"Fire is motion / Work is repetition / This is my document / We are all all we've done / We are all all we've done / We are all all we've done / We are all all defenses."
death rituals / thinking about the souls of deceased
donated, unclaimed bodies -- outside of Beijing
argue: doctors use bodies for medical training all the time
different intent: donated bodies, medical benefit, education
while these are educational exhibits, there's also some element of freak show shock and awe in the experience/display -- gore element that seemed disrespectful
Bodies purpose -- "become an informed participant in your own healthcare"
"the specimens in this exhibit have been treated with the dignity and respect they deserve" -- afterthought on last wall of exhibit
notes from my second (!!) move from California to New York, summer-ish 2012. left a Silicon Valley job to go to grad school out east, chasing love, running away from myself. i got this in a fortune cookie: "every man should seek to learn what he is running from, to, and why."
notes found scrawled on the back of an envelope, stuffed into glovebox, to be rediscovered in 2020, as i start to think about moving back out West.
everything [sic]
Arizona:
cool and green
what is it a/b the Arizona landscape that makes the sunset so beautiful?
N.Mex:
coyote nights
howling at the moon
Vegas:
oversexed
drag show/talent show/circus freak
Grand Canyon:
layers of red, yellow, ocre, orange, gray
like jell-o cake
Sante Fe:
trees illuminated with a thousand lights
milky way
fried egg and red/green chile
Kansas:
red moon lightning skies
sleeping in the gracious shadow of a McDonald's parking lot
Iowa:
corn fields and crappy roads
feeling tired of driving and missing home
#writing
A delightful, strange, and punchy book that I assumed would be whimsical and cutesy but surprised me with its darkness and depth. I knew little about the book when I started (woman is a week away from her wedding when her dead grandmother visits her as a parakeet -- seemed intriguing enough!) but the whole of the story was so much more than that simple premise. It is about family, grief, belonging, trying to understand the most elusive people in one's life (usually family), and trying to seek out happiness in the difficult contexts that conspire against you.
"This is what they call trauma logic, which is indistinguishable from dream logic."
This book was dreamy -- not in a pastel, confectionary, lightness of being way, but the way REAL dreams are: mostly terrifying, illogical, scattered, haunting, uncanny. The way dreams feel like deja vu sometimes. The way dreams feel after you wake up from them -- troubling or persistent, gnawing. The first half was surreal and dreamy (I was reminded of Barry Yourgrau's "Wearing Dad's Head" -- another fantastic book featuring familial absurdity), the second half more grounded and much too short. I could have read more but loved how succinct it was (no flourishes, another trait of this book, though there were many phrases and descriptive choices that sang to me -- my version is covered in highlights of some of my favorites).
Parakeet examines a multitude of human relationships -- the social expectations of marriage, of course, but also platonic love, lust, familial relationships and duties, what it means to be connected or tethered to other human beings. It depicts love and connection in various forms and is emotive, while still somehow being distant (using the word "love" feels too contrite, the word itself losing meaning from overuse). Parakeet also depicts trauma and its effect on someone's experiences ("the mean trick of trauma is that like a play it has no past tense. It is always happening.") -- an interesting conceit that recurs and replays in poignant ways throughout the story.
A stunning book, high on my list of books that I delighted in reading, but also challenged me (Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo is another one I hold in high regard and would be on the same list).
I think learning gratitude is really just the process of growing up. Of learning that everything you enjoy now is the product of sacrifice, hard work, dedication, selflessness. The investment of time, commitment, hope in a future that is better than the past.
I was thinking today about my Mom. Thinking about a book I wrote, as a kid, that described being an adult as "getting to do whatever you want," like dragging your kid around on errands when all they want is to go home. Then I thought about the times as a kid, going with Mom all over town to help her shop for things, how that was our way of spending time together. I learned to shop and be a consumer from these trips. But I imagine for my mom, it was nice to have someone to do that with, and also, to have the means to buy what you want, that was a luxury. That was the American Dream. That was something that felt very independent and luxurious, coming from a past where her family had so little, only one of the three kids got to eat meat at dinner, the rest only got soy sauce on rice until the next time they were the lucky one.
