Language of the Land

Life is crazy. Life is complicated. Life is this constant balance of active and passive, thought and deed.

It's not that there's anything crazy going on in my life, now, except for me. I've been in a little bit of a funk. I think I've figured out why. It's basically because I don't feel like I am in action. I don't feel like I am doing what I need to do in order to be able to feed my higher goals.

Turns out, getting my rent paid is not a higher goal.

So, I need to put my energy, my focus into what is important, not what is happening around me. I get so pulled off base by the immediacies of living. And I keep ignoring the fact that what I need to balance myself is a spiritual practice. Somehow, it seems like such a waste of time, hours spent staring at a wall that don't end with a product in hand. Silly girl, huh, thinking product is just what you can hold in your hand.

It's just like what I was talking about before, how I need to accept and value the silent times, the dark times, the shadow times, because they are what feed the large and loud times. Spirit feeds physical, just as physical feeds spiritual.

Being an artist is like being in the wilderness without any sign posts-- at least for me. I have to learn the language of the land and one of the languages is spiritual. But even so, I've got to keep the action going, too. I've got to keep the feet moving, the hands moving. It's not just about taking in the signs around me, but about doing something with them.

Stay in action. Be out in the world-- but not mindlessly-- with purpose. Don't get pulled off course by all the chattering worries. God, it's so easy to be pulled off course. Stay on course.

And dream.

The Art Warrior

If you want to be an artist, my friend, you have to not take the easy way out. You have to fight against your own desire to be lazy, to go for the quick and fast, to take the path of least resistance, and you have to struggle. It is work to be an artist, and not just an artist, but a person who is actively leading their own lives. It's hard.

Resist. Struggle. Work.

Is this the life I have chosen for myself? Is this the way I want to keep it up? Because this is what I am consigning myself to, a life of struggle and hard work. Resistance. Fighting. Wow. I'm getting tired just thinking of it. No wonder I have to make myself sit down in front of the computer. No wonder my novel is languishing in the nowhere land that is inside my head. No wonder I look at my art and all I can think of is what I haven't done.

There is another way to look at this, this life's work, this life's passion. There must be a way to frame it so it doesn't always seem as if I have to fight fight fight to let it come to light.

Is it work? Writing, painting, creating? Is it WORK? It isn't always easy, but is it like punching the clock? Is it like tending bar? Is it like that? It feels more precious than working in a Gap folding tshirts. More like it is a thing coming up from below, trying to be born. A thing worth doing. A thing that is woven together of the stuff that I am made of.

I don't want to look at it as if it is a grind that I HAVE to do. Something to dread. It's not a day job. Instead, to me, creating and all that comes with it is something that is holy. And truly, it is something that I need to do for me, in order to feel complete and full in my own life.

Really, I've got to get over my own fear of putting in all that energy and time that it takes-- maybe that's what I'm talking about when I say it's hard work. Really I've got to get over my fear of not doing it right, and of not being good enough.

You know what? You've got to be BRAVE to be an artist. Brave and strong. You've got to be a fricking warrior.

Grrrrrrr!

L. O. V. E.

Love. According to all the rules of the English lanuage, shouldn't it be said differently? Shouldn't that silent e change everything. Shouldn't it sound like "loave", warm and crusty and rising with the heat? But it's not, it's "Luv." Somehow it feels like a cheat. It's what those teeny bopper girls sign on their letters to their bestest friends. It's puppies and kittens and valentines day with paper lace and chocolate flowers. I luv u. U luv me. Blah blah blah.

It's like valentines day, a made up holiday used to sell greeting cards and hike up the prices of roses.

I've never been a fan of Valentines Day-- no that's not true. I lie. I actually have evidence of when I was a fan of Valentines day, way back in Junior High School when I wrote in my very first diary how I was looking forward to it, and maybe this boy liked me and maybe that boy liked me, and when it came down to it, the only anything I got was a little box of candy from my mom, and it wasn't even chocolate, it was hard candy, but I didn't blame her, she didn't know what was inside of the box.

The deep and dirty secret here about me and love is that I am a reformed romantic, the worst kind. The kind who grew up on fairy tales and true love and happily ever after, and after years of disappointment, became disenchanted. No longer caught up in the spelll-- and yet secretly hungering for the return of the story, prince charming and all.

I write about this subject because, for all I couldn't care less about Valentines Day, I was bartending that day, and my customers couldn't help talking of love. Some of them imagined themselves in love with me.

Love is a real thing. People hook all their hopes onto it, I think. I do. But how much hard work is it? Love is hard? Once you get past the first rush of ohmigodIcan'tbelievethisishappeningtome it starts to be an effort. Thinking of someone else all the time, worrying about them, fitting your life into theirs. Committing to that person, not just the romance of them, but the reality of them.

It's been a long time since I've been in love. I thought I no longer believed in it. I thought it was all a mad up fantasy, a sociological phenomenon that we have created in this age and time. I walked around with all my fairy tales squashed flat. (Geesh! Poor little frog prince.)

But then, I think I might have rediscovered fairy tales, and the subconscious, and the collective unconscious, and archetypes, and all those things that make living and being human a lot more complicated than science and all its measurements would have us think.

Maybe love is about the unseen things that connect us. That stuff without a name, energy or affinity, or- or-- what is that stuff?

I don't know. I don't know. All I know is that it is not about chocolates and paper valentines. It is much deeper and realer than that.

But what I have rediscovered is that I believe in it. I have faith.

All is good in the world as long as I have faith that there is love.

Ooops

Missed a couple days here. But that's okay. I've been working. As a bartender. Ah, yes, my glalmorous life. Basically it just takes too much time, and my schedule is wonky. Now if I could go home and do my blogging I would have time, but, with the computer down... that is not working.

I am working on a plan to get myself a new laptop that can accomodate all my needs-- they aren't that great, but they are more needy than I thought they would be.

I at last have something besides my rent to work towards paying. Maybe it will make me more ambitious.

Shadow Stepping

One step after another, boys and girls. And baby steps at that.

Huge, large, King Kong steps scare the hell out of me. They make me think that my legs are just too damn short, I am too damn small. That I have to run to keep up, that I just CAN'T keep up.

What good is it living in your dreams for the future, anyway? Can people do that? Can they say, "I want to write a novel and have it published and be fabulously reviewed and sell lots of copies, and I want to have a gallery show and be fabulously reviewed and sell lots of paintings, and I want to fall in love with a guy who is fabulously in love with me and make lots of babies," and then just live their lives in this brilliant sunshine? Is that possible? Or is that just some Hollywood thing, like in the movies where they montage all the difficult parts-- like actually writing or painting or finding the right guy? Damn Hollywood for making us think life is like a novel with all the drudgery edited out.

Silly girl should take silly-girl steps, just one after the other. Baby steps get you far, you know.

Love where you are. Love the muscles in your legs that pull and push your body foward. Love your wide Flintstone feet that keep you stable. Love your hair blowing into your face. Love your eyes that keep seeing what's off down that road, that you're trying to get to even though you can't see how to get there. Love your heart beat that keeps the machine pumping. Love the fear that gets it racing.

Tough one, there. Love the fear. Love the darkness. Love the shadow that you are casting as you walk into the light. The brighter that light, the deeper and darker the shadow.

Oh, yes, I am ambitious, and I have come from a dark place. Sometimes, walking through those shadows is easier than walking through the light. I knew I had to stay positive and strong if I was going to be able to make it through. I knew I had to be my own light. I'm so used to it, so used to looking for the light that I have forgotten how to find the value in my own shadow.

What is my own shadow? I need to embrace it, it's a part of me, and I know I need it if I want to be a successful artist, if I want to create successful art.

I think my shadow self might be the lonely girl-- not the hipster, or the rockstar, although she's part of me, also, too long ignored-- the lonely girl who sits at home in the dark on friday nights, writing in her journal and painting and listening to Kate Bush or Ella Fitzgerald. The wallflower who brought books to parties and watched everyone around her as they performed. My shadow self might be the same girl who grew up in madness and poverty, but found strength in imagination, dreaming, stories, and silence.

She's not cool, my shadow girl, but I like her, and you know what? For all her silence and geekiness and lonely moon-eyes, she has gotten me farther and deeper than any big King Kong monster.

Maybe in her own way, she is as big as a King Kong. As strong. Maybe she had her own way of getting down that road, an underground way, one I haven't explored for a very long time.

I think maybe it's time.

My Worries Can Take Their Cookies and Go Sit in the Corner

I feel a little like I'm running around crazy today. Here's my first day off of the restaurant in five days, and I have to interview and artist in her gallery, meet up with a friend to trade tarot readings, stop in at work to get something to eat, and then off to the computer center to write my article and send it to the editor.

Only now do I get to write in my blog, and I'm gettiing restless with all the things I have not done, the people I have not called, the situations I have not taken care of. (the writing I have not written. the art I have not arted. (rhymes with farted.))

It's hard to take a breath. So I will do that now.

Yeah, no. Still tense.

But I have to admit, today was pretty good, regardless. (The computer center is almost empty and it's wierding me out though. I've been here too long. (got to get me a laptop.))

I really enjoyed going to this exhibit and talking to the artist. It made me realize that I am prepared for this career in art. I've often felt like I don't know enough about anything. I know a little about a lot of things, but haven't really felt like an expert in many things people think are important.

Talking to the artist, though, I was able to draw on my generalist knowledge and get a whole huge lot out of it. The woman said she felt like she should have had a pad and paper to write down what I was saying. About HER work.

Sometimes it really doesn't take very much to feel like you are being validated.

Having that conversation with her made me feel like I belonged here, in wonderland, continuing my wondering, and walking down this path.

