so tonight after a long and not bad but less-than-awesome day which culminated - but did not end, as i have miles to go before i sleep - with me getting a flat tire on my bike for the 2nd time in 2 weeks and therefore walking my bike halfway home from work at 11pm (which was really not so bad because it was a beautiful night and the walk down dean street was full of lovely odd moments, like passing the guests of another swanky private party in that old converted warehouse and glimpses into secret pool halls with bright blue-painted walls with 60-year-old black women throwing sass, and my beautiful artist neighbor leaving the building in what looked like parachuter's coveralls), i discovered that i had two full tubes of toothpaste in the bathroom cabinet. (i had bought one recently, forgetting that i already owned another, which i now remember moving here from detroit.)
these are tubes of Tom's toothpaste, yeah that yuppie organic stuff, not a cheap brand. my first feeling upon making this discovery was one of embarrassment for owning redundant quantities of expensive organic dentifrice. it just felt so -- unseemly somehow.
my first thought was, "i'm glad toothpaste doesn't spoil."
my second thought was, "i'd better stay alive long enough to make sure i use all of that toothpaste, so none of it goes to waste."
guilt and thriftiness: the two things that kept my scots-irish ancestors -- in their minds at least -- safe from the devil and protected from depravity.
i'm sure there are worse qualities to possess.
Friday, April 30, 2010
this is yesterday's post II
this has been a big week of work and exhaustion and revelation and renewal.
the pressure has lifted somewhat, hooray, but right now it still feels there is no end of deadlines to meet and tasks to accomplish.
and that's a good thing. a good "problem" to have. because it means i'm making (or trying to make) some good things happen, creatively and financially. i like my geeky work-driven life. i'm passionate about it. most of the time.
but then i'll walk into someone's gorgeous brownstone that they created with their husband or see someone's happy-couple photos on facebook and there's that longing. for more. but it's a more i'm not gonna have now. i know. i'm not ready. and most of the time i don't want it. i want the world. i want to experience life through my own filter, when and how i want to, without someone waiting for me to finish up with all that so i can be home for dinner. i'm free. and that is worth a lot.
but it is also worth admitting: the flip side of freedom is loneliness.
sometimes.
it's a price i'm willing to pay. for now.
and i know, too, that not being Involved doesn't have to mean Lonely. there's a lot of joy to be created and happiness to be found in the connections we make every day with friends, with the people i meet on the street, the people i work with, hell, the coffee shop guy, cab drivers, and this is the gorgeousness of new york: you can be "alone" and in humanity all at once, a free agent and connected to the person with whom you exchange a smile as you both, at the very same moment, notice the toddler laughing, tromping down the street with his mom, almost tumbling but righting himself and then clapping. and this is the loneliness of new york: you are connected to that person for a single split second, a flash recognition, just long enough sometimes to wonder - and the moment passes. you never see them again.
on to the next one, and to your next task. and the next question of who and where you want to be, and who you do or don't want to be near, what you do or don't want to think about, do, see, investigate, query, accomplish, let go: this moment, and the next one. and the next. and the next.
**
last night before i went to sleep i set my clock alarm and the NEW YORK'S GREATEST HITS WCBS radio station was playing Blinded by the Light. The Manfred Mann version. and I was on fire right then, just all of a sudden, I was under disco ball stars at an unknown dancehouse and i was throwing out moves, doing silent karaoke, mugging for no one in my imaginary blue afro wig. shiftin and twistin and clownin and playin and throwin down. for no one. for me. in my room. 2 AM.
I think I gotta get out a bit more.
