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Today, while sipping my Starbuck’s iced-latte at a table outside a Godiva Chocolate Shop, where my husband was ordering an ice cream cone, a man approached me to ask me the time. “Excuse me, do you have the time?”
“No, I’m sorry,” I smiled. “I never have the time.”
It was true. It’s been years since I’ve worn a watch, and more often than is the case for most, I don’t even have a cell phone with me. At that moment, I really had no idea what time it was. He smiled back; put his hand on my shoulder; and asked if I were okay, in the kind of way that made me want to reassure him: Yes, I’m okay.
Maybe a woman in modern day America who didn’t have the time caused him some concern; then again, he didn’t “have it” either, so I’m not sure this would have alarmed him at all. I think it’s more likely that his concern grew from seeing me moments before (I had noticed him), this time sitting on a park bench, staring into my daydreams with a sad, distant look on my face—or so I imagine this is how I seemed. Perhaps it was that I looked sickly to him at a body weight of about 85 pounds with my ribs showing through the barely-there dress that covered-over my bikini. A combination of all of these things creates a picture of a fragile being not quite of this world and one for whom another such being might have compassion. For whatever reason—and in any case, one that I will never know for sure—he seemed to care; and this touched me deeply.
The man searching for the time was good looking. At about 6’ tall with sun-tanned skin and light-colored, very matted, and long hair, he was the kind of guy I fantasize about dressing in those dreams when I’m a famous designer of men’s clothes. He had the kind of form that transforms clothing into art, and a face to go with it. But it was not this that caught my attention and affected me profoundly the remainder of the day.
It was something else.
My sense was that he was an artist who found his home on the streets of Miami. His aura of nonconventionalism mixed with the softness of his spirit against the (imagined?) toughness of his life circumstances, evoked my instantaneous love for him—I had originally wrote, in one of those Freudian slips of the keyboard, love for me.
Telling.
I felt as though he could understand me. As though his soul grasped mine, without any words needing exchange at all. That he was one of those soul mates of mine walking around this earth separately; yet on some other plane, connected. And this made me love him, and through him— perhaps— me.
It is not just that he reflected me, in the sense of my seeing myself in him in some indirect way. Rather, it is the understanding… the grasping… the seeing into my soul, which evokes the love, and reminds me that there is much less distance than we often experience between incarnated souls sharing the space of this earth.
I hope to see him again. If not on the street, and not in my dreams, then on that Soul Plane wherein we are all connected. Where seeing and feeling are one. Where a sort of grapsing of one another happens instantaneously. Where moments count more than anything else. And where love for another is love for oneself. I graps him, and love him, now.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
A Toast to Artists
I’m writing from my hotel room now. My husband’s stuff is all over the place, as is he. Eating, chewing, talking, giving me unsolicited advice, and other such habits that he is of course entitled to, though they kill my creative spark. He just commented that I could play my itunes from the computer as I type. No shit!
Meanwhile, his belt sits in view, on the side table next to the couch in my room, balancing a plastic knife that he used yesterday to, almost unsuccessfully, cut through a plastic wrapper. He is getting ready to go to the gym, and I breathe a sigh of relief, even as his shoes look up at me from their place on the middle of the floor in the “living room” of our suite. One is facing upright, the other is on its side pointing away from its twin. It all has the effect of human fingernails scrapping the surface of a blackboard.
Earlier this week I mentioned to a friend my preference for things to be in their place in order for the creative spark to flow: For the practical details to be tended to before the visioning can begin. This is not procrastination for me; rather, it is like a necessary container. In my life, the alchemy of creation needs its clean, clutter-free, and organized vessel.
I am reading a book called Trust the Process: An Artist’s Guide to Letting Go. The process of creativity, whether we are writing a blog, designing a home, or painting a picture, is a dance of ritual and structure with that of trust, waiting, and letting go. As I began to write this morning, my intention was to write something else. The sound of my husband’s salvia swishing around his mouth before being swallowed down his esophagus led me somewhere else. Rather than drown in the distraction of it all, I went with it. I spaced down a few lines from the two sentences of the intended blog entry and began a new one.
Start with the now.
My now was distraction and irritation and crawling skin. Even so, as I reread the first paragraph of what I wrote, it brings me delight. I enjoyed describing the crawling skin. And although complaining about my husband, I’m really poking fun at myself. Ironically, I’m illuminating that part of myself that has a difficult time letting go; the part that wishes conditions to be just right—meaning exactly the way I want them—before I can sit down and put words on page.
