How I Started Living

Hello. I am alive today. How are you?

For a while I began convincing myself that making bank at the ripe age of 24 meant that I was successful. I wasn’t really working hard, so at least I got something right, but I wasn’t doing what I really wanted.

It’s amazing how people will deny themselves what they really want. I sat at a desk, thinking I’d been handed a good card in life because I could fuck around on gchat all day. All the while, I envied artists who, though they might be living hand to mouth, were at least doing the things that they wanted to do. I was not always conscious of this of course. It’d come to me in brief moments, and I would do quite a bit to avoid facing this dark side of myself.

Then the best thing in the world happened. I got canned. And somehow the world decided that it was time for me to figure myself out.  I flew off the Mexico, and lingered in the Caribbean Sea expelling from my system the previously unacknowledged results of days and days spent under harsh fluorescent lights. My thoughts cleared, my black suit got dusty in my closet, and my body began to get firm once again.

And now, without the cloudy vision that a wad of cash so sneakingly provides, I have come closer to realizing what I want and the person that I am. For most of my life I was struggling with several different things and how to intermix these things in both my work and pleasure:

1)    I am visually creative. This was the very first thing I knew about myself.

2)    I have a need to tell stories.

3)    I have an inclination towards political thinking.

In high school I studied photography while running and/or participating in several feminist organizations. I was passionate about people, their dreams, and the efforts we make to ensure that our needs are honored in this world. On the other hand, I had a love for what couldn’t be given a name. I loved reality and what I could make out of reality: What was there, and what I could manipulate through photography. I needed to write to document my stories and to incorporate my beliefs into a fictional form. Right before I entered college I began making little movies. This was something I thoroughly enjoyed, but never seriously considered. At that time that wasn’t a problem. I was happy.  I thought it was my duty to pursue my interest in politics. I thought that was the right thing to do, so I entered college with the intention of majoring in Women’s Studies or Political Science.

During this time you can imagine it was difficult for me to realize that much of the stuff I was studying wouldn’t prepare me for the kind of job that would make me happy. But that’s ok, that was school. When I graduated with an English degree, I had no regrets, but I was completely unhappy with the type of fields people tend to go into with that degree. Publishing really? Marketing? Copy Editing? None of it sounded anything like me.

 

Only recently did I realize that doing work that was not creative was not an option for me. I had to get fired from doing something I hated to realize I’d put myself in a situation that was not right for me. I was thrown out of the misery club, and now I’m feelin’ fine. And then, in an instant that seemed to sum up my whole life I realized I wanted to make movies. 

 

Before this I thought I preferred books. In books you could hear people like Bell Hooks, Langston Hughes, or Jeanette Winterson. Were these people in films? The big budge stuff most likely not, but even Indie stuff seemed off. What it is is safe. Many films do not challenge the way we see the world, or alter our basic notion of the story. When the latter does happen it is confusing, and not always easily digested such as the films of Godard. But I do believe it is very possible to be unconventional, controversial, while still having appeal amongst a mass audience. What I want most is to do good. I want to give credit to those whose voices have not been heard, and believe film is the best way to accomplish this. This has always been my ultimate goal in life, I just didn’t know how to bring it to light.

 

But I am not here to tell you about myself, surprisingly enough. I am here to remind everyone that there is no other option than living the way you want to live. Even if you go hungry, even if you can’t live on the 75^th floor of some beautiful Manhattan apartment, money is never worth the sacrifice. Extravagance can come at a cost, but nothing is as glamorous as freedom.

 

Now here I am, living frugally while I used to drop hundreds of dollars a night.  I used to think that old life was worth savoring onto, that an impressive bank account was worthy of the boredom I put myself through. Now I may not be able to go shopping or write about fine dining establishments….but I wouldn’t take that stuff back for anything. I am happier than I have been in ages. I just hope that this experience is something that we all can have one day. 

 

The kind of things you learn when you’re not working

I took this photo with my camera phone yesterday, and forwarded it to my pal Allan at Mission Mission. It’s now on SFist. 

 

 

For those of you who are interested in my main blog. Check it out: Romancing the Strawberry.

On Deaf Ears (Draft 1)

He is inundated by cords, traveling

on melodies. So consumed by

the sound of music as to forget

my hands on his body.

 

We always continue this long charade

of war games and hunting for the fox.

But why fight the warm bed or

the glass of wine I poured for him?

 

Sickend by the idea of getting used

To someone, of being exposed,

He presumes that freedom and

 love live lives apart.

 

Then in the boredom of his morning

we will part, me with my words,

he with his sounds. And he will go off

to see the other woman who lives

just a few blocks away,

down the street. 

Ode To Sylvia (Draft 1 – super draft mode!)

08/04/08

 

Ode to A Young Sylvia

 

Communion of a fault

Icy fingers representing

Some societal bug

Wretching the stomach

As it does the heart

In the abyss of this

Quarter life….

 

Crisis, not like hands

In hair or the mouth

Open in shock but an

Endless wondering

Through time through

opportunities.