I started to think about how every generation tries to make life better for the next. How my mom grew up with so little, and her Mom with even less. My mom's life growing up was unimaginable to her Mom, my life now so pampered compared to what my Mom had. Ever generation doing what they can so the pains and hardships they endured could be a little more faded for the next. More room for joy, for carelessness, for the freedom of unburdenness.
But this realization pains me. Thinking about all my Mom, my Grandma, have done so I could know a different life. I will never know their pain. They will never know the same joys. This hurts me, feels like distance insurmountable.
To be grateful is to see that sacrifice, born of love, and hope to perpetuate that forward, in gratitude for what was given me.
today is my half birthday. it marks the halfway point in the last year of my 20s. i thought i'd be more afraid to grow old but as i get closer and closer to the edge of the next decade i view it not as being at a peak about to be pulled inevitably downhill, but standing on the edge of a step in the side of a mountain, peering ahead at what the climb holds ahead.
one thing though, about youth coming to a supposed end, is that i'm aware my body and its capabilities might not remain the same. one way i've been made aware of this is in my yoga practice. for now i feel stronger than i've ever been, but i've accepted that might change, that my wrists might one day fail, that my knees may start to ache, that joints will harden. and with as much yoga as i've done in the last 5 years, i realized i've never ever seen myself except in pictures others take of me. this is fine, it's a spiritual and mindfulness thing for me more than anything, but in a lot of ways my practice is also a tribute to my self, my body, and coming to terms with the fact that this vessel, which i always reviled as a child, is capable of so much more than i ever realized. it is possible to transcend the physical, to be more than a body, and that comes first from accepting and loving yourself completely. yoga showed me that. so now the ultimate test: can i film/photograph myself doing my most cherished thing, and still love it, still love my body, not objectify or scrutinize my self as i see it in this mediated mirror?
so for the last 6 months of my 20s, i'm going to try a project: i'm going to document every day with a yoga self-portrait. yoga, more than anything else i've discovered for myself in my 20s, has taught me so much about who i am, the person i want to be, the strength i possess, and how to open my heart to the world around me. it seems appropriate then, to use yoga as a medium for capturing the gratitude i have for life, for my body, for my sense of self, and for the changes in store for me as time marches ever onward. in doing this, i hope to capture the strength i have now, reflect on how i've grown, and the journey i continue to take.
here's to living each day of this decade with as much beauty, grace, strength, passion, groundedness, and mindfulness as possible.
a year ago i was in a really dark place -- i'd never felt so lost, worthless, and depressed. i left my job, my relationship was falling apart, my health was deteriorating, my dad was in a bad accident. i felt alienated and alone and powerless.
happily, a lot has changed in a year! i have an amazing job that i love and allows me to make an impact on people all over the world, an amazing team that feels like a family, a wealth of amazing friends who accept me despite my faults, and my family is in good health, close enough for regular visits, and have been immensely supportive as i've worked to figure myself out. i couldn't be more grateful for the journey of the last year and everything it has taught me about love, life, and my self.