I will eventually get up and put things in their place. This, too, brings me delight. For now, though, I can take pleasure in having experienced a moment of spiritual teaching: If we fight what is now, we experience “writer’s block,” in art and in life; if we instead embrace the now and trust its wisdom, it will lead us toward an unknown, yet equally satisfying or necessary, next now. And we can never view the whole picture from where we sit. (As an aside, the Academy Award nominated Slumdog Millionaire portrays this latter mentioned aspect of spiritual teaching with humor, compassion, and inspiration.)
Here’s to being with what life brings us. To waiting. To trusting. To loosening up the hold on our expectations and identities. Here’s to being artists.
Meanwhile, his belt sits in view, on the side table next to the couch in my room, balancing a plastic knife that he used yesterday to, almost unsuccessfully, cut through a plastic wrapper. He is getting ready to go to the gym, and I breathe a sigh of relief, even as his shoes look up at me from their place on the middle of the floor in the “living room” of our suite. One is facing upright, the other is on its side pointing away from its twin. It all has the effect of human fingernails scrapping the surface of a blackboard.
Earlier this week I mentioned to a friend my preference for things to be in their place in order for the creative spark to flow: For the practical details to be tended to before the visioning can begin. This is not procrastination for me; rather, it is like a necessary container. In my life, the alchemy of creation needs its clean, clutter-free, and organized vessel.
I am reading a book called Trust the Process: An Artist’s Guide to Letting Go. The process of creativity, whether we are writing a blog, designing a home, or painting a picture, is a dance of ritual and structure with that of trust, waiting, and letting go. As I began to write this morning, my intention was to write something else. The sound of my husband’s salvia swishing around his mouth before being swallowed down his esophagus led me somewhere else. Rather than drown in the distraction of it all, I went with it. I spaced down a few lines from the two sentences of the intended blog entry and began a new one.
Start with the now.
My now was distraction and irritation and crawling skin. Even so, as I reread the first paragraph of what I wrote, it brings me delight. I enjoyed describing the crawling skin. And although complaining about my husband, I’m really poking fun at myself. Ironically, I’m illuminating that part of myself that has a difficult time letting go; the part that wishes conditions to be just right—meaning exactly the way I want them—before I can sit down and put words on page.
I will eventually get up and put things in their place. This, too, brings me delight. For now, though, I can take pleasure in having experienced a moment of spiritual teaching: If we fight what is now, we experience “writer’s block,” in art and in life; if we instead embrace the now and trust its wisdom, it will lead us toward an unknown, yet equally satisfying or necessary, next now. And we can never view the whole picture from where we sit. (As an aside, the Academy Award nominated Slumdog Millionaire portrays this latter mentioned aspect of spiritual teaching with humor, compassion, and inspiration.)
Here’s to being with what life brings us. To waiting. To trusting. To loosening up the hold on our expectations and identities. Here’s to being artists.
Hospitals, Planes, and Freedom
I’m writing from sunny Miami, having arrived here two days ago from the bitter cold that marks January in the Northeast. As is often the case for me, my tears began to flow as soon as I settled into my window seat on the plane and allowed the poetry contained in my ipod’s playlists to dance with my imagination.
Travel seems to bring me perspective. Once up in the air and moving away from home and work, my mind clears out. I feel space opening up within me; and in that space, thoughts, fantasies, and memories come rolling in, one after another. I flashed back to the time I left my home for graduate school in Pittsburgh, and how leaving my nephew who was about three at the time evoked an ache in my heart that I had not felt prior, nor since.
I laughed, almost out loud, as I later recalled my sister’s telling of a story that involved my father’s very appalling and bigoted comment to her when she called him in a desperate moment from her first home away from home, a college dorm room many, many miles away. How could this be funny to me, I wondered as I found some delight in the memory? Am I not the person who stands up to that sort of bigotry? Shouldn’t I be more responsible than a person who laughs at such a story? What I was in touch with, I believe, and what evoked the internal laughter was the tenderness of my father’s response—tenderness toward my sister, even as it was housed in a prejudicial statement of hate toward others. It was as though the perspective brought to me through travel held space for the compassion I experienced, which was at least equal to whatever outrage I felt.