I have to remember not to get sidetracked though by daily worries, and daily fears, and daily insecurities.

The worries and fears and insecurities can contribute, I suppose, it's hard to get them to shut up, but after that, they need to take their cookie and go sit in the corner. They've had their say.

It's my turn to live my life.

The Things We Do to Keep the Flame Burning

One caveat: Wonderland is not all fun and games. There is danger here, too.

Right now, I am in danger of losing my soul, of being wrapped up and tied into a knotty little bow.

How? Why? Oh, dear lord, no, how could this happen?

It's the insidious little problem of the "Day Job."

For me, that means my job waiting tables and bartending. For someone else, it could be a job in the public schools, or at a cafe, or in a computer company, or The Gap, or on Wall Street-- it really doesn't matter how important or how slight the job is, that job can suck all the juice out of you.

It's one of the reasons I make the joke, "I quit teaching to be a waiter-- I mean-- 'writer'."

Be a writer, be a painter, I said to myself. And I set out on the task. But living here in NYC, in Williamsburg, that means I have a doozy of a monthly rent to pay. Seeing that I am not independently wealthy, nor supported by parents nor partner nor patron-- well, I gots ta work for that rent.

I got a room mate, I did, so at least I didn't have quite so much rent to pay, but all my other schemes and scams fell apart. But I had so much experience waiting tables-- I've been doing it since 92-- I thought it would be no biggie to start up again in the restaurant industry. Easy. Cake. No sweat. And it wouldn't take my creative and intellectual energy the way a "real job" would.

Maybe I am coming to realize there is no such thing as a job that is not "real." You put in your hours. You put in your energy. You come away with some cash. (hopefully.) But the more of that time and energy you invest in that job, the more invested you become in that job. The problems and politics may be petty and stupid, but they are gonna be there every day. And that takes a toll.

I work ten hour shifts. Lately, I've been working five days a week. I feel like a frickin' lawyer or something. My energy IS going into this restaurant that means nothing to me, because I'm there, and I and my life are important to me.

For instance, there are people who are weasley and rodent-like, but they just may have a little bit of power over me. And they work that power. But I am too old, and too experienced, and too smart, goddammit, to allow petty people to disrespect me. (I've been trying really hard not to rant, so allow me this small tirade.)

So here I am, fighting for respect at a job that is only supposed to be about bringing home the rent. Bam! Soul suckage!

It's so easy, perilously easy, to forget the point of it all and get wrapped up in the daily trudge and struggle. This day job stuff is a means to an end. I allow them to schedule me so much because I need to find a way to buy a laptop, so that I can get my novel done, and someday get a website, and put my art book online and digitize my portfolio, and all sorts of things. I need this job (although, remember, this is not the only job it could be,) to keep my art going, to keep my life going. To keep my journey going. I'm taking a risk that I won't always need to keep a day job like this. Not like THIS, anyway.

My job is my job.

My real work is my art.

Remember that.

And another thing...

Working at a bar, I hear all sorts of conversations. It's one of the reasons I wanted to bartend. The stories you hear, the things you witness, the characters-- no, not characters, the people with human problems and interests, and personalities, it's very, very interesting.

And being at the bar I am, it's almost as if I am at Williamsburg central. People pop in from all over, some people who have lived here all their lives, (and let me tell you, their stories are intense,) some people who heard about the neighborhood in one of those lifestyle magazines and thought they would be hip and cool if they came and sat in a bar and talked about what is hip and cool and what is not. (Nobody should be allowed to dictate what is hip and cool. And people who do? Well, really-- not that cool.) People have real conversations about art and music and stories and politics and society and love. (Not ALL the time. Sometimes they have regular conversations, too.) Sometimes I get to participate. Sometimes I just get to eavesdrop a little as I am making margaritas or martinis. I enjoy it. Usually. Sometimes, it just drags. It feels like wasted time.

Like last night. It just went on forever, and I had a back ache, and I was just so tired and bored. I don't really know why. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. I think it was just me that was feeling so down. If I had been in another place in my life, I would have thought that my life was not satisfying, but I'm enjoying the uncertainty, the adventure of my life. So I recognize it was just one of those days, (probably hormone induced,) that is no fun.

It slowed down really early and I stood around, doing nothing, and then, right before closing, all these people came into the bar-- the WORST situation-- wanting to drink long into the night, even after I call last call. Yuck. So I stand around, trying to get my cleaning done, trying to close, and listening to their drunken conversations.

Like the one where the guy said that he was probably a very talented writer, and he could put together some great stories, but he really just wasn't into sitting infront of the computer everyday. That was his problem. He didn't want to actually BE a writer. He didn't want to write, he just wanted to have written.

Honest to god, that's the hardest part of being a writer. It's actually working at it. It's hard for me. Scary, frustrating, confrontational-- anything that counts as difficult, that's what writing is. No, no, that's not right. Once I start writing, it's not always difficult, sometimes it flows like a rushing faucet. What is hard-- the hardest part-- is putting my ass in that chair infront of my computer (especially now that it's acting up and I have to go to the computer center.) There are just so many things that get in the way of writing, of doing art, of being an artist, but I if I want to write, that is the one inescapable truth-- I HAVE TO WRITE.

Then I realized I have something to add to my last entry of

HOW TO BE AN ARTIST

#9. DO IT. Just fricking do it. If you want to be a painter, you have to paint, or you're not. If you want to be a musician, but you're just too busy to sit in front of your guitar, or piano or harp-- then you are not a musician. If you want to be an actor, and you are not in a play, or auditioning, or getting together a monologue or taking a class, then you aren't an actor. And for godsake, if you want to be a writer and you're not writing, you're not a writer, you're a wanna be writer-- and holy cow, that's a frustrating place to be. Maybe you don't want to BE an artist. Maybe you love art or music or books or whatever, but you don't want to put in the effort-- that's fine. Enjoy other people's stuff. Play around with your drums whenever you feel the urge. Write in your journal, or your short story when the thought takes you. Be happy. Have fun, but if you want to BE an artist, get ready for a ride, because it isn't always fun. It can be a lot of work. And painful, too, but so worth it.

How To Be An Artist

1. Be interested in the world around you. We are the world we live in. Our art comes out of it. The people we know and love and hate. The injustices. The sweetness. The puzzles.

2. Be open to the questions that have no answers. It's when we go beyond the easy solutions that we start to interact with things. You can see anything in the world from a million different perspectives, if you think you've got a lock on the one and only truth, you are closing yourself to all the other views.

3. Trust yourself. Do you think you can? Then you can. Do you think you see something? Then, yeah, you do. Believe in your intuition,your gut, your heart, your voice, your vision. Believe in your potential and your mind. Someone out there might gain something from you. Maybe YOU will be the one to gain something from that trust.

4. Experiment. Try new things. A new food. A new way of putting pen to paper. A new combination of chords. Try things that are new to you-- maybe someone else has done something similar somewhere, but, we're not talking about them. We are talking about you, and how YOU are being open to new ways of doing things. There is no wrong or right, there is only what IS. If it's not wrong or right, then you are free to figure out what might be more powerful, or more fun, or maybe what might resonate inside of you.

5. Go deep. Forget about the surface. We look at the surface everyday. It's what's easiest. Beware the easy answers. Try the second or third or fourth answer. Spend some time with the question-- or the image-- or the experience-- or the medium. Give time and energy so whatever it is that is trying to be born may grow.

6. Learn what others have done. Do you want to write poetry? Read it. Are you a painter at heart? Go to museums or galleries or buy a book on art history. Are you a rock star just waiting to be discovered? Listen to cds, watch videos, experience live music. We are artists within a tradition of other artists-- learn what that tradition is. That doesn't mean you have to copy anyone, or fit yourself in to what is already out there, but it helps to get your artistic vocabulary down, it helps you to figure out what you like and don't like, what you might like to explore. Sharing in other people's art also helps to get the juices flowing. Inspiration happens when you are in the conversation.

7. Talk about it-- to whoever will listen. Talk about your ideas, your struggles, your joys, your medium, your performance. Talk about whatever inspires you. Whatever juices you. If no one will listen, write in a journal, find a discussion on line, join a workshop or an organization-- just keep those ideas and words and conversations going.

8. SHARE. Art can be many different media-- but when it comes down to it, any "medium" is a thing that carries your thoughts and ideas and experiences through to another person, so that they may share in your existence. A medium is a conduit. The art isn't important in itself, it is important for what it can convey to another person. It's hard. It's scary. It's confronting, bu there is something about the other's gaze, or listening, that makes art come alive. Someone else interacts with this thing that came out of you. That someone doesn't have to be a gallery owner or a record company, maybe that someone is a loved one, or a teacher, or an anonymous person on a computer somewhere. Let your art go out into the world. You never know what could come back to you.


Is there more? Probably. But notice that I said nothing about going to school for art. I said nothing about MFAs, or publishing, or awards, or taking piano lessons when you were three. Art is not about getting a certificate that says you are an artist. It isn't about someone else saying that you are an artist, it is about declaring it for yourself. It is about a state of being. Being an artist is who you are inside. It is what you do. It is the thought and practice of being creative.

So if you want to be an artist-- do it. Be an artist.

What Poor Alice Thought

"It was much pleasanter at home," thought poor Alice, "when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit hole-- and yet-- and yet-- it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what can have happened to me! When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one."

When I first came upon the idea of writing this Blog, the idea of "wonderlanding" was really just instinctual. I didn't think about. I knew I was interested in the book, in the idea of "Adventures in Wonderland," but I didn't really think about all the connections. I hadn't really read the book since I was a kid-- it was all just vague memories.

