Artist Envy

Do you ever wonder what it’s like inside someone else’s creative world? Are you a photographer who wishes she could write? Or a painter who wishes she could dance? Sometimes I am a writer who wishes she could paint or sing or sculpt. Of course, I realize I can learn about other media by taking a class or simply experimenting on my own. And often this sort of experimentation facilitates a kind of creative cross-pollination, in which trying out a new medium allows you to see your most familiar medium in a new light.

But sometimes I just get a little restless with the joys and challenges of working with words, the material I’ve been wrestling with since I learned to put pencil to paper. I begin to wonder whether life would be more exciting or whether my stories would be more effective if they were told through music or visual arts or dance.

I often feel this tinge of artist envy when I catch a glimpse of some of the interesting and beautiful spaces in which other artists sometimes work and the worn, tactile objects they use. For example, I love this book, Inside the Painter’s Studio, by Joe Fig, and I can’t wait to dive into Jennifer Causey’s new book, Brooklyn Makers.

Most of the time, I love that writing requires so little from the tactile realm—simply a pen and paper or a keyboard of any sort. Chalk on a sidewalk works too, or a finger tracing out letters in the sand. I love that I can write almost anywhere, as long as I can muster up the presence to hear the sound of my own voice inside my head.

But after a long stretch of arranging and rearranging letters on a page, black on white, line after horizontal line, I can’t help but daydream about the lives of artists whose creative worlds are made up of vibrant colors, infinite shapes, and rich textures. I can’t help but fantasize about artists whose days are brimming with sounds and movements far more diverse than the tapping of fingertips at a keyboard.

Similarly, when I received this collection of poems by Jorge Luis Borges as a gift a couple of years ago, I was confused at first, then shocked, then delighted. Borges is renowned for his brilliant, imaginative fiction, and I had no idea that he identified primarily as a poet throughout his life. Although poetry and fiction are, of course, crafted from the same material, I was surprised to learn that this author, who was so beloved for one form of his work, seemed to have left his heart in another.

How about you? If you are an artist or maker or creator of any sort, do you work in one medium, or multiple? Have you ever dreamed of switching lives with another artist for a day, or trading one format for another?

On place and pawpaws.

We slide the boat down the muddy bank and into the creek. The water is high and brown with silt from a heavy rain the night before. Scout, our black and white spotted pit bull mix, chases bobbing sticks and floating yellow leaves, his toenails clinking and hissing against the metal belly of the boat.  Jake paddles us along with an old kayak oar as I sit at the bow and scan the shore. We’re out looking for pawpaws this morning, a tropical tree fruit that looks like a mango and tastes like banana custard. I’d never heard of a pawpaw until moving back to Virginia. My curiosity was piqued, of course, by this curious sounding wild edible. We spot a thicket of pawpaw trees along the bank. They are thin-trunked and have big green leaves that look like floppy rabbit ears. Jake maneuvers the boat up to the shore and I grasp a branch in my hand then bend the whole tree gently over the boat. We pluck bunches of fruit from the limbs and I think of the word “bower.” I think of this word later when writing this column, too, when trying to describe the feeling of being closed in by the arch of a bent tree. I look up “bower” in the dictionary and I learn that it is also a word for an “anchor carried at a ship’s bow.” I like this very much, to have been within a bower made of pawpaw trees, and for the pawpaw tree to have also been a sort of bower in the other sense, anchoring us to the shore.

This experience made me recall a piece of writing I once read in Ecotone, a literary magazine about place, that’s published by the University of North Carolina in Wilmington. In the essay that came to mind---“Naming our Place”---David Gessner thinks on the relationship between words and things in nature. The part I thought of while picking pawpaws was this, which Gessner writes about Barry Lopez’s book Home Ground:

“Skim through this encyclopedia of terms for particular places, and if you’re  like me, your synapses will snap like popcorn. Just take the B’s, for instance: berm and biscuit and board and borderland and boreal forest and borrow pit and bosque and box canyon and braided stream.”

Add to that list bower, and my synapses do go pop!pop!pop! At the sound or sight of certain words I think of that morning on the creek. I think of the soft light filtered through the big rabbit ear leaves. I feel the silky pawpaw in my hand and taste its crème brulee-like pulp. I experience that sense of place for a second time, almost more clearly now as filtered through my imagination. It's thinking about the particular words for that place ---the bank of the creek, the bend of the tree, the shape of a bower---and  linking my experience and memories to those words, that focuses and clarifies my memories.

And that’s Gessner’s point, I guess, because he continues: “These are physical words describing physical places, and they have heft to them, and distinctness, and we can say of them what Emerson said of Montaigne’s sentences: ‘Cut them, and they will bleed.’”