This is what I have noticed during these first two days of a warm January week: I don’t have to be anything here. The simple feat of being transported from a very familiar place to one less so has the effect of the dissolution of my ego—at least one of the outer layers of it. In other words, I am no longer attached to a certain identity, to those beliefs that I am this, or ought to be that. And without that attachment, I respond spontaneously, meaning that my responses arise in the moment, unconditioned by my past history, future expectations, and the attachment to identity that these can create.
This is freedom.
The other place I have experienced this is the hospital. On two different occasions in my life, I have experienced extended stays (a week or more) within hospitals. I remember a similar feeling of freedom then, even as I was more confined than at any other time in my life. The confinement, though, and being removed from the familiar routines and obligations I call life, invited this detachment from ego. Then, as now, I had the choice of listening to my ipod all day long, getting lost in my thoughts, and not being anyone in particular.
At those times when I am feeling most stuck, or trapped, in my life, I’ve noticed fantasies of being hospitalized creeping in. It’s the freedom of not having to be anyone in particular. I realize now, that is what I’m truly craving in those moments. And experiencing that freedom here in Miami reminds me that a hospitalization is not the only way of achieving such!
Travel seems to bring me perspective. Once up in the air and moving away from home and work, my mind clears out. I feel space opening up within me; and in that space, thoughts, fantasies, and memories come rolling in, one after another. I flashed back to the time I left my home for graduate school in Pittsburgh, and how leaving my nephew who was about three at the time evoked an ache in my heart that I had not felt prior, nor since.
I laughed, almost out loud, as I later recalled my sister’s telling of a story that involved my father’s very appalling and bigoted comment to her when she called him in a desperate moment from her first home away from home, a college dorm room many, many miles away. How could this be funny to me, I wondered as I found some delight in the memory? Am I not the person who stands up to that sort of bigotry? Shouldn’t I be more responsible than a person who laughs at such a story? What I was in touch with, I believe, and what evoked the internal laughter was the tenderness of my father’s response—tenderness toward my sister, even as it was housed in a prejudicial statement of hate toward others. It was as though the perspective brought to me through travel held space for the compassion I experienced, which was at least equal to whatever outrage I felt.
This is what I have noticed during these first two days of a warm January week: I don’t have to be anything here. The simple feat of being transported from a very familiar place to one less so has the effect of the dissolution of my ego—at least one of the outer layers of it. In other words, I am no longer attached to a certain identity, to those beliefs that I am this, or ought to be that. And without that attachment, I respond spontaneously, meaning that my responses arise in the moment, unconditioned by my past history, future expectations, and the attachment to identity that these can create.
This is freedom.
The other place I have experienced this is the hospital. On two different occasions in my life, I have experienced extended stays (a week or more) within hospitals. I remember a similar feeling of freedom then, even as I was more confined than at any other time in my life. The confinement, though, and being removed from the familiar routines and obligations I call life, invited this detachment from ego. Then, as now, I had the choice of listening to my ipod all day long, getting lost in my thoughts, and not being anyone in particular.
At those times when I am feeling most stuck, or trapped, in my life, I’ve noticed fantasies of being hospitalized creeping in. It’s the freedom of not having to be anyone in particular. I realize now, that is what I’m truly craving in those moments. And experiencing that freedom here in Miami reminds me that a hospitalization is not the only way of achieving such!
Sunday, January 4, 2009
A New Year with Heart
My personal writing, for the most part, took a hiatus during the last month of 2008. I've been working on a never-ending, academic project with four other authors for many years now. I finally had to end my involvement as it was no longer bringing me any joy or satisfaction. Before doing so, though, I wanted to finish a heavy editing task that I had promised to do. December 31st was my deadline. With the exception of some minor consultation and one more in person meeting, I am now officially free of this obligation and hope to get back to more personal writing, which is where my heart is most happy. In the meantime, I send positive thoughts and energy to my colleagues who will be finishing up what we all hope is the last leg of this journey. If all goes well, we will have a book published sometime this year.
I hope others are using the demarcation of a new year to recommit to themselves, to their hearts, and to what they most love. The universe really does have a grander plan that none of us can ever fully know. But we are given clues about how to follow along, and these clues reside in the heart. Often, our hearts don't speak in the ways we're used to. They're not so loud and they don't actively compete for our attention. Rather, they put their message out there and trust that if we really wish to listen, we'll tune in to them. Every once in a while, or more, we would do well to quiet down the other voices and tune in to those of the heart.