But... hmm... I suppose when we are diving head first down that rabbit hole, we don't really KNOW what is going to happen. It isn't really a choice, although chasing after that white rabbit might have been.

Poor Alice, growing so very large. Shrinking so very small.

I feel just the same sometimes. Sometimes, I'm so large the only thing that can hold me is the wide open sky. Sometimes I feel so small, that I feel lost, or I want to be lost, I just want to hide in a little mouse hole.

Expanding and contracting, trying to fix what's wrong so that we stretch out of shape, because the truth is, there was nothing wrong with us in the first place.

Maybe when I am large, I just need to go with that-- do the things that take height and breadth and width of vision, that take strength and voice and confidence.

And maybe when I am small, it is time to close in a little. To have those small little conversations that are about the essential stuff of life. To curl up in bed and maybe not answer the phone, even, because maybe sometimes, in order to deal with this wonderland, I have to recharge.

Large small large small.

What a crazy cycle. I suppose I could have stayed in the comfy, steady zone of teaching. It was frustrating, but known-- the problems were known, the schedule was known, the next year was pretty much predictable. If I had wanted that, it would have been easy. But just like poor Alice, I have to stand in awe a little of the amazing things that have, that could, that will happen when I let myself open up to them.

A fairy tale, she said. Is this life like a fairy tale?

And I'm not even going to mention those bossy mice and rabbits-- I know who they are, but they have no idea that they are rodents.

Drive, Baby, Drive

I stepped out of time, a little. Took a day off and just read. There's nothing like getting caught up in a good book, and music on the stereo, and a nice cozy, warm couch. Mental health day?

Or maybe just a break.

I had a dream that I was driving, the other day. So what? you might think. Everyone drives, right? But no. I don't know how to drive. A true New Yorker, I was raised on the subways, not the highways, and so, I never really had the opportunity, nor the need to learn how to drive.

But the dream... See, now, I used to dream of riding in buses, and boats, and trains and cars. I was the passenger. But when I started to dream of being the one to guide the motion, I realized that it meant I was guiding my own life, not at someone else's mercy.

In this dream, I was driving the car, and I knew how to get where I needed to go, but I didn't really know how to work the car. I had trouble figuring out which was the brakes and which was the gas. I had trouble figuring out the appropriate speed and how to get into the right lane.

Definitely where my life is right now. I feel the changes, I know where I am going, I think, but what do I do in the act of getting there? What is the best move to make? Where is the necessary pedal. Am I going too fast? Not fast enough at all?

I see all the possibilities ahead of me, right now. I'm meeting people who are interested in what I am doing and can help me, but somehow I feel as if I might be missing the chances that are given me. I might be waiting, holding on to safety, braking, rather than stepping on the gas.

But then, maybe I'm not doing anything wrong. Maybe this is the way it works. Maybe I'm just gonna keep going and expect that I will get where I need to go. Accept that I will get where I need to go.

Seeing in Colors

Today was a good day. A good day for not being a teacher (not that there's anything wrong with being a teacher,) a good day for waking up extra late, and lounging with my cats purring against me, a good day for taking my laundry out to be done, for getting a strong cup of coffee for the subway ride to the city. It was a good day to sit in Barnes and Noble, reading magazines and buying that book that I've been waiting for. It was a good day for shopping (actual shopping, not just the window type, where money was spent,) and for having veggie chili at one of my old favorite restaurants that I haven't been to since I was a teacher.

Today was a day where I saw in color.

A day when the greens and golds popped out of the subway station. Who knew that the subway platform, bastion of dust and mice, was filled with rich earth colors.

Today was a day where I looked and noticed how many different shades of white there are. Some parts of New York are built all of white marble, and with the clouds milky the way they were today, it was almost as if that white color spilled onto everything else around-- the bare branches of the trees, the asphalt underneath the wheels of the cars. Even the red brick buildings, and all the black winter coats, and the iron grates and fences, even they were washed with a pale white.

And when twilight fell-- everything turned blue. The buildings, angling off into the distance down 5th avenue reflected back the cobalt of the sky, but not all in one piece, but so that you could see how deep the streets were, how tall the building.

And then later, when it was true dark, all the blue went away, gone. Everything was deep shadows, brown and gray, and then light-- brilliant and sharp, in yellow, and red, and lemonade colors.

What does it mean that today I saw in colors?

No deep significance, just that there I was, living, and in that living, I was really present.

Today I saw in color.

Runaway Train

This creativity thing's a bitch.

No, that's not true. Again I'm being a bit dramatic.

Creativity, creating, is a mystery. A wonder. Yes, it does take a lot of energy-- when you are standing on the outside, it seems to take a prohibitive lot of energy.

It's just too much! But when you're inside, it's like you're caught up in the whirlwind of creative energy and you just can't help yourself. The ideas, the thoughts, the output, all keep coming.

Now, hold on there a minute, Rowena. If I make that my story, then I think I may end up makiing it harder on myself. If creating is something that I am powerless against, almost at the mercy of with no energy expended on my own, then whenever I was not just being swept away by the winds of art (rhymes with fart), I would feel cheated, feel it was too hard, feel like a failure.

Truth is, sometimes when creating is going full steam ahead, and I am caught up in it and hurtling forward so fast it feels like I will never stop, it feels like I am just cauht up in it, carried away-- but to only look at that runaway train is to not see all the effort that has gone before it.

There would never be a runaway train without the grinding start up-- Chug-a. Chug-a. Chug-a. The train wouldn't go without the slow build up and the constant stoking of the fire. Then there's the laboring up the hills, (I think I can, I think I can.)

The long stretch of unchecked momentum is just one part.

You know, you could take that metaphor a lot farther. Because that train wouldn't be going without those who laid the tracks across country. Or the industrial revolution that caused the trains to be. Or the immense age and pressure that created the fuel inside the earth. Or the big bang and resultiing gathering of the mineral matter needed to create a planet with bones of iron, that could hold and nurture all that we know of life.

Creativity is a mystery and a wonder. I don't know specifically where it comes from or how it can happen, but I have a sneakiing suspicion that it comes from everywhere, and everywhen. And it takes no more energy than it does to live.

Easy.

Choose an Adventure

So what happens when we run into snags in our lives? When your computer goes off line for no known reason? When you don't make enough money to survive at your job bartending? When that guy who said he liked you never ever calls back?

It's really easy to get discouraged. To take the hurdle as a sign I am doing it all wrong.

I suppose this is when I have to roll with the punches, learn how to pick up and keep going. Get back on the damn horse.

Why do those ideas all seem so trite?

I suppose they are trite, it's just a sad truth that a lot of those trite ideas are so trite because they are often the reality of the situation. Finding an original solution to your problems, or a unique way of dealing with human difficulties is kind of stupid. I mean, if we've been having the same sort of problems since we began being conscious of having problems, then doesn't it follow that the answers to the basic human problems would be heard again and again and again????

Suck it up.

Get back on the horse.

Fine, but at the same time, we are creative, we humans, and we can take the trite solutions, try to get back on that horse, llike the old saying says, but still be open to the opportunities we get when we do what our momma, and her momma, and her momma before her said that we should do.

Long sentence? Yeah, but basically, here I am doing a blog entry, even though I have no internet at home. So I have to go out and buy time at a computer center. And yet, it's kinda nice. Here I am in the mini mall in Williamsburg, sitting infront of the window, watching all these interesting, artsy, wierdos (with all due respect to the wierdos) walk by. I am not curled in my pajamas on the couch, with John Edwards (the psychic, not the politico) on tv, my cats meowing to get fed, and a cooling cup of coffee on the table. What that means is that I am literally out there in the world, instead of isolating myself behind a computer screen. And ever time I put myself out into the world, I open myself up to opportunities.

And I am looking for opportunities of all types. Monetary, artistic, romantic, culinary, professional-- you name it.

I wonder, if I drew a flow chart of my life, what it would look like. How many times would a life snag have started me going in a new direction. I suppose it doesn't do any good to wonder what the other life paths would have looked like.

Wouldn't it be cool if our lives were like those stupid "choose an adventure" books from the eighties? They generally very boring books, but it was cool to explore the various ways the adventure could play out.

Oh, well. Too bad. I guess I'll just have to follow along to the end of this one.

technical difficulties

please stand by while I figure out what the hell is wrong with my computer. I will try to keep up with my postings.

Get Rid of the Dust

I run around all day long trying to do things. A lot of the time, if I do
"things", I feel good, and if I don't, I feel bad. Go Go Go. I fill my hours with activities, and if I can't, I fill them with distractions. Do Do Do. I ride up and down on this rollercoaster, sprinting from what I have to have done to what I have to do. Run Run Run. Lately, I've taken to writing down lists of what I do AFTER I do them, so I can feel better.

Good Bad Better Worse.

Sometimes being creative is really, really hard work. Sometimes, I think it's my thinking it's really hard work that makes it hard work.

Odiouswoman reminded me that sometimes what we need, or sometimes what is happening, is a fallow period-- a moment where we rest, and allow nature, allow our subconscious to digest all the running and doing and going.

There's something to be said for trusting the subconscious, those parts of us that we don't listen to as often as we should. There's something to be said for learning to breathe deep, to sit still, and to live consciously-- allowing what is trying to be born to grow in its own time.

A kid came into my bar today. Young, only 21, the other bartender commented on how sweet he was. "Like fresh grass," she said and that he'd probably get dirtied up as he got older. "But you don't have to get jaded," I said. I don't want to be jaded anymore-- although the dirt keeps settling on me, the dirt of everything I have to do to live.

"Get rid of the dust," the kid said, "that's what we need to do."

I suppose that's what I'm working on.

