celebrate

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.

with love,
stef

tree house

i've always had an affinity for all things related to trees, nests, and birds. so imagine my explosive delight when i learned of the artwork of Patrick Dougherty! i had the phenomenal pleasure of seeing one of his art installations today, in Palo Alto, CA.

Patrick Dougherty is an artist who uses renewable resources to craft beautiful, dynamic structures. his work material is sourced from local plants and shaped and woven without the use of metal nails or synthetic glues, just the delicacy and dexterity of human hands. this particular piece, called Double Take, was made from willow and poplar branches from a place in California.

Double Take is quite easily the most exciting and inspiring piece of art i've seen all year. my first response to it, as i rounded the corner and first caught glimpse of it, was that it looked like something from out of Where The Wild Things Are.

in fact, that's a good way to start describing the impact the work had on me. the atmosphere and feel of the Wild Things movie was fantastical, vaguely familiar and slightly off-putting, like a dream, a vivid dream that is sublimely vibrant and intensely textured. this is the same effect i got when i approached Dougherty's work: i felt other-worlded, the way you do when you confront something strange and beautiful for the first time. gargantuan nests of woven branches standing over 20 feet high on the corner of a neighborhood - their staggering beauty and seeming defiance of natural laws and elements completely belie the humble materials of which they are made.

from the rigidity and strength of twigs, branches and splinters, Dougherty shaped structures that imparted smooth, liquid movement, at once evoking the hot licking flames of fire and the gushing, explosive force of water. the branches look as if they are constantly wind-blown, but stand hardy and strong despite the elements. the structures are both deeply rooted* into the ground and reaching skyward.

*a little girl shows me how they watched the artist use larger, thicker branches to form a frame, and then dug deep into the earth to root them, later burying them so the whole structure would remain in place.

indeed, what makes Mr. Dougherty's structures so captivating is how full of contradiction they seem. the unnatural, conspicuous beauty of the whole contrasting with the humble parts. the fluidity despite rigidity. the deep-rootedness coexistent with upward flight. even though Mr. Dougherty builds his works of art with the intention of allowing them to decompose naturally under the elements, Double Take seemed impervious to weather and the seasons. i went at a good time, the day after the first day of autumn, and the leaves were beginning to show the first signs of changing color and had begun to fall, landing on ledges in the sculpture windows, sometimes catching in spiderwebs to spin perpetually in the wind. from the ground, vines have started climbing their way up the face of the walls. the sculpture looks every bit as alive and dynamic as i imagine it did in January 2011 when it was finished.

the other dimensions of the sculpture which made it so exquisite: the smell. i wish i could have captured the smell to share it with you. all around it and inside it was the freshest piney fragrance, like being deep in evergreen woods on a clear snowy morning. crisp, clean, comforting, and invigorating.

also: the way it invited interaction. in the hour i was enjoying the sculpture, i met two little girls, who rode their bikes right up to me and asked me, "do you know who made this!!?" they were so excited to start talking about it, and wanted to show me all the ways they could climb in it, on it, around it. after them, a trio of senior citizens came and walked through it, poking their heads out of windows to grin at each other. after them, a family of a dad and his two boys, both under 7 years of age. the boys would go to a window and play a game with their father in which they pretended to serve him a fast food order ("do you want sweet potatoes or ice cream, dad?" "do you want ice cream with that?" "you get ice cream because you're the man.") seeing everyone have so much fun with the art made me realize how rare an occasion it is to actually be able to touch and play with something so beautiful that is also not fragile or protected behind glass.

another amazing thing about this piece was how three-dimensional it was. this seems obvious at first, because of course a sculpture is 3D. but think about the sculptures you see in museums, and how there are only approximately 4 different angles (from the front, rear, left and right sides) at which to view a sculpture before you've exhausted visual interest. supposedly symmetry is a sign of beauty, but it makes for, ironically, flat and boring art. not so with Mr. Dougherty's work: i walked around the entirety of his work for about an hour, and photographed a new angle each time. each section of Double Take, like a tree in a forest, was remarkably individual and irreproducible.

now, for lack of any more words (or perhaps too many), a glimpse inside Double Take. i shot this video while walking through the inside of the work. you can see the phenomenal craftsmanship that went into the weaving and construction of the piece. you can also hear the sound of children playing, the distant chirping of a bird, see the light and hear the wind, as well as the traffic from the nearby street, and the sound of my feet on the brittle wood pieces on the ground.

worship this

Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war.