In addition to the message of writing about more personal experiences and writing for the sake of writing, my heart is telling me to get off a medication that I recently started that is kicking my ass! I imagine the docs will tell me to hang in there and stick with it. Sometimes, our hearts have practical advice. Much to my doctors (and others') dismay, when the two clash, I listen to my heart over the dictates of the medical and pharmaceutical industries.
Follow yours and you will find yourself in the places and spaces you need to be.
Happy 2009.
I hope others are using the demarcation of a new year to recommit to themselves, to their hearts, and to what they most love. The universe really does have a grander plan that none of us can ever fully know. But we are given clues about how to follow along, and these clues reside in the heart. Often, our hearts don't speak in the ways we're used to. They're not so loud and they don't actively compete for our attention. Rather, they put their message out there and trust that if we really wish to listen, we'll tune in to them. Every once in a while, or more, we would do well to quiet down the other voices and tune in to those of the heart.
In addition to the message of writing about more personal experiences and writing for the sake of writing, my heart is telling me to get off a medication that I recently started that is kicking my ass! I imagine the docs will tell me to hang in there and stick with it. Sometimes, our hearts have practical advice. Much to my doctors (and others') dismay, when the two clash, I listen to my heart over the dictates of the medical and pharmaceutical industries.
Follow yours and you will find yourself in the places and spaces you need to be.
Happy 2009.
In Defense of Passion
“Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.” – Frank Lloyd Wright
“When I find beautiful things, it feels as though they are necessary tools for my life. I can’t bear to have old junk around, disturbing the peace. Better a space be empty. But we have been here two years, and when I saw the chairs and rugs, I had to buy them for my sanity. Can you possibly understand that? It’s part of finishing a piece of art.”
The first quote above is attributed to the famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright; the second is spoken by the fictional Frank Lloyd Wright in the historical novel, Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan.
My body responds with an overall tingling feeling of resonance to these words. If I were to ever consider acting, this latter quote is the one that would lead me to the craft. Every time I read it (I have the page marked), I want to act it, to speak it over and over, injecting just the right feeling and gestures and passion into this declaration.
These words capture a way of being that I sometimes feel but could not have articulated as well myself.
The articulation of being in love… with a rug or a chair, and with the art of which they are a part. The speaking of pure passion. The voice given to the inner necessity for beauty that obliterates the need for those things others consider necessary. The desire that leads to the decision to buy a piece of art rather than food for the month.
In the novel, fictional Frank gets into some trouble as he chooses his passion over responsibility; buying rugs rather than paying his contractors, for example. There are many who would consider this careless, thoughtless, selfish, and irresponsible. The arguments in favor of this perception are clear: We must take responsibility for our actions and follow things through, tending to the consequences of all we put into motion. “But what about the other side?” I hear my inner thoughts plead. I wish to stand up for passion and art and the truth that arrives in beauty. I’m more than willing to overlook Frank’s indiscretions in exchange for the joy of knowing someone out there followed his passion and created things truly beautiful, inspiring many along the way.
There are some who would say that beauty is all around us; and in all things. I disagree. I think something things are beautiful and some are not. I don’t think all art is equal; nor is all design; nor all visions. The truth that arrives in beauty has something to do with a sense of integrity; an internal order that may or may not be obvious; a whole that both exists within individual parts but is only complete within the relationships among these parts. It is the Gestalt of a thing, we could say, that makes it beautiful, or not. The ways in which the parts and whole reflect and enhance and create one another. Nature delivers beauty in many forms: The way snow gathers on a tree branch; a blooming rose; and the way the sun radiates its light through a series of clouds turning a blue sky coral. Sometimes, men and women create equally beautiful things.
In truth, I think responsibility and structure and form are almost as important as passion is for the creation of art. I also think, though, that many of us have an overdeveloped sense of obligation, duty, and responsibility in our lives; or equally common, overdeveloped fears. It is for this reason that I find myself wanting to be a fierce advocate for the passion embodied by both the real and fictional Frank. Sometimes, we need to at least allow for the urge to buy those must-have boots rather than pay the electric bill; or the urge to call-out for work not because we’re ill but because we just MUST paint; or to hang that erotic art on our living room wall even though everyone else disapproves. Giving voice to those artistic visions that arise from within is a necessary first step to creating art. Beauty is not created out of duty; nor is it perceived from a place of obligation (other than the obligation to beauty itself). To begin with, we must connect with our wild instincts and the fiery spirit within. For it is here that our capacity to perceive and to create beauty breathes its breath.