it's amazing to me how frequently society overvalues romantic relationships while ignoring the power of all the other loving relationships in our lives. every day of the year, but this time of year especially, i celebrate the relationships i am so lucky and blessed to have, with my family, my friends, my colleagues. love abounds around me and i am grateful every day for all of it. #unvalentinesday #galentinesday #palentinesday
i finally finished grading papers for the Conflict Management course i taught earlier this month. started packing up boxes of my stuff today. AND, found the time to record some new uke songs! check them out:
the conspicuous role of music in creating atmosphere - like a diegetic time capsule (i'm sure i wasn't the only one in the theater last night who felt transported back to a certain time... for me it was college)
the hair! Patricia Arquette's hair in particular (gorgeous!). the film was such a tremendous feat, can you imagine planning a 12-year filming project, getting all the footage you need, planning ahead enough knowing there will be no going back as time marches ever onward? obviously the actors were playing characters within a story prepared for the film, but the mind-blowing thing about it for me is that over 12 years, there must have been some blurring of those lines. for instance, with the hair, i imagine Linklater had to allow the actors to change their appearance as needed, for personal and professional purposes, so i assume all hair choices were made totally independent of the film. so, that was "Ethan Hawke"'s goatee. and can you imagine playing a "character" for 12 years? i assume, at some point, you have to become your character/ your character is you. take, for instance, Samantha's character: aspects of her personality remained constant throughout the film, to the point that you have to believe you are seeing Lorelei Linklater on screen, and not just Samantha. (interesting tidbits learned from Manlius Art Cinema's owner Nat: US contract law prevented Linklater from having the actors contractually obligated to complete the 12-year project (US law stipulates a 7 year cap on contracts), so all filming was completed on nothing more than a handshake, basically. also, yes, that was Richard Linklater's daughter we saw growing up on screen... apparently she wanted her character killed off so she could walk away from it)
everyone enjoys laughing at Texas
Post-Bush and pre-Obama politics -- still funny to this day. three of my favorite jokes from the film: when Sam and Mason go canvassing for their dad and walk up to a house with a confederate flag hanging on the garage ("do i look like a guy who's gonna vote for Barack HUSSEIN Obama?! i'm entitled to shoot you for trespassing!"). they then go across the street to another house where an obnoxiously perky young mom explains she made her children t-shirts that say "my mama's for Obama." finally, Ethan Hawke using the story of Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol as a teen pregnancy allegory for abstinence and contraception.
life has no plot. appropriately, Boyhood was as rambling and aimless and surprisingly delightful as life
biggest surprise: never expected to like Ethan Hawke so much
there is something to be said about the role of video games and the constant companionship of digital entertainment, but i will leave it to others to articulate.
i got to cross a big one off my bucket list last night, when i saw Jackson Browne perform an acoustic set at the historic Landmark Theatre in downtown Syracuse (technically, it was also an item off my Syracuse-bucket-list).
Jackson Browne's music has meant a lot to me in my early-adulthood. Late For The Sky was the soundtrack to many days and nights spent alone at a window in my apartment in Syracuse, thinking about life, listening to his words and the letting the music wash over me. trying to anchor myself in something happy while feeling lost and drifting in a sea of sorrow i didn't recognize or understand.
it occurred to me at some point that i should try to see Jackson Browne before he stopped touring and doing shows. Ben and i looked into buying tickets to shows he did all over the country, in California, in small little townships and wine country resorts across the country, but then the other day i was walking downtown after dancing in the park to the library to drop off some books and saw in big letters on the marquee: JACKSON BROWNE. i was in total shock, i couldn't believe it. years of trying to get to Jackson Browne and here he was, days before i'm set to leave Syracuse, and he shows up practically at my doorstep. it seemed too good to be true.
so last night i put on a billowy skirt, did my hair, and power walked all the way to the theatre, grinning to myself at the joy of this moment: happily single, treating myself to a date with one of my favorite musicians. and i smiled so hard and so constantly throughout the night that i think i created some new wrinkles.
to watch Jackson Browne perform acoustic renditions of some of my favorite songs from Late For The Sky will truly remain in my heart one of the most emotional moments i've ever experienced surrounded by so many strangers. (the other one: Bruce Springsteen performing "My City of Ruins," both times i saw him).
at the end of the concert, the older man sitting next to me turned to me and said, "thank you for being a fan."
so, in honor of that great experience, my own rendition of one of my favorites:
ETA: look at this cutie! i sat up in the balcony and missed seeing this gorgeous face.
another rendition (because i have been singing it all day every day):