The human beauty we're talking about here is beauty of a particular type; it might be called kinetic beauty. Its power and appeal are universal. It has nothing to do with sex or cultural norms. What it seems to have to do with, really, is human beings' reconciliation with the fact of having a body.*

-- from this extremely genius article, "Federer as Religious Experience" (emphasis mine)

there are so many wonderful things to love about this article: brilliant writing, brilliant sports writing, David Foster Wallace, tennis, a better understanding of life, love, the writing process, and the capabilities of the human body, and Roger Federer. in short, best thing i'll read today.


*i should note, too, that my brief excerpt doesn't even include his terrific footnote(+). DFW, he really knew his way around a footnote. a man after my own heart.

(+) speaking of which, here's one now:

By the way, it's right around here, or the next game, watching, that three separate inner-type things come together and mesh. One is a feeling of deep personal privilege at being alive to get to see this; another is the thought that William Caines is probably somewhere here in the Centre Court crowd, too, watching, maybe with his mum. The third thing is a sudden memory of the earnest way the press bus driver promised just this [religious] experience. Because there is one. It's hard to describe — it's like a thought that's also a feeling. One wouldn't want to make too much of it, or to pretend that it's any sort of equitable balance; that would be grotesque. But the truth is that whatever deity, entity, energy, or random genetic flux produces sick children also produced Roger Federer, and just look at him down there. Look at that.

at fingertips

for those of you who're kind enough to have bookmarked my blog, you'll notice a small design change: the new "favicon" for the blog, taken from this picture below:

this photo was snapped by ben on our recent trip to LA. we witnessed this amazing moment in nature. and what was so amazing about it was how unnatural it seemed: there were hundreds of these pigeons, on the beach at sunset, flying in these sweeping arcs, over and over above our heads. it was so conspicuous that we stopped, many people stopped, to look up and wonder at their movements. they flew in this gigantic, menacing swarm, gradually descending lower to the ground, so low that at one point, standing on the boardwalk, i could reach my hand up and feel the beating of hundreds of wings, so close to my fingertips.

cluster flock from stephan!e lee on Vimeo.

everyone asking why? why are they doing this? where did all these pigeons come from? there was a man on the shore, wearing a fishing vest and a hat, who we noticed was moving his hand in a certain way. "he's throwing seeds," was ben's observation. could it be possible? were these pigeons performing for food? i noticed later, after the pigeons eventually landed, that the man had a large net, like one used for fishing. could it be possible that he, too, was performing for food (i noticed him lift it menacingly from time to time)?

how strange, the sudden behaviors and togetherness of swarms (both bird and human swarms, in this case). how strange, the choreography in nature and the ways in which forces of nature interact, and the eery beauty that results from nature being manipulated against its will.

it reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite films, All The Real Girls. the movie as a whole has some quietly insightful writing, including the following scene, about nature (skip to about 2:12 in the clip if you want to get to the point):

"have you ever seen a mistake in nature? have you ever seen an animal make a mistake?" there's a beautiful truth to that statement. humans are known as the only animal with "will power" and "intelligence" and somehow we conceptualize humanity as above animals, above nature, and thus able to control and manipulate it. but nature is perfect and seamless and remarkable, and humans, despite our self-importance, must pause in awe and wonder of that perfect splendor.

gong shi

such a wonderful day.