As we begin a new year, I want to encourage those who are inspired by beauty, those who can see it, and those who create it, to do just that. Whether it’s putting together a gorgeous outfit, carving a piece of furniture, arranging flowers, playing jazz, or juxtaposing colors on a canvas, find the time and space to do it. Create the time and space to do it. Build this into your New Year’s Resolutions. Or better yet, rather than creating resolutions out of perceived obligations such as “losing weight,” allow your passion for the truth that finds its home in beauty to inspire which resolutions you actually chose to implement for 2009.
“When I find beautiful things, it feels as though they are necessary tools for my life. I can’t bear to have old junk around, disturbing the peace. Better a space be empty. But we have been here two years, and when I saw the chairs and rugs, I had to buy them for my sanity. Can you possibly understand that? It’s part of finishing a piece of art.”
The first quote above is attributed to the famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright; the second is spoken by the fictional Frank Lloyd Wright in the historical novel, Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan.
My body responds with an overall tingling feeling of resonance to these words. If I were to ever consider acting, this latter quote is the one that would lead me to the craft. Every time I read it (I have the page marked), I want to act it, to speak it over and over, injecting just the right feeling and gestures and passion into this declaration.
These words capture a way of being that I sometimes feel but could not have articulated as well myself.
The articulation of being in love… with a rug or a chair, and with the art of which they are a part. The speaking of pure passion. The voice given to the inner necessity for beauty that obliterates the need for those things others consider necessary. The desire that leads to the decision to buy a piece of art rather than food for the month.
In the novel, fictional Frank gets into some trouble as he chooses his passion over responsibility; buying rugs rather than paying his contractors, for example. There are many who would consider this careless, thoughtless, selfish, and irresponsible. The arguments in favor of this perception are clear: We must take responsibility for our actions and follow things through, tending to the consequences of all we put into motion. “But what about the other side?” I hear my inner thoughts plead. I wish to stand up for passion and art and the truth that arrives in beauty. I’m more than willing to overlook Frank’s indiscretions in exchange for the joy of knowing someone out there followed his passion and created things truly beautiful, inspiring many along the way.
There are some who would say that beauty is all around us; and in all things. I disagree. I think something things are beautiful and some are not. I don’t think all art is equal; nor is all design; nor all visions. The truth that arrives in beauty has something to do with a sense of integrity; an internal order that may or may not be obvious; a whole that both exists within individual parts but is only complete within the relationships among these parts. It is the Gestalt of a thing, we could say, that makes it beautiful, or not. The ways in which the parts and whole reflect and enhance and create one another. Nature delivers beauty in many forms: The way snow gathers on a tree branch; a blooming rose; and the way the sun radiates its light through a series of clouds turning a blue sky coral. Sometimes, men and women create equally beautiful things.
In truth, I think responsibility and structure and form are almost as important as passion is for the creation of art. I also think, though, that many of us have an overdeveloped sense of obligation, duty, and responsibility in our lives; or equally common, overdeveloped fears. It is for this reason that I find myself wanting to be a fierce advocate for the passion embodied by both the real and fictional Frank. Sometimes, we need to at least allow for the urge to buy those must-have boots rather than pay the electric bill; or the urge to call-out for work not because we’re ill but because we just MUST paint; or to hang that erotic art on our living room wall even though everyone else disapproves. Giving voice to those artistic visions that arise from within is a necessary first step to creating art. Beauty is not created out of duty; nor is it perceived from a place of obligation (other than the obligation to beauty itself). To begin with, we must connect with our wild instincts and the fiery spirit within. For it is here that our capacity to perceive and to create beauty breathes its breath.
As we begin a new year, I want to encourage those who are inspired by beauty, those who can see it, and those who create it, to do just that. Whether it’s putting together a gorgeous outfit, carving a piece of furniture, arranging flowers, playing jazz, or juxtaposing colors on a canvas, find the time and space to do it. Create the time and space to do it. Build this into your New Year’s Resolutions. Or better yet, rather than creating resolutions out of perceived obligations such as “losing weight,” allow your passion for the truth that finds its home in beauty to inspire which resolutions you actually chose to implement for 2009.
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