The Will To Be an Artist

What is it that makes an artist?

I believe that anyone can be an artist, that it is in human nature to be creative. I've put a lot of energy into the concept-- study, teaching, writing, workshops-- all exploring how creativity can help us and open us up to our own lives.

Recently, though, I came upon a man who wrote that NOT everyone can be an artist. It got me thinking about some of the problems I've had in teaching some of my classes and workshops. Sometimes, people just get stuck, and they don't seem to be able to let go. In my mind, it is so easy to be creative-- but my friends and my students, I watch them just get-- flumoxed. Stopped, blocked. Blocked. Hmm. Creative block. (But I don't believe in that.)

Are these people the non artists that the guy was talking about?

I mean, maybe not everyone can be a painter, or a violinist, or a ballet dancer-- maybe we don't all have the physical capabilities for some art forms. Maybe our synapses don't snap that way, but we all have creative capabilities. Whether it is our visual sense, or grace, or great pitch, or a mind that thinks in music, or a way with herbs and spices, or the ability to put two pieces of wood together so it stays. I don't know. Maybe we're good with getting a group of people to work together happily. Doesn't it depend on what your definition of art is?

But the truth is, not everyone is an artist. And maybe society wouldn't work if everyone were ARTISTS. We do need doctors and sanitation workers and store clerks and presidents and such. Everyone has a role to play... but still, I have the question.

What IS an artist?

It's not about having some great skill or talent. Really, I don't think so. I've known lots of really talented people who aren't artists. I myself can sing pretty well, but I don't consider myself a singer.

I think being an ARTIST, really, is about committing to art. It's about being dedicated to your artform-- whether it's painting or baking or acting or blogging. It means you live your life with your art in the forefront. When you go about your daily business, there is always the active possibility that you could create something, or have a discussion about art, or witness something that gets you going into a new possibility for your art. Maybe you don't live and breathe painting or dancing, but when you go back to your art (which you always will, because you are dedicated) the life that you lived comes back and informs what you create.

I don't think being an artist means you have to model yourself after Picasso, or Pollock, or Van Gogh, or anyone out there. There are so many ways to BE an artist, and you don't have to be starving, or crazy, or addicted or a selfish bastard. Maybe you don't even have to show your stuff to anyone else.

But it does mean that you have to put in the thought, the time, the practice, the emotions, the experience, the experiments, the energy, the words.

Maybe it IS true that not everyone can be an artist, but I don't think it's anything that we're born with that says we are or aren't an artist. Honestly, I think being an artist takes a desire-- and not just a desire-- a will to be an artist.

It's the will to be an artist that makes an artist. Even if you are the most talented painter or singer or dancer in the world, if you lack the will and only paint or dance or sing when the notion strikes you, you might as well be chewing bubble gum. It's nice and fun and has a great flavor, but really, how far does it go beyond the moment?

On the other hand, if you aren't spectacularly "talented"-- aren't born with that perfect hand-eye coordination or the luck to be raised by people who want you to be an artist-- and you really have the WILL to be an artist, to explore life, to go deeper and challenge yourself, and learn your medium and practice techniques and face your fears of being not good enough or not an artist, or just too much of a damn human-- then, you know what? I think that you really are an artist.

Inspire Me

Tell me... will the television do it? Will drinking beers and flirting with boys do it? Will surfing on line and answering emails do it? Will coffee? Will lying on the couch reading escapist fiction do it? Will flipping through fashion magazines do it?

?????

You can ignore me. I am being rather dramatic and enjoying my own lack of inspiration.

In other words, I am wallowing in it.

The truth is, any of the above things can cause inspiration, can inspire me to be filled up with the creative spirit. The truth is, inspiration is about the energy you put into it. It's about saying YES, loudly and actively, instead of the constant, under the breath, whiny, miniscule, "nonononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononono."

When I saw the real human ovary/fallopian tube/uterus on tv, with the doctor and Oprah talking about how delicate and beautiful a structure it is, I could have written a poem about our delicate and miraculous insides. But I didn't. I started moaning about not being inspired. (Yes, Virginia, even afternoon tv can inspire.)

I don't believe there is such a thing as writer's block. We may actually be stuck, for many different reasons, but I think we give ourselves the label, like hypochondria. It offers us an excuse to not be creative.
"Oh, no, I can't write my novel, I have writer's block."

It's like a trump. It's like shuffling off the responsibility for our own lives and creativity by blaming it all on "creative block." (I wonder if having a "fear of commitment" is the same sort of thing. Oh yeah, it is.)

Truth is maybe there's something that we aren't paying attention to, and that's why we're suffering this thing called block. Maybe it's fear. Maybe it is exactly the same thing as being afraid of commitment, or of failure, or success. Maybe my dad told me I was no good-- no, wait, that was my poetry professor. Maybe the idea of actually putting all your beautiful, wonderful, brilliant ideas into the light of day is just too damn threatening. What if the ideas can't stand up to the harsh noon sun? What if everyone laughs?

Hey, look where this post went. Right back to the last one, about embracing the dark. Yes, we actually have to face that fear down. Take a look and see if it's a genuine fear-- not if we are really afraid of it, obviously we are-- but the question is, is it really something to be afraid of. If someone laughs at you or says that you are no good, will you die? Will it even be true? Do you really believe it, and if so, then maybe the problem is not the fear, but instead your own lack of belief in yourself.

So many of my fears want me to say "no." And the fears win.

I haven't written in my novel for two weeks. I find other things to do that inch around the block, inch around my own desire to be creative, my own commitment to writing a novel. I write in my blog. I write in my journal. I paint a picture. I decorate my living room. I research poetry magazines and publishing. I search on line for interesting blogs.

It's like I am living my life with a little mutt at my heels. Yi!-yi!-yi!-yi!-yi! And I'm going about my day trying to ignore it, maybe feeding it little tidbits now and then that quiet the yapping. Maybe what I really need to do is to put on my jack boots and stomp on the mutt. Silence it once and for all. Or maybe I should pick it up and love it. Put it on my lap and let it sleep in warmth and comfort as I actually sit and write in my novel, allow inspiration to come because I can finally understand the whispers that I couldn't hear over the crying of my mutt-self-fears. Actually sit and write, that's what I need to do.

(No animals were harmed in the making of this blog.)

Perfectly Imperfect

The sooner we come to accept that we are all imperfect, that we are not always right, that we make mistakes and can be less than ideal in our choices, attitudes, desires and actions, the better we will be at being imperfect.

The better we will be at being... ahh! HUMAN.

It's kinda cool to be a human, stumbling along in the darkness, one foot in front of the other, occasional flashes of insight and vision-- like walking a country road in the middle of a midnight thunder storm. Frightening and dangerous, but thrilling.

It's so easy to be afraid of the darkness-- it's the unknown, the always-potential for the unexpected. The night hunters live there, and so do the pebbles that twist your ankle and bring you to your knees. But in the darkness are the stars, and the sound of the crickets, and the cool dew, the silvery light of the moon that makes everything gentle.

So what if we can accept the darkness inside of ourselves-- hurtling toward self destructiveness and apathy, destroying our own dreams ourselves because of the unknown that could come, the critics, the mistakes, the failures-- and also, strangely, the success, the love, the joy.

All that is unknown, too, and sometimes more scary than failure. It's much safer to stay where everything is familiar and known-- manicured and domesticated. That's where life is comfortable, where we have sanitized all the wildness and dark potential from it. Safe, comfortable because it is all planned out and set. A clear road, straight down the middle. We think everything will be predictable, no danger, no shocks-- heh, heh, like life is ever predictable.

Choosing to leave secure teaching for an unknown career in the arts was a wide-open, light of day choice. I knew that I was heading into a thing that challenged me, where I didn't feel secure, where the outcome was unknown. But I faced the knowledge that there was something wild and untamed inside of me that the rules and have-to's of the board of ed did not value. I valued it, more than I valued following somebody else's rules. And I also faced the knowledge that it was my fear that I wasn't good enough that kept me from diving whole-heartedly into art and writing.

That's the fear of the unknown. The darkness.

Maybe we try to keep the light and the dark too separate from eachother. We choke our lives with rules and boundaries, trying to keep it known and accepted and understood, and we run from the darkness back to the safety.

Maybe what we need to do is to try and illuminate the darkness in our lives, shine the light into it and begin to understand what it is this pain and unknown is made of. Maybe we also need to allow some of the darkness into our manicured lives. Like compost, the rotting bones of what we discard, it can only make our lives richer and deeper.

There's nothing wrong with order. There's also nothing wrong with wildness and imperfection. We're made of both, and the more we try to ignore and reject one or the other, maybe the less whole and imperfectly complete we are.

Perfect, Happy, Zen Goddess

Don't for an instant think that I am some zen buddha-like goddess. I am moody and lazy. I get pissed and spout off. I avoid the things I am afraid of and embrace all that is escapist. I get this place between my eyes and my ears where sometimes things get all tight and hot and I think everyone, everything is just stupid and nobody does anything right. I curse. I ignore people. I sleep too late and don't eat enough so I have no energy. I don't take care of myself, sometimes I don't even take care of my cats. I am in debt up to my ears and don't feel terribly motivated to get it all settled. I am a royal slob, and a minor snob. I am not nearly as nice as I used to be before I learned that boundaries were what kept people from walking all over you-- and that I don't have to waste my time with people I am not all that interested in. I make snap judgements, and I waffle in indecision.

In short, I am human.

Maybe some of my previous posts give this impression that I am totally at peace with myself and my world. I know what is important and am headed right to it.

So not true.