 

‘You are broke and beautiful’,

a young writer says. His sticker

on my mantle amongst graduation

pictures.

 

And there is that paragraph I’ll always remember.

‘How many berries will fall today?’

She may have asked years before.

 

That same question stings

The nerves of my friends, of

You and me. An answer

Inexplicable as the afternoon fog

Or the pleasure of a cup of tea

and if somehow you’re illegal

as freedom seems to be.

 

Whether or not it is now or never

The stagnation of a the business man

Leaves me cold as an eel.

 

But I am here, and am not yet dead

We are revolutionary in our need

To breath. No suitcase, pope, or

computer can swaddle us

No matter how hard he tries.

Blue is the new Green, And You are the new Food (Draft 1)

I have tasted your chicken,
But it needs improvement.
It needs a little salt, a crispier shell
It needs to be a little bigger.

I have tasted your oranges
plucked from the trees
of the rolling hills that know you.
I have gone sick from their citrus,
The acid dancing in my chest, but
still I say they are not as fine
as they could be.

I have wanted you in syrup
but you say you hate feeling sticky.
Your eyes may be green but that
is not so surprising, and there
is already too much green in the world.
I’d prefer a hue of blue,
foreign to my tongue and sight.
Blue, blue, blue comforting as the
night, a sea of blue berries
savorized for the gourmands.

Try it on for size,
Try other variations too.
You can’t mess up the impossible
dear, not even if you tried.

When Chocolate Rules

It is unfortunate but true
I have been kidnapped by the gods
Of chocolate.

First they gave it to me with caramel
then they covered it with whip cream,
and I was hooked.

They say the world is green, black.
Whatever.
It is brown.

It dominates my thoughts
It is the sex I’m not having,
And the soul I long for
In the cold in the bitter cold
Where coco beans don’t grow.

The ‘Necessary’ Hours (Draft 2)

07/09/08

The ‘Necessary’ Hours

I swear the air is fine in here
these cool castings do not bite
the hapless creature inside of them.

Reckless soul found unwinding only in dreams.
The sweet soft sexuality of an automatic stapler.
The shock that shocks the accounting manager
in her puffy suit with the tag sticking out.

Endlessly there is an answer blotted out
by the comfort of a keyboard and the extra
numerals in my bank account.

Sometimes a whisper from the images
of golden fields and cherry trees steers
my blotted vision quite away
from the regulated pressure of
the usual fixation of the screen.

The multiplicity of the instant
shaves away the ill doings of the hour
with the breeze of something unnamable,
irrepressible in its power unleashed
throughout the streets like flower petals
in a storm.

Darling, roots of the earth (you honeysuckle smell you!),
this body suit is as toasty as an icicle.
I beg to differ, at least today, that your decision
to stay here means anything other than going bad.

The ‘Necessary’ Hours (Draft 1)

I swear the air is fine in here
these cool castings do not bite
the hapless creature inside of them.

Reckless soul found unwinding only in dreams.
The sweet soft sexuality of an automatic stapler.
The shock that shocks the accounting manager
in her puffy suit with the tag sticking out.

Endlessly there is an answer blotted out
by the comfort of a keyboard and the extra
numerals in my bank account.

Some days a whisper from the images
of golden fields and cherry trees steers
my blotted vision quite away
from the regulated pressure of
the usual fixation of the screen.

I seek no transition, no half inch change,
nor do I know if I seek change at all,
but what I assume is the sort that will take a thousand miles
in a heart beat, the breaking open of an instant
suspended than satisfied onto me.

Darling, roots of the earth (you honeysuckle smell you!),
this body suit is as toasty as an icicle.
I beg to differ, at least today, that your decision
means anything other than going bad
while the world keeps going
without me.

And in the End

And in the end

And in the end there was the sin of wanting too much and not enough

Prostrated ethanol

Like candied walnuts

In Haiti the appetite

Biting like a fish on a hook

Happy to eat but afraid

Of unforgivingness of pain

That means more

Hunger.

And in the end there was that face who never seemed to see all I see.

A stream that scratches on sugar

Endless highways with regular (no)

Speed limits irrational amongst the skies.

The locals eat banana peppers,

Sprinkled with salt, rosy peaches

That dissolve in the house of the throat

And the me alone in it all.

<

And in the end it was a little easier than I suspected

Tattooed on the ego there is a portal

Of forgiveness, of letting go there is

A Chinese sign to the answer of where

To go and what to say and who you are

But in its absence all is still, all is fine

Like rice wine.

3 Recent Articles On Attention

“Wisdom is the art of knowing what to overlook,” wrote William James, the father of American psychology research. Long ago, he identified the foremost challenge of our time: how to allocate our attention. And now, we’re beginning to discover what he foretold: that living distracted just isn’t smart.”

-  Maggie Jackson

Three articles on Attention in the Contemporary world:

Fighting a war against distraction

Is Google Making Us Stupid:

Distracting Ms. Daisy (Attention and driving)