I think I'm gonna. Pretty soon.
the pressure has lifted somewhat, hooray, but right now it still feels there is no end of deadlines to meet and tasks to accomplish.
and that's a good thing. a good "problem" to have. because it means i'm making (or trying to make) some good things happen, creatively and financially. i like my geeky work-driven life. i'm passionate about it. most of the time.
but then i'll walk into someone's gorgeous brownstone that they created with their husband or see someone's happy-couple photos on facebook and there's that longing. for more. but it's a more i'm not gonna have now. i know. i'm not ready. and most of the time i don't want it. i want the world. i want to experience life through my own filter, when and how i want to, without someone waiting for me to finish up with all that so i can be home for dinner. i'm free. and that is worth a lot.
but it is also worth admitting: the flip side of freedom is loneliness.
sometimes.
it's a price i'm willing to pay. for now.
and i know, too, that not being Involved doesn't have to mean Lonely. there's a lot of joy to be created and happiness to be found in the connections we make every day with friends, with the people i meet on the street, the people i work with, hell, the coffee shop guy, cab drivers, and this is the gorgeousness of new york: you can be "alone" and in humanity all at once, a free agent and connected to the person with whom you exchange a smile as you both, at the very same moment, notice the toddler laughing, tromping down the street with his mom, almost tumbling but righting himself and then clapping. and this is the loneliness of new york: you are connected to that person for a single split second, a flash recognition, just long enough sometimes to wonder - and the moment passes. you never see them again.
on to the next one, and to your next task. and the next question of who and where you want to be, and who you do or don't want to be near, what you do or don't want to think about, do, see, investigate, query, accomplish, let go: this moment, and the next one. and the next. and the next.
**
last night before i went to sleep i set my clock alarm and the NEW YORK'S GREATEST HITS WCBS radio station was playing Blinded by the Light. The Manfred Mann version. and I was on fire right then, just all of a sudden, I was under disco ball stars at an unknown dancehouse and i was throwing out moves, doing silent karaoke, mugging for no one in my imaginary blue afro wig. shiftin and twistin and clownin and playin and throwin down. for no one. for me. in my room. 2 AM.
I think I gotta get out a bit more.
I think I'm gonna. Pretty soon.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
this is yesterday's post
and it is to thank the kind woman at the emergency room who went way above and beyond her job to come out from behind the payment desk and hug me when i started crying as i checked out, because i felt stupid for going there in the first place just to have the doctor say i was "asymptomatic" and for feeling so damn physically shitty even though there was apparently nothing wrong with me.
thank you wonderful emergency room checkout person! for caring and for acting on it.
and thank you to my boss and roommate for confirming that it was ok for me to rest when i was feeling weak, achy, feverish (though no fever), with a stomachache and nausea (though no virus showed up in my urine sample).
and thank you to the universe for giving me the grace and the time to sleep many more hours than usual and wake up feeling much better today.
!
thank you wonderful emergency room checkout person! for caring and for acting on it.
and thank you to my boss and roommate for confirming that it was ok for me to rest when i was feeling weak, achy, feverish (though no fever), with a stomachache and nausea (though no virus showed up in my urine sample).
and thank you to the universe for giving me the grace and the time to sleep many more hours than usual and wake up feeling much better today.
!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
heartbreak
can come when you least expect it.
and in the most innocuous packages, too.
but i'm still here, and conscious, and awake. and moving.
forward.
and that's all i gotta say.
today.
w.
and in the most innocuous packages, too.
but i'm still here, and conscious, and awake. and moving.
forward.
and that's all i gotta say.
today.
w.
Monday, April 26, 2010
In All Things
A facebook friend of mine - more of an acquaintance, someone I know and like and respect from the Seattle theatre world but with whom I have probably never had a one-on-one conversation - threw this prompt on my wall after I commented on her fb Status:
Hi. Tell me something amazing - something inspiring that I won't believe at first. Go.
So I wrote about something that happened to me last week.
Last Monday I was having a really hard time making a decision about something in my life and was edging into dangerously woe-is-me territory around the whole thing. After going out to get quarters so I could do laundry, I entered my apartment building at the same time as a short, wiry African-American woman who appeared to be in her 80s. She wore a black turban on her head, a jacket, and pants. Walked with a cane. I opened and held the door for her. She thanked me. Then she said something else I didn't hear but kinda pretended to. The lady knew I was bluffing though and as we rode the elevator up, she explained, "A lot of people go out and don't get back home again. So I thank god every time I get back home." "That's true," I said. "That's a good thing to do."