I wonder if we could say of words about food:  “Eat them, and they will be tasty,” too?  While hearing or reading the word "pawpaw" may not literally fill me up, I'll still feel sated in a way.  Bower. Bank. Pawpaw. The words elicit a sense of a very particular place and time. Of balancing on my tip-toes in the bobbing boat and anchoring myself to shore, of the a cool round pawpaw smooth in my palm. I can't eat these words, but I can use them to tether me to that beautiful morning on the creek. And that, I think, is quite appetizing.

Kicked Out of Our Flat the First Day? Jolly Good Times!

The flight from New York to London is exactly long enough to get enough sleep as to be considered a night’s worth, and exactly short enough that this should be considered a travesty. I arrived at 9 am London time, better known as 4 am New York time, approximately 6.5 hours after I settled into seat, secured my neck pillow, sleeping mask and blanket---my arsenal of “I’m sleeping---don’t screw with me” devices. Zack met me at the airport with a rose, my name hand drawn on his phone. We picked our cat up at customs, where she was, if not content, remarkably nonplussed for having just crossed the Atlantic in a vibrating steel underbelly. We hopped in a black cab, which, because of the wondrous feats of British designs, fit all of us and my three bags nicely. (Fun fact: due to fold up chairs in the backseat area where I was storing my luggage, they all also are capable of carrying five people. Take note, NYC taxis.) We arrived at the flat Zack had found for us after three weeks of searching: a cheery, sunny two bedroom we’d be sharing with a PhD student in Kensington, an area you’d probably recognize from the quintessential, I’m-in-England montage in many movies. The streets were curved and lined with leafy trees; the houses a stately white, encircled with small wrought iron fences. It was, in a word, lovely. It was, in two words, too easy.

It was noon when disaster struck. In New York, people were just waking up, stretching their arms to the sky and inhaling the scent of coffee and street cleaners and the wisp of autumn that had recently begun to show itself. In London, Zack received a phone call. “It’s the letting agent,” he whispered to me after answering his phone. Zack had been subletting from the PhD student for the past week he’d been staying at the flat while waiting for the letting agent to call him back so we could officially sign the lease. I nodded and tried to keep my eyes open as Zack’s went wide. “What do you mean cats aren’t allowed?” he said. “I explicitly asked. I was told the landlord was 100% fine with that.” I looked at him questioningly and he held his pointer finger up. “The landlord doesn’t like men either?” Zack said into the phone. “Well, that’s just creepy.”

We had, we were told, 36 hours to remove ourselves from the flat before the landlord returned from his vacation, a trip to Poland taken out of the same fondness for Slavic women that caused him to ban Zack and others of his gender from the building. In New York, I would’ve been settling in front of my computer to read my favorite blogs before starting work, a full pot of tea and maybe a cat by my side. In London, Zack sighed and rubbed his temples. “Looks like we’re going apartment hunting,” he said. We are a couple with a cat. In the world of expensive, competitive apartment shares, we are what is considered “highly undesirable.” Like dating, highly undesirable is often met with highly undesirable. Any flat that looked halfway decent didn’t want us, leaving us with the kind of flat who might fart at dinner before ditching you with the check, the kind of flat that’s really hoping to make enough money playing the lottery to move out of his mom’s basement someday.

And then, as fate would have it, we hit the jackpot. On our way back from seeing a flat the size of a New York closet (and most New Yorkers don’t have a closet, so do that math) we walked by a place Zack had checked out the week before. The landlord was sitting on the stoop smoking cigarettes. An affable Greek immigrant named Chris who’d been married to his plump, baklava-pushing wife for thirty-five years, Zack and Chris had stayed on the stoop chatting for hours last time he visited the apartment. “Come in, come in!” Chris said. “I’ll take you and your girlfriend on a tour of the whole building, show you all of the renovations I’ve been doing.” The top flat, the one Zack had been previously looking at, wasn’t finished being renovated yet, but he showed us the rest of the flats, which became progressively nicer as you went down in the building. The final one had floor to ceiling windows, a balcony, hardwood floors, granite countertops. “Here’s the thing,” Chris said. “I have to be honest with you. Since Zack came to look before, I’ve decided to sell the building. So I can give you a flat, but it must only be for 2 months, until I sell. But if you choose to stay---I can give you this apartment at a discount, and you can move in tomorrow.”

Zack and I looked at each other. In my tired brain, I tried to calculate how much of a discount we would need to be able to afford the apartment. “Can you do half off?” Zack said.

Chris laughed. “You drive a hard bargain.” He shook his head and then reached his hand out for Zack to shake. “Welcome to the building.” In New York, it was those few early morning hours where the city is still as much as it can be, the streets silent and houses dark and sighing with sleep. In London, the world was waking up.

