bad thing, or is it a mindwash? My dreams are my dreams, but it's not about me crossing a finish line. There is no finish line, it's a basic truth about art, it just keeps on going.
Change is coming, I feel it. All I have is my faith, and the knowledge that I can use lessons learned thus far to deal with things yet to come. And a belief in myself and my purpose. I don't really have resolutions for 2011, because resolving takes time and we're only two days in. My only thought so far is to be brave, but careful and smart, with myself and with others. Things have to change, not because 2010 was bad, but because it was so good. And because things always have to change. That's a given, the challenge is to avoid becoming a monster.
Patti Smith once said about New Year's Day, so as today, the rest of the year. Meaning whatever you do on that day, you will do for the rest of the year. I don't know if it's true though, and it makes me anxious. I slept until 1:30 on New Year's Day and then showered and put on a full face of makeup and sat around watching a movie and just nothing particularly interesting happened. Then later before dinner we were all talking about resolutions and sort of went around in a circle stating them as fact. All I could say is I want to make more money in 2011. Which is true, but really what I want for 2011 is to do more than I talk, and to start surrounding myself with doers, weeding out the talkers. I felt bad all day yesterday because I can tell 2011 is going to be a year of difficult decisions.
When 2010 started, I had no confidence that it would be an amazing year. I didn't think it would be bad, it's more like I didn't think about it, I just moved forward and did stuff and then amazing things started happening. I did a lot in 2010, produced a lot of work, and I'm happy about that, and I feel thankful. But in its aftermath I feel a pressure that I didn't expect to feel. I'm trying to force myself to be positive going into 2011, but in a way it feels false. My dreams are bigger than ever, so the pressure follows suit. Last night we went dancing and it was so crowded and hot and a large man stepped on my little toe and it hurt really bad and I limped home alone and thought, what if I never make myself stand out.
I don't think this year is going to be bad, but I can feel that it's going to be hard. I believe in my purpose and I will do anything to achieve it, and when that's your starting point, you know it's going to be hard, people are going to get hurt. I'm not a good diplomat. Someone once told me I seem to care about no one but myself, but I think that's just a burden ambitious women carry a lot of the time. Is wanting to achieve a dream fundamentally selfish, and is being selfish even a bad thing, or is it a mindwash? My dreams are my dreams, but it's not about me crossing a finish line. There is no finish line, it's a basic truth about art, it just keeps on going.
Change is coming, I feel it. All I have is my faith, and the knowledge that I can use lessons learned thus far to deal with things yet to come. And a belief in myself and my purpose. I don't really have resolutions for 2011, because resolving takes time and we're only two days in. My only thought so far is to be brave, but careful and smart, with myself and with others. Things have to change, not because 2010 was bad, but because it was so good. And because things always have to change. That's a given, the challenge is to avoid becoming a monster.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
the worst are full of passionate intensity
I bought a new type of soap the other day. I thought it was lotion and it was really cheap and it promised to provide seven different types of hydration, so I bought it. When I discovered it was soap I felt surprised then disappointed then excited I wouldn't have to buy soap for a while. For sale, soap and a full range of emotions.
The soap is scented. It smells like my ex-boyfriend. Not the one who pushed me down onto the bed, but the one who tied me there. When I shower now I feel mesh knots grazing my wrists and hear flesh rubbing against flesh and taste red wine. One time we got really drunk on red wine and stayed up til six in the morning fucking and talking and fucking some more until the sun came up and we blacked out. Even after living in New York for two years, that night might be the closest I've come to a rock star life.
We had problems. He drank too much, like everyone else in college. He was on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds to help him cope with the loss of his parents. He was an orphan by the time he was 19. When we started dating, I knew his mother had died fairly recently, and one night we were at his apartment watching a movie and there was a scene with a funeral or something. He mentioned casually that it reminded him of when his dad had died, years ago. I told him I had to use the restroom, then I sat on the toilet with the fan on, crying.
The pills made him numb, I think. Not completely, but partially. He always appeared to be just on the brink of a sincere emotion, except for when we were intimate. When he kissed me, when he held onto the back of my neck while he made me come, when he rested his head on my stomach, that's when I saw who he really was. But outside of that, he lived in a shell. I saw him cry one time, on the eve of his college graduation. He said, No one will be there to watch me walk. A lone tear fell from his eye and I crawled into his lap on the edge of my bed and pulled his forehead into my neck and cradled him. Women who say they don't want to take care of men are lying. People want to take care of other people.
He was good at comforting too. Since I was a kid I've had this compulsion to scratch myself. My parents always said it was scented soaps and detergents, but really it's a coping mechanism to deal with stress and anxiety. Sometimes I scratch myself in my sleep. I would wake up in his bed with these red welts on my legs, blood drawn. He would pull me into the bathroom naked, bend down and run his hands along my marks and say, Oh sweetie, you have to stop scratching.
Another time, I was with him when I found out I had ovarian cysts. I had the worst period I've ever had in my life. I lay in his bed in the fetal position, unable to move from the pain. He went out and bought heating pads and laid them across my lower abdomen. They were the kind that stick to your skin, so I fell asleep with them on me, like leeches. I woke up in the middle of the night covered in sweat so I ripped them off and cranked up the central AC and curled my body into his. We were only together for eight months or so, but we took care of each other like we had been together for years. It was strange, like children, we never said I love you.