Today at worked sucked. Not in a oh-how-can-this-day-get-any-worse way, but in a kind of up and down, I'm-just-kind-of-pissed way. I felt out of it and disconnected. No reason for it. No attempt to see the grander, more meaningful side of life. I was not the better person. I was just a regular person.

And that's what I wanted to post, today. I came home and straight to my blog, no email, no surfing.

I was pissy and disconnected, annoyed by drunks and small tips and stupid waitresses (I am not even amending that to "shy and timid") and selfish bosses and macho busboys.

I did not have moments of enlightenment or existential understanding.
It was just a day.

And that's okay.

Hey, yeah. It is.

Maybe the myth of being happy is that it is this constant, ecstatic flow, or atleast this continual contentment, but maybe it's not. Like what a customer said about being an artist. He said "People think making art is always this orgasmic thing, and sometimes it is, but mostly, it's just a lot of work." Maybe happiness works like that, too. Maybe happiness is work-- or at least effort.

Maybe being happy means letting the being pissed go, even if it's fun to get pissed at things that don't matter. Maybe being happy means actually stopping to pay attention to what it all means and what it could mean, and rearranging your attitude until it's in a place where you can find a beautiful meaning again. Look at me, I'm back to being zen-Rowena again.

But then, you don't know how good it felt to realize that it was okay if my day was sucky, and I didn't have to be perfect, happy, zen goddess.

Being normal-- like letting out the breath held too long.

I am not a poet but a poem

this quote by Jaques Lacan.

The snow today, promised, finally came.

I watched it fall from my spot behind the bar. The restaurant, warm and cozy, with a bustle of business, but not too much. No one bothered me because they all had tables to wait. No conversations because my friends weren't working today. It was okay. I stood in the corner of the bar, watching the snow fall through the window and writing. Snowfall, rainfall, sleetfall-- New York sky crap that couldn't decide what it was. Occasionally an order for a margarita.

I talked with these two art students from Pratt. They were here for a term from London. They told me how hard it was going to be to go back to England. "Why?" I asked, I didn't know.
"It's so hard to live in London," they said, surprise to me, I always thought it was New York that was hard to live in. "No, no. It's hard to get around there, it's ugly, it's not safe."
"You get the feeling that it isn't made for you," the guy said.
"So," I said, "You're saying New York is a more humanitarian city."

"Yes, Yes it is," they said, "and the people are so nice."
--

So take a look again. Seen from another perspective, what you thought about a thing-- like New York being unpleasant and hard (especially in this cold, harsh winter,)-- can be something not. Something new. Something wonderful.
--

That night, people came out of the cold into the candle lit and glowy restaurant, brushing snow and unwinding scarves, beatific smiles on their faces.
--

The shift settled down into drunken jokes and mild flirtations before we closed the door on last call. I made more money than expected, but not great money, and cleaned up the bar. I had to wait a long time for the rest of the staff to finish their duties, so I could close the register and go home, but it was kind of a nice night, I didn't want to get stressed over nothing, over a delay of a few minutes where I could sit with my feet up on a stool, a hoegaarden on the bar infront of me, writing a few lines in my journal.

The night was over and I waited. And then I bundled up and wandered out into the street.

Truly, Brooklyn was beautiful. Cold, yes, but gentle. Snow always does that. And the dark was this not-dark, reflecting back all the lights from the city in this gauzy gray. Cement streets softly folded in white.

I walked home-- a short walk-- just drinking it all in. Middle of the night, and still safe alone. I remembered when that wasn't the case. I don't want to be dissatisfied with my life. I could be so unhappy right now. No money, no boyfriend, crappy job, debt, cold, no career, no connections. I'm starting all over again. It's hard.

But I want to be here now. This is my life I'm talking about, and this is vitally important. Mine is to me. Yours is to you. Maybe even we all are to eachother.

The more I am focused on what isn't there in my life, on what I lack, the less I will be able to see what is there. The beauty. The poem. The chance met encounter, the chance spoken phrase that sets the whole shebang into momentary, thrilling synchronicity.

Just for a moment, because I think that's all we can really handle. Because we have to lock the door and put on the gloves and buy cat food, and duck our heads away from the crazy guy who knows us so we don't want him to notice us, and walk home through the snow so we don't slip and fall.

And yet... We can still catch that moment of wonder in motion around us, like a reminder maybe, that, yeah, life IS good.

Make it Mean Nothing at All

They say there's more snow coming. What a winter.

I miss being able to be outside, walking around the streets. Maybe sitting in Union Square, painting and people watching. Or in Verb Cafe on Bedford-- the main strip of Williamsburg. It's like everyday's a parade.

I love to walk around and just be open to whatever's out there. Whether that's new graffiti on the walls or someone who might say hi, or the new art books lying on the table in the bookstore. Grab a cup of coffee and sit down in a garden with my journal, or my little watercolor set. Or open up my laptop (alas, now crashed) and write pages in my novel when I am not staring out the window at the people passing.

Even talking about it I get nostalgic. Oh... if only...

As if it were a life I couldn't be a part of now.

All right, the wind chill is 25 below. Not much walking around, but I think it's more the being open that is where the inspiration comes from.

I don't really know if I am open, right now. Not for art, anyway. Sometimes I think you have to take care of living, first. Does that make sense?

Someone, a while ago, caught up in the drama and tragedy of being an artist, said that art was life. I suppose that's a beautiful, passionate statement, but I piped up and said, "No it's not!" into their horrified, insulted faces. "Art is NOT life, art is the interpretation of life."

Life happens-- you live it, or it grows, or it dies or whatever, and then we think about it and feel about it and put it on paper or canvas or in song or movement, or film, or so on. We make meaning out of what life has given us. It's possible that without art we would be a lot more confused about life than we are. Even though a good book or movie, even a documentary feels like life, it's still just someone's translation of what it means to live. All of that is just an illusion of life, but it isn't actually life.

For that matter, neither is science or math-- that's more like measuring life. All the other stuff, history, sociology, psychology-- that's making meaning of life, too, while keeping up the illusion that it's science. Don't get mad. If you think that history isn't nearly as made up (sometimes more so) than fiction, take a look at a text book from the forties. Yikes.

It's absolutely why I sarted writing a journal twenty years ago. How anyone makes it through their teens and twenties without some sort of tangible meaning-making is beyond me.

So here I am now, living in this cold winter, trying to make meaning of it???
Am I getting meaning out of it? Are you?

Maybe I'm making it like some sort of hibernation. I don't really need to be making art right now, it's winter. Hey, it was good enough for Persephone. (BTW- myth, religion, also a way to make meaning.)

Maybe I will choose to make it mean nothing at all. Maybe I actually AM making art, and am just being a perfectionist about not doing enough. Maybe my every thought, action and word is actually going into the soup of my novel and I will sit down when I come home from bartending tonight and write fifteen pages before 5a.m.. It could happen, especially if I don't have it in my head that I am NOT making art because I'm hibernating (or lame, or lazy, or blocked, or not good enough, or stupid, or not a real artist/writer at all.[the meaning-making for why I am not doing what I want to do is legion-- and it's also kind of an excuse for why I don't have to do it at all. Hmm...])

Maybe the wind will blow, and the clouds will hurdle in to cover the moon, the snow will fall and blanket the streets. And tomorrow the sun will rise, and then the world will be full of all sorts of possibility for action and thought and experience.

How's that for meaning making?

I'm no longer looking for an escape hatch. I like this funny earth suit I'm in.

The above quote is by odiouswoman. A great enough quote that she deserves to be in my links section. Plus she writes about the zen of running. And I was talking about the zen of running being like the zen of writing. So. I like.

And let me just say, it's scary not looking for an escape hatch.

Hmm. Maybe I should change that around. Because if I like this funny earth suit, and I do, then, maybe I should like right where I am, and maybe it's not so much SCARY, this no escape-hatch thing, maybe it's exciting. Maybe it's an adventure.

Oh, yeah. Adventure.

Maybe it'll be kind of fun jumping around and spinning and trying to find out the limitations of this earth suit. Maybe it's a suit like Batman puts on. Maybe it has all sorts of gadgets and power.

The power to hope for good things.
The power to roll with the punches.
The power to draw good people to me.
The power to see beyond the predictable and leap into the void.

And, oh yeah, the power to fly.

Mission in Life?

This weather is killing us. I am quite ready for May, enough of this "coldest winter in 25 years."

Not only is it killing us with frigid temperatures and shivering bones and wicked colds that EVERYONE is getting, but man, business sucks.

Everybody wants to stay in and cuddle under the covers. Who wants to come out to a mexican restaurant and have frozen margaritas? The manager is too optimistic and keeps putting all these people on staff-- 5 people this Saturday, and the restaurant really isn't that big. It's hard to make your long hours worth it. And maybe the eighty dollars will be a drop in the bucket for the rent, but seriously. There's nothing like the "waiting" part of waiting tables to make you bored out of your skull.

So we had to pass the time somehow, and most of that was in mindless conversation.

And yet... maybe it's a reminder that even a day that you write off as a waste can be important to your life.

In the middle of one of these casual, off the cuff conversations with my coworkers, I said, "my mission in life is to inspire people." I said it without any premeditation, without any deep significant meaning to it, not intentionally. It just popped right out of my mouth, and after I said it, I had to think about it.

My mission in life is to inspire people.

I don't think I'd ever really brought it together like that. But everything I've been doing for the last seven years has been about that.

I've been following my life and what feels right, and I've known that I have something I have to do in my life, without ever knowing quite, exactly what that was.

Who knew a boring day waiting tables would be the last piece I needed to drop into place so I could see the whole picture?

Chrysalis

Life is strange. You never really know what it is that is going to make things go POP!