I could feel my own self-pity falling away - and a bit of shame creeping in where it had been. Then she said, "God said, 'In all things give thanks'. Not just the good things. You have to thank him for the bad things too. The hard things." "You're right," I said, my shame giving way to wondering: How?
"There is blessing in the bad things too," she said. "I know. I proved it today." We hit her floor and she left before I could ask.
I kept her words in my mind all day. Yeah ok, so she calls God "him," and she's probably a Bible-believing Christian at a church whose doctrines I deeply oppose. But in those moments, she shook me like Buddha: a sharp sliver of awareness that pricked me awake.
All day I washed, dried, folded, and hauled, thinking of my elevator guide and her words.
Later that night I made a decision. Not an easy one, but the best one. And thanked God for the problem. For the trouble it took.
I've been in a state of joy ever since.
She responded:
immediate tears. and understanding. and relevance. and, and, and... Wesley - would i even recognize you if i saw you on the street?? would it matter? thank you thank you thank you.
Of course I had to thank her because she had given me a huge gift: a nudge/reason to write the story that had been swirling around my mind for days.
Here's to those moments of beauty and connection that emerge when and where we may least expect them.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
the ride home
everything falls away as i pedal up fulton to vanderbilt, then left on dean, swooping home through the dark on my heavy old bike. even tonight after over 12 hours at work, about 10 of those really working in earnest, my energy lifts as i climb on the seat, slide the clip-on light in its holster, kick the pedals, push across atlantic avenue's wide relentless lanes, rounding the corner by the glass-fronted hipster bar that's always bright and full of laughing kids, then past the round-domed church with its bright stained glass and scaffolding, into the dean street silence. my favorite part.
there's barely any traffic, so it's easy to roll past the natty garden shop with its rasta-painted fence, past the auto body shop with its vintage lettered sign, past unseen barking dogs, into the land of unknown buildings. ancient icehouse-looking structures, brick archways over wood-shuttered windows, iron stars marking the crumbling walls. junkyards with 12-foot-tall fences, edged with concertina wire. unfinished, industrial, un-yuppified lofts, artist spaces in where they aren't supposed to live but do anyhow, and across from those, another artist spot, the low little building set back from the street, mini-junkyard for a front yard and out front on the sidewalk, fat boulders that somebody has painted pink. a kitschy displaced neon sign that says "Gina's Boutique" hangs from the low roof of the shack-like building, sometimes on, sometimes off, sometimes flashing. i always wonder what the different settings mean.
one night when i was riding home there was a big slick unmarked tour bus parked out front and in the junkyard, hipster kids hanging around a campfire. bright industrial lights set up almost like it was a movie, but nobody was filming. they were just hanging out. one guy was wearing some kind of fake-fur tunic over his t-shirt. i flashed on owen wilson's character in zoolander, with his surfboard and crazy loft compound full of surfers, dwarves, and special tea. i approached the driver side of the bus. the tour bus driver, a weary bald guy in his 60s with an eastern european accent, slowly lowered his window. "Did you drive those people here?" I asked "Oh yes," he said wearily. "What are they doing?" "I don't know," he sighed, as if this illogical late-night ghetto adventure pretty much signaled the end of all reason. "I don't know." He paused. Then, "What are you doing?" "Just riding home. Have a good night!" He shook his head and almost smiled. I rode off.
Three doors down, 2 big black bouncer-looking guys hovered in front of another unmarked building, fronted with a wall of glass windows. music pulsed from inside. a black limo out front. balloons tied to the iron railings. two white girls and a boy spilled out of the building. the boy was wearing sunglasses and couldn't have been more than 14. "Who let these kids out? They should be home in bed!" I said to the bouncers as I rode by. They smiled.