V. Provence

There is a woman who sells American and English pastries at the market in the Place des Prêcheurs. She is beautiful and reminds me of the photographs I have seen of Cherokee women. For a school assignment we have to interview an aixois, someone from Aix, so one day at the market I ask her if she might be willing to talk to me about her life in the south of France. She agrees. Her name is Juliette, and we meet the following week for coffee at her favorite café on the Cours Mirabeau, the main, plane tree-lined street in Aix. She is so impressed with my French that she invites me to come to her house and bake with her later that week. It happens to fall on my birthday. Juliette makes me a cheesecake and tells me about how she spent a year in Wisconsin when she was sixteen.

“There is no better city in the world,” she says, “than New York.”

Lessons from a business trip...

Dearest Clara,

Fall always seems to be bring a burst of travel for me, less for fun and more for work.  After a few of these, you nail things down to a science: how to pack as lightly as possible, how to do work away from home while still having work obligations at home, and recently, how to get home as quickly as possible.  I’ve been lucky, some of my work destinations have been very exciting.  But half the time, one wouldn’t know it since the commute between hotel room and office is the same worldwide.  When you travel for work your time and your schedule are not your own, and it’s easy to let the entire trip pass you by without noticing much except your own tiredness.

Still, I do love being on the move.  And I love seeing how others work in their own environment, how clients manage their own business on their own turf, and even with the work, you can still squeeze in a little fun.  Here’s what does it for me:

• Indulge in a (harmless) guilty pleasure on the trip: Time spent traveling for work can be lonely sometimes, since the more you do it, the more you would rather be at home.  But I look forward to my pockets of travels since I use that time to do silly things that I enjoy that I otherwise try not to devote too much time to.  For me, I use the flight time and long delays at the airport to catch up on magazines---even ones that don’t really apply to me, like wedding magazines that I still enjoy just for their visual, beautiful nature.  I also catch up on the sappy romantic comedies that I know others don’t want to see on long flights. Little things like that make the journey go by quicker.
• Pick a hotel and airline and stick to it: There’s so much pressure when traveling for work to go with whatever is cheapest, but you can often work within those constraints and build loyalty to a brand that you still enjoy.  Being a repeat customer usually guarantees better service on your next go-around, and it also means rewards when you return to them on your own time as well.
• Get a full nights rest:  A big bed of fresh sheets all to yourself in a quiet room? Take advantage and finally take those full eight hours of sleep that you promised yourself!  And while we’re at it, take a bath in that huge bath tub, enjoy fresh towels, make use of that morning paper.  Look for the little things that you don’t have at home.
• Get in the spirit: You might not be doing much other than working in a destination but you can get in the spirit by bringing along a novel that takes place in the same city, or by reading the travel section articles from your favorite newspaper, or even bringing music from your destination.  Taking in little tidbits helps you to absorb the location a bit by osmosis---that way, when you’re driving around and running to and fro, you recognize little things even though you’re not a tourist there.
• Stay an extra night if you can: Before you came along, I would often stay a weekend after a business trip to get to know the city.  Now that you’re here, I don’t do that much since I can’t wait to get back to you, but I at least try to fit in an extra afternoon or take the later flight every once in a while.
• Get out and about: I know this one can be hard.  After all, when you go somewhere for work there’s usually little time for anything else, and when there is, you’re usually tired.  But make an effort to get out, even if for a little bit.  I try to schedule a dinner with friends, or take a walk, even grab an exhibit if time allows.  When you don’t know what to do, just walk down to the hotel concierge or front desk and say, “I have X amount of time, what should I see?”.  They want you to have a good time in their city and generally people are up front and make great recommendations.  I had a great business trip to South Africa once, but didn’t see much outside of the offices I was going to.  Due to the security at the time, walking alone in the evenings wasn’t advised, but when I asked the hotel, the organized a driver to take me for a few hours and really see some of the different neighborhoods and parts of the city.  I ended up seeing a fantastic amount of things that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about.
• Take a cab instead of the train: Taking a cab to your work destinations is a great way to get some perspective of how the city is laid out.  Look at architecture, look at infrastructure.  I always joke that I do my window shopping in New York and London from the window of the cab.  It won’t always make sense to, but take cabs when you can, and don’t be shy about asking the driver about the things you see.  You just might learn something.