I've been working on making this life change for a long time now. Taking action for, oh, six or seven months. And things have happened, but somehow, I always felt as if there were something almost blocking my way-- like a veil or a thin skin. I could see through it, sort of, see the shadows of my life-to-be on the other side, moving and shifting. I could see the shapes of things, but no details. And after all this work, I was confused and frustrated over why I just couldn't reach through.

But one day, after I came home from a long shift of bartending, I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I took my hair down out of my requisite ponytail, and it just fell around my face in way that made me see something new.

"That's it," I said to myself. "That's how I want my hair cut."

So I pulled it back into a pony tail, and I cut it off. At the first snip of the scissors, I went, "Oh my god, I can't believe I am doing this." But then I shrugged and went ahead. I cut and shaped and shortened until it was this kind of punky, kind of almost a bob cut, longer in front than in back.

Hair is a big deal-- don't let anyone tell you differently. How you wear it identifies you with your community and states your life style. It can even communicate your beliefs about life and religion, and all sorts of things. It is also very linked with sensuality, sexuality and being a woman.

Now I had long, layered, wavy hair-- shiny and raven colored. Big identity statement. Very girly, like a mane, even in a pony-tail. Almost Farrah-ish if Farrah were a brunette. Men always told me to keep it long.

But something about that night said, "okay, it's time."

You have no idea how differently people react to me now. It's bizarre. People are fascinated-- and it's not just about looks or the outward show, but it's almost as if they think they can see something of my insides, of who I am, and they are drawn to it.

I spent a long time trying to minimize my appearance. I am a pretty girl. I have always been a pretty girl. It pissed me off that some people could only see the package, and often didn't respect the human inside. So I wore baggy clothes, hid my face behind hair, used no or minimal makeup. But that's one of the things that's great about getting older, you start to grow into your own skin, get comfortable in there, even with things like beauty, or chubby thighs, or being too short. So, I am pretty, okay. There's nothing shameful about it. And why not embrace it? But I can be pretty while also being unique, while also showing that I am not just a pretty girl.

As I have been working on my internal transformation, and my lifestyle change, I have also been tweaking my appearance. And there's something about cutting all my hair off that has allowed the world to see what has been going on inside. Don't ever believe that what you present to the world doesn't matter. It's almost as if a lot of the internal developments aren't really real until the people around you recognize them as real.

You know, maybe I am selling my insides short. (that's a funny line.)

Maybe all these people who are telling me how much I have blossomed and changed really are seeing more than just a new haircut and a playfulness with clothing.

Maybe they are seeing me scrape off the veil, the skin that has been covering who I really am, and seeing me emerge into myself.

Maybe the external show is me no longer being afraid to be myself, to present who I am to the world.

Hmmm. Butterfly wings.

Maybe they're not as insubstantial and unimportant as I thought.

Last night was our final WE meeting. WE is, was my women's group. Women Empowered through Reflection and Creativity. We've been doing it for three years or so. It's been pretty powerful, being a part of it, and also being one of the leaders.

It's been pretty confrontational, too. Confrontational about my own ambitions and expectations, my needs and identity.

See, it just started out as a bunch of women getting together to explore themselves and their own creativity. A lot of us were teachers. We began the group shortly after the World Trade Center went down, and I think a lot of us were looking for something more.

In the beginning, the group was just about exploring and expressing, but as we went on, and the group changed form and members, I found myself wanting more from the group, more from myself. I began to take on more of a leadership role.
I began to think that I could do something here. There was something important going on. We were using creativity-- painting, writing, poetry, story telling, dance, skits, movement, journals, all of it-- to understand who we were, to reach our goals, to explore our potential. This was a great, and meaningful idea.

As the years went on, the group settled into a pretty steady group of women, and we went into some serious territory-- parents, fear, sex, body image, forgiveness. Using art and journaling and discussion and meditation to dive deep and make realizations and have breakthroughs.

But I was changing, too. I think in part because of the group, but also because I was growing, growing into my life, into the life I wanted, and out of the life I already had.

I was teaching, and feeling trapped there. I wanted to be a writer and an artist, and I had no idea how to manage that.

I think, for a while, I was trying to make my group become what I needed so that I could reach my goals of being an artist. Now, if you think about it, that doesn't seem like such a bad thing-- we were there to support eachother, and that was the kind of support I needed, but I think I forgot something.

In my belief that everyone can be an artist, and everyone is creative by their nature, and the arts are an important aspect of being a human, I think I may have forgotten that not everyone wants to BE an artist. And I mean Artist, with a capital A.

Becoming, being, an artist is a choice. It is about dedicating yourself to that path. I wanted to walk down that path, and I think I sometimes expected the members of my group to walk down the path with me-- despite the fact that they had all of their own paths to tread. I was very dissappointed, and felt unsupported when they didn't want to go with me. Sometimes they fought me, hard.

And you know what? The group DID change. We did start taking ART more seriously. It did start to head towards an art group, not an empowerment group.

I got a lot out of that. I created this art book that really helped me to go deep into myself, have break throughs, and grow into my new skin. And at least one other person did the same, coming to the realization, long buried, that she , too, wanted to BE and Artist. But the group fell apart.

It seems it was too much commitment. Too much work. Too much homework.

And not enough of their lives.

So, after the last meeting, I've come to the realization that perhaps I forgot what I wanted to give other people while I was so busy trying to reach what I wanted for myself. I still believe that art and reflection can give to people a deeper understanding of their own lives. I still believe that it's really important. Honestly, I use all the techniques I teach people to create my own art.

I don't know if we will start up another WE-- Women Empowered through Creativity and Reflection. We probably will. I'm almost glad, though, that the last one has ended. The fact that it did end, that I could look at it, not from deep inside the politics and emotions of the group, but rather from a distance, is what helped me understand a little bit more about how the group-- running it and being a part of it-- has helped me grow into me.

So what if love doesn't die?

What if all the people that you have loved remain your loves? And maybe they even stay a part of you.

I'm not saying that it stays the same between you and them. Obviously, things change. You aren't who you were back then, and neither are they. Maybe you would never "get back together" but that doesn't mean you don't love that person. Even if they were a jerk to you, it doesn't take away the things that made you love them in the first place.

For some reason, this whole idea makes me feel good. You can love people and not be with them. And there are many different ways to love.

And maybe that love sinks in, becomes something more inside of you. It's kind of a nice idea that who you are has been added to by all those loves. You haven't lost anything, even when things break up, you still come out of the situation larger than when you went in.

Poop

You know, sometimes, art feels like poop.

I mean that in the most respectful way.

It’s like you have something in your gut trying work its way out. And then when its ready—out it comes!

That’s not to say that it is magic and it comes out of nothing. It comes out of what you put into your body (your life) Food, water, drugs. It comes out of your health, your hormones, your body chemicals and the working of your organs.

I know, sometimes I feel constipated. Sometimes it’s more like diarrhea (luckily, with art poop, you can’t die of diarrhea and the dehydration that comes with it. There’s always plenty of that stuff) Sometimes, it’s like I’m an anorexic and I have been putting nothing into myself, and so nothing comes out.

I would like to be regular.

Nurses always talk about being regular. I know fiber has something to do with it. I wonder what the art equivalent of fiber would be?

I live in just about the hippest neighborhood in America. The heart of the art/music/night life scene. Everyone is dressed in cutting edge fashion-- the kind fashion designers steal-- excuse me, are inspired by. Everyone has spiky hair, or retro hair, or retro shoes, or spiky shoes. Or all of the above. Everyone knows where to go and who to speak to. Clubs open late, close later. Drugs and drink and sex. People hang in cafes, in bars, on street corners. Even the subway is a fashion show, a who-you-know, an underground (literally) club with live music.

Cool of cool.

I look around and wonder what the hell is going on.

Why is being an artist all about what you look like, where you drink, who you know? I know that art and music and theater and dance are not all about the surface. Art takes hard work, and a lot of thought, and dedication, and soul. How did it get translated into shallowness and "cool?" Scene?

I'm pretty mystified as to how all this works. Give me a picture to paint, and I'll do it. I'll read my poems. I'll sing a song. I'll even act in a play or dance in a show. Isn't that what it takes to be an artist? So then, why all the show? It's like Barnum and Bailey. It's all about the hype.

I'll call myself on my own hypocrisy.

I fit in. The hair and make up. Spiky retro spiky. But I don't want to forget that I'm not selling rabbits being pulled out of a hat. Maybe I've got a little flash and dazzle, but I want to remember that magic is real, and that's what is going on when I paint.

I've decided that I don't want to be sarcastic and pessimistic about everything. I don't want to go for dry, tongue-in-cheek diatribes about how everything sucks. I see it everywhere, and that is what is "cool." To put down everyone else's flaws and foibles--

--Which is what I'm doing now. Except I'm diatribing the diatribes.

I don't think everything sucks. Diatribes can be funny or insightful. And sometimes cool is just, well.. cool.

Maybe I'm just really afraid that I'm doing something wrong. Maybe I'm afraid that I'm a little bit of a geek and not cool enough myself. Or maybe I'm really afraid to admit to people that I do believe in magic, and in hope, and in happy ever fucking after-- what if they think then that I'm the sap? Maybe I'm afraid I'm boring or talk too much or have nothing of interest to say in the first place.

It's much easier to make yourself superior to other people, to laugh at people and put them down, than admit your own fear. Not YOU. ME. That's what I'm doing. Talking about how superficial they all are, and how I am so righteous to be real. Maybe I'm just as full of it as they are. Look at me, I have to keep catching my own bullshit.

I can't be worried about following fashions. I can't be worried about being everything but fashionable. None of that is real. I've just gotta go by what feels right, and if it's not popular, oh well, at least it'll be true to me.