I asked him once if he believed that things happen for a reason and he answered no so immediately and coldly that I knew he wasn't lying. It was the first time I knew we wouldn't end up together. They say the strongest human sense is smell, but really I think it's loss. The sense of loss and the scent of it, haunting and halting only when you reach the bottom of the bottle.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
standing and walking and wandering
When you stand on a street corner in New York with your eyes closed, you really feel the wind. It’s scary. When I was a teenager, I remember thinking to myself on the way home from a late night out somewhere that I knew the road so well I could drive it with my eyes shut. I closed them with my hands on the wheel and made it three seconds before I opened them again and thought about how stupid that was.
Testing blindness on a street corner is sort of the same. First, you know there are people all around you. You assume, at best, that everyone is looking at you, thinking you are crazy. You hope, at worst, that no one will attack you or steal your purse while you are defenseless. It goes against your every instinct to stand there still, listening and feeling and smelling but not seeing. Like lying down in the middle of the jungle, trying to sleep in a den of tigers.
Walking from my building to the train after work, I pass a disabled black man in a wheelchair. He is sitting with one wheel against the scaffolding that surrounds my building, not moving. He has his headphones in, and I follow the cord with my eyes as I walk: past his long arms, which are curved in places they aren’t supposed to be, and his hands, which are curved everywhere, to the end of the cord plugged into his cell phone. Then I see the phone fall to the ground, as if I had willed it there with my mind. It clatters.
I walk on, but I turn my head back. I see him struggling. He can’t seem to bend down at just the right angle. His phone has fallen slightly under his chair, and it is hard for him to reach it. I stop walking. I wonder if I should offer to help him. I wonder if it is safe and then I wonder if I might offend him. I watch for a few seconds longer to see if he picks it up himself. He doesn’t. I start walking back toward him.
I approach him from behind, watching him curl over and lurch for the phone in an awkward motion. I peek my head cautiously into his line of sight, and say, "Do you need me to help you?" He looks up at me just as his hand finally wraps around the phone and he retrieves it from the ground. "No, I got it," he says. The words are not articulate but I can make them out. His face is half-paralyzed, but he smiles at me. I can make it out.
A dear friend of mine recently told me he felt like he didn't know who I was anymore. It made me think. I thought about the changes I've gone through over the past year, all the pain and the fear and the joy and the anxiety and the loneliness of growing into a woman and finding myself as an artist. I thought of who I was a year ago today, and confessed to myself that I could not say with certainty, "I am the same person, at my core," which is what people say in these conversations. It's a gut response. My gut wouldn't let me say it. My core had been shaken so deeply, in ways good and bad, that I barely even recognized the old me. Like a friend I used to know but who moved far away and forgot to call on my birthday.
The man in the wheelchair smiled at me, and I realized something. I will always be moved by the beauty of tragedy and struggle and humanity. I will always try to help someone who needs it, if I think I can. I feel and do these things not because of some moral code stamped into me like a seal pressed into molten wax, and not because I thrive on the pleasure of knowing I did something good for someone else - but because those feelings and actions are who I am. They are not my core, not just a part, but the whole. They are me. Everything else is just wandering.
The man in the wheelchair smiled at me, a reminder that people are strong even when they seem weak. Simply moving forward in time is an accomplishment, and I am thankful for the opportunity I’ve had to wander.
Testing blindness on a street corner is sort of the same. First, you know there are people all around you. You assume, at best, that everyone is looking at you, thinking you are crazy. You hope, at worst, that no one will attack you or steal your purse while you are defenseless. It goes against your every instinct to stand there still, listening and feeling and smelling but not seeing. Like lying down in the middle of the jungle, trying to sleep in a den of tigers.
Walking from my building to the train after work, I pass a disabled black man in a wheelchair. He is sitting with one wheel against the scaffolding that surrounds my building, not moving. He has his headphones in, and I follow the cord with my eyes as I walk: past his long arms, which are curved in places they aren’t supposed to be, and his hands, which are curved everywhere, to the end of the cord plugged into his cell phone. Then I see the phone fall to the ground, as if I had willed it there with my mind. It clatters.
I walk on, but I turn my head back. I see him struggling. He can’t seem to bend down at just the right angle. His phone has fallen slightly under his chair, and it is hard for him to reach it. I stop walking. I wonder if I should offer to help him. I wonder if it is safe and then I wonder if I might offend him. I watch for a few seconds longer to see if he picks it up himself. He doesn’t. I start walking back toward him.
I approach him from behind, watching him curl over and lurch for the phone in an awkward motion. I peek my head cautiously into his line of sight, and say, "Do you need me to help you?" He looks up at me just as his hand finally wraps around the phone and he retrieves it from the ground. "No, I got it," he says. The words are not articulate but I can make them out. His face is half-paralyzed, but he smiles at me. I can make it out.
A dear friend of mine recently told me he felt like he didn't know who I was anymore. It made me think. I thought about the changes I've gone through over the past year, all the pain and the fear and the joy and the anxiety and the loneliness of growing into a woman and finding myself as an artist. I thought of who I was a year ago today, and confessed to myself that I could not say with certainty, "I am the same person, at my core," which is what people say in these conversations. It's a gut response. My gut wouldn't let me say it. My core had been shaken so deeply, in ways good and bad, that I barely even recognized the old me. Like a friend I used to know but who moved far away and forgot to call on my birthday.
The man in the wheelchair smiled at me, and I realized something. I will always be moved by the beauty of tragedy and struggle and humanity. I will always try to help someone who needs it, if I think I can. I feel and do these things not because of some moral code stamped into me like a seal pressed into molten wax, and not because I thrive on the pleasure of knowing I did something good for someone else - but because those feelings and actions are who I am. They are not my core, not just a part, but the whole. They are me. Everything else is just wandering.
The man in the wheelchair smiled at me, a reminder that people are strong even when they seem weak. Simply moving forward in time is an accomplishment, and I am thankful for the opportunity I’ve had to wander.
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