woke up and made yummy breakfast wraps while listening to chinese language podcasts. cut a cantaloupe (a pleasurable activity for the senses, olfactory and tactile – a cantaloupe provides just enough resistance to warrant the use of a large knife, while maintaining ease of motion) then took a bike ride down to the beach (the ride was also a perfect blend of challenge and leisure at the proper moments, the breeze was salty-sweet and not too blustery on the way towards the ocean, allowing us to make record time on the path). ben and i spent an hour on the beach, splashing in the water and racing each other on the sand, watching the waves crashing in huge gusts as they hit the sandbar formed from weeks of rainwater draining sand into the ocean.

came home to clean up and drive east to celebrate chinese new year with my uncle and aunt. a fragrant pineapple in the backseat. eating lots of noodles and sticky rice cakes. playing bingo with 50 chinese gentle men and women, one drunk bingo rabble rouser and one elementary kid who kept winning all the prizes. we were in it to win it (a mini braided bamboo plant, that is).

driving back to the apartment, teaching ben how to count in mandarin, thinking to myself the whole time how happy and lucky i am, to be surrounded by such good people.

i feel sometimes that i can never cease in my amazement of how much beauty lies in the world around me. i see the grace of bodies, the delicate lines on faces and how they reveal smiles and the way people walk, or use their hands when talking, the way they put on a shoe or brush the hair out of their face or the way they chew their food and the way people laugh, and i think of the babies that we once were and i dunno, it just seems like such glorious probability that everything works out to such perfection. it overwhelms me with such marvellous awe that sometimes i mistake it for sadness. it makes life seem so precious, which is really something to be grateful for, even though being aware of it makes everything seem so precarious.

look! i am teaching ben how to speak mandarin!

transatlanticism

do you ever think you know a song, listen to it for an entire period of your life, put it on playlists or put it on before you go to bed, hum it while walking to work or school or etc., but for years you don't listen to it and it gets buried under new music and podcasts and you feel like you kinda outgrew it. and then one day, you remember something about the lyrics, one haunting phrase ("i need you so much closer"), and then you are compelled to re-excavate it, whereupon you discover what you may have known before but had forgotten, your new circumstances giving you new cause – or perhaps reminding you why – you liked it in the first place.

it's like falling in love all over again.

today, it was this:

the atlantic was born today and i'll tell you how:
the clouds above opened up and let it out.

I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
when the water filled every hole.
and thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
making islands where no island should go.
oh no.

those people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
the rhythm of my footsteps crossing flood lands to your door have been silenced forever more.
the distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
it seems farther than ever before
oh no.

I need you so much closer

-Death Cab for Cutie, "Transatlanticism"

cherry blossom

i emerged from the shower this evening, and opened up a bottle of lotion: "cherry blossom."

the name is misleading, it causes me to think more of fruit than flowers, so the smell seems surprisingly, almost overwhelmingly florid, rosy, clean. it is feminine, a womanly fragrance.

the smell reminds me of my mother, and watching her get ready for dinner parties when i was a little girl, standing in the bathroom of my parents' bedroom in her bra, her hair recently blowdried and swept to the sides of her face and ears. she has not yet put on her glasses, and i can see her face clearly, she never applies makeup. i watch as she gently pats lotion on her face, her cheeks rosy and flushed from the steam of the shower. the only beauty modification my mother ever used was perfume: she would dab it gingerly on her wrists, her neck, the crook of her arm. the scent would waft from the bathroom to the bedroom, and follow her wherever she'd go. after my parents left the house, the smell of my mother would always remain in the air, a trail of fragrance up and down the stairs, hanging in the air by the kitchen, lingering by the door where she stepped into her shoes.

since i was a little girl, my mom would always offer her perfume to me to try, to smell, to dab on my hands. she loved to buy me little packs of perfume, or obtain miniature bottles from the department store as trinkets, as if for fun. i always refused them. it wasn't necessarily the smell itself i adored. it was that image of my mom, standing in the bathroom, clean and void of any pretense in her appearance, my first idea of female beauty, and what i thought beauty (and my mother) smelled like.

so tonight, as i was applying dollops of this cherry blossom lotion to my skin, i was reminded of all these things and had to put the lotion away in a drawer, because the smell was just too close to that distant smell i remember, that it made me too sad to use it, and reluctant to grow into womanhood myself.