It's a lot harder to do that than it seems. And really scary, too.

100 THINGS ABOUT ME

1. I am a native New Yorker
2. I enjoy telling people that I am from the Bronx, because nobody expects it
3. I am the middle child of three—an older sister and a younger brother (plus an older half brother who didn’t grow up with us._
4. I am 33 but am still constantly carded.
5. I was named after the Anglo Saxon princess in Ivanhoe
6. I am Puerto Rican, Spanish, English, French, German and Welsh—(the Puerto Rican is Spanish, African and Taino Indian, so I’m adding that, too.)
7. I enjoy being multi cultural—a Bronx mutt.
8. I hated New York when I was a kid.
9. Now, I have to admit that I am home, and I love it.
10. I live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
11. I’d still like to live in the country.
12. I have no living grandparents left.
13. My grandfather used to have a chicken farm in Pennsylvania that I spent every summer at when I was little.
14. I cried myself to sleep for a year when he sold it and moved to Florida.
15. I love swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.
16. My little brother and my mom, and her brothers and my cousin all live in Florida.
17. My Dad and his brothers and my sister and some of my cousins all live in the New York Metro area.
18. My closest cousin defected and moved to L.A.
19. My dad’s mother, the Puerto Rican, came from a long line of Taino curanderas (healers and wisewomen).
20. I read tarot cards and do dream analysis and am empathic.
21. I believe that being an artist is close to being godly—creating something out of nothing.
22. I decided to be a writer when I was fifteen, and started writing a fantasy novel.
23. I’ve been reading fantasy and science fiction since I was 12.
24. It is still my favorite form of escapism…
25. But I am much more discriminating in the quality of writing since I got my bachelors degree in English with a concentration in creative writing.
26. That means I can’t ever find fantasy and science fiction books that are good enough to keep my attention—so when I find a good author, I read all of her books over and over voraciously.
27. Right now, my favorite fantasy author is Robin Hobb.
28. Her next book comes out in ten days and I can hardly wait.
29. I also play dungeons and dragons.
30. I don’t like clubbing or getting drunk off my ass.
31. I’m kind of a geek.
32. I’m also finally comfortable with the fact that I am hot and gorgeous and sexy
33. I am, however, still single.
34. I can’t figure out why.
35. Since I quit teaching, I have been dressing sexier and funkier.
36. I love to shop for vintage clothing—it’s like hunting and gathering—and everything you find is unique and not like what everyone else is wearing.
37. Fashion is my hidden passion.
38. I am addicted to magazines—fashion, home, entertainment, poetry, art—whatever is there.
39. I don’t like the news, it’s depressing, but if it’s there, I’ll read that too.
40. Have I said I’m addicted to reading?
41. I’m also addicted to television.
42. This is not a good habit for someone who wants to be a writer and an artist and should be spending her time at home on this work.
43. I always have too many projects on the burner.
44. I am writing a novel, a non fiction book on creativity and transformation, my Blog, my handwritten journal, poetry. I am finishing up my art book based on Winesburg Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson, starting a new one based on Alice in Wonderland. I would like to paint my own tarot deck. I am starting a creativity consulting business with my friend Patty, teaching/participating in a women’s group called WE—women empowered through reflection and creativity. I am working as a waitress and bartender to pay my rent, and I am doing this 100 things about me list.
45. I could make every entry as long as #44.
46. My biggest wish right now is that I didn’t have to have a day job.
47. My real biggest wish right now is to fall totally in love with a guy who is in love with me and start a home with him.
48. I really want to have children and am afraid I am running out of time.
49. Not to be corny, but, I think children are our future.
50. Actually I did write # 49 to be corny.
51. But I do believe that it’s today’s children who will make tomorrow’s world better.
52. I really loved teaching, but if I had stayed teaching, # 44 would be all about teaching, and probably twice as long.
53. I quit teaching to be true to myself and my art.
54. I still consider myself a teacher, even though I’m a bartender.
55. I was teaching the day the World Trade Center fell down.
56. The class was doing silent journal writing when the plane went over our building. Only I and Jason Ye, 16 years old, heard it. We looked at each other, but didn’t know what it was so went back to writing.
57. Our classroom windows faced away, so we didn’t see anything, but instead watched the people on the roofs and fire escapes scream in horror as the buildings went down.
58. I think September 11th changed New York City for the better.
59. And maybe the world.
60. I think being a teacher changes the world.
61. I always try to get people to become teachers.
62. I’m in huge debt, mostly because of the education needed to become a New York City public school teacher.
63. I’ve been thinking about applying to Cooper Union to get a degree in Art. If you get in, it’s free.
64. My dad was an artist—he has a master’s degree from Columbia University’s film school.
65. And yet, we still managed to grow up on welfare, or poorer than welfare.
66. I don’t know how to drive.
67. The subway or a taxi will take me most places I want to go.
68. My middle name is Maxine
69. This is getting harder than I thought it would get.
70. I have just started writing for Block magazine, a neighborhood newspaper.
71. I am not getting paid for it.
72. I write gallery reviews.
73. I have hundreds of poems.
74. I have never published them.
75. That’s not quite true.
76. I self published a limited edition chapbook of poems, paintings and prose that all came from my journal in the year 2001—the year I fell in love, got my heart broken and watched the World Trade Center fall. It’s interesting how public and private tragedies feel somewhat similar.
77. It’s called “That Which Rises.”
78. One of my students stole the only finished copy that I kept. Stole it right out of my classroom.
79. I hoped they liked it a lot if they went through all that trouble.
80. I have to get more organized so I can send all my poems out to magazines.
81. I was getting there, but I lost all my work when my laptop crashed.
82. I lost my novel, too.
83. I knew I should have saved to something, but I didn’t.
84. I learned to always save.
85. But I still don’t.
86. I’m rather smart, despite #85.
87. I’m pretty low tech, so this whole on line stuff is a bit confusing. I wish I understood it better.
88. I kind of like being so low tech and having a blog. It gives a different view point.
89. A bar patron told me I was “a thinker.”
90. Uh, that’s a little bit of an understatement.
91. Sometimes, I’d rather stay at home reading and writing and thinking than go out just to go out.
92. Maybe that’s why I’m still single.
93. I believe that we should all be judged by the content of our character, and by our actions.
94. But I cannot deny that what we present on the surface is important, and actually reflects what is inside.
95. What that means is that I am looking for a sexy genius—someone whose light shines through—inner and outer beauty, self confidence, sense of humor, kindness, style, intelligence, creativity, spirituality—you know, everything.
96. I can’t wait to see what is going to happen next in my life.
97. I believe the unexamined life is not worth living
98. but we shouldn’t stop with simply examining it—love it, expand on it, reach for happiness, make peace with it.
99. I believe in true love.
100.I believe anything is possible.

I saw this webring of these Hundred things about me pages. It got me going. Maybe I'll join up. If I can figure out how to do it. (see # 87)

The list is kind of a short hand me.

Try it yourself. It's a very interesting activity.

Who knew that starting a blog would get the writing juices flowing?

Who am I kidding? I should have known I'd get addicted to something like this. I know I've been writing these huge long pieces that I don't know if anyone will actually sit and wade through. What can I say? Even if no one reads them, they're working for me.

Everything I experience and read and see, I want to write about it. I'm starting to make lists of topics to tackle. Mwah ha ha ha. That's an evil cackle if you aren't aware of how it's spelled. I could end up writing all day long, torturing my readers with constant posts and the labrynthine twists and turns of my brain.

I want to start writing poetry again. I want to start writing my novel again. I feel less afraid of screwing it up, for some reason, since I've started the blog. Maybe it's just the physical habit of sitting and writing, the fingers moving over the keyboard, the necessary staring into space and letting the mind wander, the rereading and revising and editing, because, yes I edit these suckers at least three times before I send them out.

Maybe this is a lesson to myself and to everyone out there who wants to write or be creative. It takes practice. It takes stamina. It takes writing muscles. It's like being an athlete, really. You've got to train to do it. Maybe the training isn't lifting weights or running laps, but how the hell do you expect to create if you don't prepare the field? Read the wonderful things out there, pay attention to the startling details of life... oh, yeah, and writing, writing, writing.

Maybe the key to being a writer, to me being a writer, is to write so much that I don't have time between the keystrokes to get afraid and doubtful and insecure.

Not that I've ever, ever done this, but I've heard the hardest part of running a marathon is somewhere in the middle, when you're well started and the adrenaline from the start, and the energy from your freshness has gone away. I heard that somewhere in there, your muscles ache, your feet burn, your lungs strain-- but you just keep going, one step after the next, and then, and then, you finally become zen, you become the road, the motion, the air flowing in and around and through you.

Writing can be like that. In the first flush of the idea, I am ready to go, but somewhere in there, the doubts creep in. "This sucks. I suck. I can't do it. Why do I even try?" Right about then, Ricki Lake gets really fascinating. So do the dirty dishes and the bills piling up. And I really have to go to the corner store to get toilet paper. My ass hurts from sitting still and my hands cramp from typing. God I need coffee, and food, and a shower, and really, I should get out of the house so that I can meet people and do things, because do I really want to be a couch potato all day, all my life?

The equivalent of heel blisters and burning muscles.

In order to BE a writer, you really have to-- I mean, I really have to have the will and focus of a marathon runner. Damn, and I thought being an artist was different. Even physically-- that food requirement, really kind of necessary to keep up the work of making your brain create whole worlds out of nothing. (Is it really possible to do that on only caffeine, cream and sugar? [oh, Rowena, take care of yourself.])