Just another night on Dean Street.
there's barely any traffic, so it's easy to roll past the natty garden shop with its rasta-painted fence, past the auto body shop with its vintage lettered sign, past unseen barking dogs, into the land of unknown buildings. ancient icehouse-looking structures, brick archways over wood-shuttered windows, iron stars marking the crumbling walls. junkyards with 12-foot-tall fences, edged with concertina wire. unfinished, industrial, un-yuppified lofts, artist spaces in where they aren't supposed to live but do anyhow, and across from those, another artist spot, the low little building set back from the street, mini-junkyard for a front yard and out front on the sidewalk, fat boulders that somebody has painted pink. a kitschy displaced neon sign that says "Gina's Boutique" hangs from the low roof of the shack-like building, sometimes on, sometimes off, sometimes flashing. i always wonder what the different settings mean.
one night when i was riding home there was a big slick unmarked tour bus parked out front and in the junkyard, hipster kids hanging around a campfire. bright industrial lights set up almost like it was a movie, but nobody was filming. they were just hanging out. one guy was wearing some kind of fake-fur tunic over his t-shirt. i flashed on owen wilson's character in zoolander, with his surfboard and crazy loft compound full of surfers, dwarves, and special tea. i approached the driver side of the bus. the tour bus driver, a weary bald guy in his 60s with an eastern european accent, slowly lowered his window. "Did you drive those people here?" I asked "Oh yes," he said wearily. "What are they doing?" "I don't know," he sighed, as if this illogical late-night ghetto adventure pretty much signaled the end of all reason. "I don't know." He paused. Then, "What are you doing?" "Just riding home. Have a good night!" He shook his head and almost smiled. I rode off.
Three doors down, 2 big black bouncer-looking guys hovered in front of another unmarked building, fronted with a wall of glass windows. music pulsed from inside. a black limo out front. balloons tied to the iron railings. two white girls and a boy spilled out of the building. the boy was wearing sunglasses and couldn't have been more than 14. "Who let these kids out? They should be home in bed!" I said to the bouncers as I rode by. They smiled.
Just another night on Dean Street.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Peonies
My friend E had a whole big beautiful bunch, pink ones dotted with clusters of tiny green flowers. She passed them on to me because they'll just wilt while she's on her vacation. Besides, somebody else gave her another bouquet last week, so she's good.
Now they sit on my rough wood coffee table awaiting my roommate's delight.
I hope she'll like them.
It's later than I meant it to be. But good Thai food, and wine, and a long talk with E, were all worth the lost sleep.
I've felt the charge of nighttime Manhattan three nights in a row this week. I like it: that sense of In The Midst, the push of buildings, the sense of hidden life around and inside every corner. But: I still like returning to this Brooklyn quiet, to the breeze in the trees, to these stalwart churches, to the broader night sky.
Now they sit on my rough wood coffee table awaiting my roommate's delight.
I hope she'll like them.
It's later than I meant it to be. But good Thai food, and wine, and a long talk with E, were all worth the lost sleep.
I've felt the charge of nighttime Manhattan three nights in a row this week. I like it: that sense of In The Midst, the push of buildings, the sense of hidden life around and inside every corner. But: I still like returning to this Brooklyn quiet, to the breeze in the trees, to these stalwart churches, to the broader night sky.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Re-beginning
Ok, I'm back.
I know, I promised to write this blog 3 times a week, and then I ramped it up to every day. Then I moved. It's been a month since I wrote, and it had been a month before that entry. But - yeah, but nothing. Yes, I'm busy and the city is wonderful but overwhelming and yes I was working on an article that I allowed to get much bigger than I'd expected or planned, much bigger than it's supposed to be, and yes I tend to be very tired at the end of the day and rushed first thing in the morning, the times I would normally write in this much-neglected blog. But really, I have no excuse. Except falling off the writing avoidance wagon, losing the good habit of the blog, and feeling bad enough for having done so that with every day that passed it got harder to go back.