It's funny, a lot of people think that in order to be an Artist, or to live the life of an artist, you have to drink alot, smoke a lot, take in drugs to alter the hold on your brain that your fears have. Me, I don't understand that. Okay, I understand the desire to find something to turn of the fears, like a magic pill, but drugs, drinking, even staying out all night and not getting enough sleep, that puts my body and brain into a state that really isn't up to marathon running.

Because I want to get to that state where I am on a natural high. Not high from foreign substances, but high from all the fire shooting through my brain, my body, my heart, and out onto the page.

I want to be in that state where each word written leads me to the next, and the next, and the next. (one foot infront of the last.)

I want to be in the state where I am so drawn into the world that I am creating in my story or my poem or my painting, for that matter, that if the phone rings, I jump.

I want to be in that state where I AM the story, or the poem, or the painting, or the dance, or the song.

MMMM. Have you ever been there? That state? So much better than being drunk.

It is delicious.

I'm an artist, as well as a writer. I've had a hard time in my life, trying to find a way to mix the two. I decided I wanted to be a writer around the same time I decided I didn't want to be a professional artist. I never wanted to put myself or my family, when i had one, through what my father (the photographer, the filmmaker, the arTIST) put us through. An artist couldn't earn a living. Making money off of art was impossible. I thought.

Strange that I've never connected the two things before, I wanted to be a fashion designer for the longest time-- through junior high school and the first couple of years of high school-- and then, didn't want to be in art anymore. In fact, I went to a college that specifically wasn't an art school. Art was work, I wanted to write stories and poetry and novels and all that stuff. I even tried to give art up. Really I did. It lasted for about four months before I realized it wasn't something I did, it was something I was.

I tell you, that's a realization. Because if you ARE something like that, then you can't possible let yourself be half assed about it. Okay, fine, I couldn't. I wanted to really get into what art was. I wanted power. But I hadn't a clue how to get it. I had been taught "pretty." I knew how to draw, how to compose, how to use color, how to draw a picture that pretty much looked like what I was trying to draw-- but what the hell did it mean? What was I trying to say? I wanted to stop drawing what I saw. Stop drawing the surface.

Ironically, at the same time, I was being taught that with poetry and fiction, I should stop trying to tell everyone what I wanted them to know, and start trying to SHOW them. Show don't tell. Show don't tell. Write the surface???? And that was supposed to help us know what was being written about?

Interesting. With an art form that was about showing the physical reality (atleast classically) I wanted to find out how to show the internal reality-- the feelings and thoughts and emotions behind the pretty face. With an artform that was created solely from ideas, (and what else are words but ideas that we pass to another person?) I wanted to find out how to make them solid and concrete and real enough to have a surface to experience.

Honestly, I've never seen this connection quite so clearly.
Ahh, the power of words, that stringing a few together could change how you view the world.

I think I have understood words much better than I have understood art. I mean, I was an English teacher, that helped me understand what words were about a lot more.
Only recently have I devoted enough time and energy to art to go deeper into it. To travel into it whether I understood it or not.
I have been making a book-- no, not a book of words, a book of art. Well, yes, words, too, but they were there to begin with. I'm taking a published book of Sherwood Anderson, called "Winesburg Ohio," and painting over all the pages. I keep some words, and all the chapter titles. In fact, I make his chapter titles be my art titles, and they all have to connect, in some way with my life. It hasn't been easy. It's been a journey and a challenge, but I am almost done and am really proud of it.

I've been showing it to people. As many people as I could, and the response has been outrageous. I've seen their eyes as they turn the pages. I've seen them stop on a word, and laugh, as if it makes sense to them, too. I've seen the looks on their faces, as if they believed they could, too, they could paint, they could write, they could share who they are inside with the world.

I think they understand that it is the story of my life-- not my whole life, just the last few months. I think they get it on a level that is NOT about words. The words there are don't tell the story, the hint at pieces of it, maybe, but the story is in the images, and the images hit on a level deeper than words.

I don't know where they come from. Even when I am painting them, it's almost like they are from deep inside my gut, or way out above my head. And I think that's where people GET them. Not where we're used to thinking, a part of us that's primal, maybe, or maybe enlightened. I can't figure out which-- maybe both. Is that even possible?

Someone told me today that when he first read my book, his mother had just died, and something in it just connected. It meant something to him. I don't know what it meant to him. It's probably not the same thing it meant to me when I did it. Or maybe it is. Maybe human emotion is really that similar.

Someone also offered to buy it. For three hundred dollars. If it were ten years ago, I probably would have taken her up on it. But today, I recognize that this book is my life. My future as an artist. Well, no, not my whole future, but the begining of it. It's worth much more than three hundred, or even five hundred cash (her next offer).
A world class curator wants to see it when I am done.
Someone I know knows a publisher who might want to print it.
There's a place I know where I could get a grant to live for a year, just for doing it (and I'd get to TEACH, too! Teach artist's books! [am I psycho to get excited about that prospect?]).
I kind of like the idea of putting it on line, so anyone who wants can log on and turn the pages. The intimacy of that is almost like holding it in your hands and being able to touch the pages. I don't really know enough about technology to do that right now, but I'm thinking about it.

It's wierd that after so many years, I might actually be starting out on a career as an artist. A fine artist, not commercial. The kind who wear berets and drink red wine. It's kind of exciting.

I think I have to get me a beret.

Here's something I've been having a question about.
When you tell people about yourself, how much do you share?

I mean, we walk around wearing masks pretty much all the time. We play roles with everyone we know, everyone we meet. Maybe sometimes we decide who we're gonna be, say in our heads, "I'm going to be a rockstar," or "I don't want to be noticed." But maybe sometimes, we aren't even aware that we are wearing a mask, we're so used to wearing it.

It's comfortable and safe behind that mask. You only let out the parts of you you're sure about. You only let in the parts that aren't going to hurt you. Armor. A shield. And frankly, if you only ever show people these little parts of yourself, then they can never really judge you and find you lacking or wrong. Even if they do think not so highly of you, you know that really, they don't know who you really are, so who the hell cares? Minimizing risk, that's what it is.

I have a friend who, when we went to a party, could always tell which guy I liked, because I stayed as far away from him as the limits of the room would let me. She would watch me circle closer and closer over the course of the night until maybe, maybe I could say a few words or start a conversation. I never even had to tell her, she could always tell who I wanted because I stayed away from him.

I think it's terribly frightening to actually declare to people what it is that you want. Really want. Specifically want. Not abstractly, as in "someday I want to fall in love with a great guy and get a novel published," but naming names and dates and all.

I'd rather talk intellectually about what it means to love, than say how confused I got today when this bar customer who flirts outrageously with me, and whom I flirt back with, came into the restaurant with a girl. A beautiful girl who I've met in the neighborhood and is really cool. I mean, why? Why her and not me? What exactly is it that makes someone choose one person over or another?

And honestly, that's not to say that he didn't come up to me and chat me up, playing the game I suppose, seeing "what if?", keeping me on the line. I don't even know if I WANT that guy, but, you know what? I wouldn't mind the chance to find out.

I wonder about this girl with that guy. Does she know how to play the game better? Was it just chance? Did she open up where I closed down and retreated to my mask, in effect, saying "no"? I've been known to do that.

As for the games, I don't want to play. The kind of love I want is the kind where I and whomever don't wear those masks. Where we are real and authentic, and accept each other for who we are, rotten teeth and all. Not only that, but the kind of love in which we are INSPIRED and FIRED by what is behind those masks-- by the real, pulsating humanity of who we are for ourselves and for eachother. I want to be the kind of person who says "yes," to life.

But you know what that means? That means I have to be around the kind of people who are going to get it. Who aren't going to play games, or manipulate, or use, or disrespect. Because I've chosen to believe in life, and the existence of true love, yes I have. But I am not a fool, and there are people out there who will take advantage of people who say "yes" to life, who don't know how or when to say "no." Or who don't know how or when to tell people to back the fuck off because they're pushing boundaries they have no right to push.

It feels like some delicate balancing act-- drop the masks but keep the barriers. Say "yes" and "back off." And then trying to find out who people really are, getting to know them without scaring them off or boring them or being bored and/or scared-- everybody in their own balancing act-- mask, reveal, extend, push away, mask, reveal. Love me, fuck me, go away, come close.

We should set it all to music. An intricate extravaganza of people trying to find love, trying to find connection, trying to be safe, trying to belong somewhere.

Picture in your head that this is what's happening at a party, or in a bar or cafe or Barnes and Noble. Imagine all these people in this dance. It's like all of New York is the Cirque du Soleil. Cirque du Amor. (I don't speak French and am probably screwing it up) Imagine the fabulous costumes, the high wire acts, the contortionists, the lion tamers-- this is so close to real life that it's hardly even a metaphor. Love is a circus. Uh huh.

Raise your hand if you've noticed that I'm playing the dance my self.

Intellectualize it, turn it into poetry, and you don't have to reveal that when that guy with the smile and the eyes that lit up when he looked into yours, did NOT stop by to see you at the bar, though he said he would, twice, even when you thought you were making the effort, showing your interest, even when you looked hot and he kissed you goodbye on your cheek.

Stop.

Not "you." I. Me. My. This is my confusion. My fears. My desires.

Sorry to say, dear reader, but this whole thing is all about me. I hope you enjoy it, get something out of it, become inspired or enlightened, but mainly I'm trying to figure out this thing called me. This thing called my life.

So back to it. Reveal. Share. Understand. Drop the mask and stand naked. (Ignore the hairless chihuahua you find huddling there, "yii! yii! yii!", wanting to run away)

If I want love. If I want intimacy. If I want true connection, then I have to stop hiding.