My roommate was talking recently about some plan she was making for herself, and said "I'm not gonna make any rules I can't break..." and I liked that a lot: the flat-out acceptance that it's normal to break one's own rules, that you might as well make your rules with that in mind. So. There, I've broken those aforementioned blog rules I set up for myself. And look. The world didn't end. It actually got more interesting in the interim. And now I'm breaking my less-conscious but still sometimes oh-so-powerful internal rule that if I mess up, I must mess up forever. Or at least for a really long time, because hell knows I deserve to feel miserable if I'm not perfect, and messing up will help me do just that.
Hooray. It feels good to break that rule. It feels good and right and solid to return to what I love to do. Which brings me to some things that Susan Lori-Parks said way back on March 8 when I saw her at the 92nd St. Y. Which feels like about 3 years ago. Much good stuff in her lecture, and when I'm not falling asleep I'll list everything I wrote down in my scrappy tiny blue-covered spiral notebook. But for now I'm gonna end with this, which has run through my head more times than I can count in the last 6 weeks. SLP is a big stickler for writing EVERY DAY. For practicing imperfect craft to help you get to the whole truth that is writing. At the 92nd St Y lecture, a guy asked Suzan Lori Parks what she did when she was just too tired (or too sick, or busy, or distracted, or or or....fill in the blank) to write anything of substance. She said: The important thing is just to do it. Lower the Bar. The guy said: Like write a sentence a day? SLP said: A word. Just write a word. At least a word!
So. I'm lowering my expectations of quality and raising the bar on participation. My new rule for myself is this: every day, you'll get at least a word from me. At least one word.
Today's word is: love.
Which, according to Suzan Lori Parks, is boundless. Unlike talent, which is limited. So we must write from love.
Working on it! More later.
W.
I know, I promised to write this blog 3 times a week, and then I ramped it up to every day. Then I moved. It's been a month since I wrote, and it had been a month before that entry. But - yeah, but nothing. Yes, I'm busy and the city is wonderful but overwhelming and yes I was working on an article that I allowed to get much bigger than I'd expected or planned, much bigger than it's supposed to be, and yes I tend to be very tired at the end of the day and rushed first thing in the morning, the times I would normally write in this much-neglected blog. But really, I have no excuse. Except falling off the writing avoidance wagon, losing the good habit of the blog, and feeling bad enough for having done so that with every day that passed it got harder to go back.
My roommate was talking recently about some plan she was making for herself, and said "I'm not gonna make any rules I can't break..." and I liked that a lot: the flat-out acceptance that it's normal to break one's own rules, that you might as well make your rules with that in mind. So. There, I've broken those aforementioned blog rules I set up for myself. And look. The world didn't end. It actually got more interesting in the interim. And now I'm breaking my less-conscious but still sometimes oh-so-powerful internal rule that if I mess up, I must mess up forever. Or at least for a really long time, because hell knows I deserve to feel miserable if I'm not perfect, and messing up will help me do just that.
Hooray. It feels good to break that rule. It feels good and right and solid to return to what I love to do. Which brings me to some things that Susan Lori-Parks said way back on March 8 when I saw her at the 92nd St. Y. Which feels like about 3 years ago. Much good stuff in her lecture, and when I'm not falling asleep I'll list everything I wrote down in my scrappy tiny blue-covered spiral notebook. But for now I'm gonna end with this, which has run through my head more times than I can count in the last 6 weeks. SLP is a big stickler for writing EVERY DAY. For practicing imperfect craft to help you get to the whole truth that is writing. At the 92nd St Y lecture, a guy asked Suzan Lori Parks what she did when she was just too tired (or too sick, or busy, or distracted, or or or....fill in the blank) to write anything of substance. She said: The important thing is just to do it. Lower the Bar. The guy said: Like write a sentence a day? SLP said: A word. Just write a word. At least a word!
So. I'm lowering my expectations of quality and raising the bar on participation. My new rule for myself is this: every day, you'll get at least a word from me. At least one word.
Today's word is: love.
Which, according to Suzan Lori Parks, is boundless. Unlike talent, which is limited. So we must write from love.
Working on it! More later.
W.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