All my love,

Mom

Sacred Space

  The Pyramids in Egypt

The Prairie in Kansas

The Ember fort in India

A Buddhist temple in Thailand

A deserted home in Bangladesh

Almost every Art Museum and Library I’ve ever visited

When the air stills and my blood tingles and my soul hums with recognition.  Sacred Space.  Sometimes it is religious space, a spot that has heard the prayers of generations. Sometimes it is ancient space, which has stood for centuries.  Sometimes it’s the home of beauty or knowledge. Sometimes its nature.  All have the same effect on me.  Like Christmas Eve mass when I was little with the sound of bells chiming and prayers in Latin---it is mystical and so much more than I can fathom or comprehend. It is incense and still air.  It’s a particular scent. It’s the sound of wind in the grass.  And I feel it in my bones, an overwhelming urge to stop and just exist.  Breathe the air and Be in the moment.  Absorb the time and the place, letting it seep under my skin and into my veins until it becomes a part of me, something to keep with  me, in me, forever.  Commit it to memory and not just to film. Pause in acknowledgment of that which came before.  That which brought me to this place, this time, this moment, this existence. Practice Gratefulness.

I call it Sacred Space.  You might call it something else. The name is not important.  The acknowledgment of its existence and the opportunity to experience are what matters.

Isla Negra

Every morning, on a remote shore along the Chilean coast, in a small house overlooking the sea, a bulky man blew his trumpet while observing the ever-moving sea surface. This man was Pablo Neruda, the most famous poet from South America, and the place where he chose to spend the later part of his life was Isla Negra, a tiny hamlet an hour’s drive from the capital, Santiago. In 1939, when Neruda started to compose Canto General, he felt the need of a new shelter. He found Isla Negra, a precious spot unknown to most people, on a newspaper ad. The place, a lot with a tiny stone cabin that back then looked more like a wreck, was sold to him by an old sea captain, and it slowly became the poet’s own boat . . . anchored on land.

And soon “the house was growing, as people, as trees . . .” African sculptures, Chinese prints, Buddhas, compasses, maps, old paintings, and even a skull. Ship’s figure heads, shells, nautical decors and more than a hundred bottles the poet bought in the flea markets in France. Neruda loved to surround himself with collected objects, remains and relics from the past, while growing dreams about the future.

“The wild coast of Isla Negra, with the tumultuous oceanic movement, allowed me to surrender with passion to the venture of my new song”.

Rambling and creative architecture, quirky collections of world art, and a stunning ocean view. In the house of Isla Negra Neruda found the perfect place to write, and put together an important part of his literary work. The poet’s appetite for life was endless. He indeed described himself as omnivorous---“I would like to swallow the whole earth, drink the whole sea".

Neruda hoped to leave the house as a heritage to Chilean people (“I don't want my heritage of joy to die”), but sadly that refuge wasn’t far enough to escape Pinochet’s oppression. During a search of the house at Isla Negra by Chilean armed forces at which Neruda was present, a soldier asked Neruda if he hid weapons or something threatening in there. The poet remarked: "Look around---there's only one thing of danger for you here---poetry."

Sonnet LXXX by Pablo Neruda

My Love, I returned from travel and sorrow to your voice, to your hand flying on the guitar, to the fire interrupting the autumn with kisses, to the night that circles through the sky.

I ask for bread and dominion for all; for the worker with no future ask for land. May no one expect my blood or my song to rest! But I cannot give up your love, not without dying.

So: play the waltz of the tranquil moon, the barcarole, on the fluid guitar, till my head lolls, dreaming:

for all my life's sleeplessness had woven this shelter in the grove where your hand lives and flies, watching over the night of the sleeping traveler.

IV. Savoie

My dad comes to visit me in Chambéry. I have been here for two months already, and the cold weather of the Alps in late winter, mixed with the overwhelming amount of nothing to do, has led me to become incredibly familiar with all the pizza places in town. I have gained weight, despite all the running I do up these steep hills. It is odd for me, and I feel bad about myself. I love European pizza---the crust is thin, crispy, steaming. Sometimes the chefs will crack an egg right on top of your pizza, no warning, which I think is incredibly funny and adds a touch of suspense to dinner.

I take my dad to one of these places in town. I get a pizza with tons of vegetables, and he gets one with andouille on it. Inexplicably, neither one of us is quite sure what it is.

It turns out to be sausage made with the gastrointestinal system of a pig. It tastes like ass.

On Living Close to Family

Without trying to, I’ve lived close to at least one side of my family for my whole life.  When I was choosing colleges, while I contemplated far flung schools with catalog-created fantasies (strolling through crumbling stone archways at Oxford, living in a Gothic Southern mansion at Duke), I ended up at Berkeley, the school where my dad had attended and continued to live less than two hours away from.

This meant that when I got the flu my sophomore spring, my dad hung up the phone after I called and showed up at my doorstep that afternoon, bearing cleaning supplies to take care of my sick-filled apartment and chicken noodle soup to heal by belly and soul.  When I moved to San Francisco after college, my dad was there to take me sailing and out to a nice dinner after I got rejected from job after job.  When an adverse reaction to medication caused me to faint and hit my head, my dad moved in with my roommates and I for three days, playing cards with me and watching my pupils for sign of a brain bleed.  An IKEA couch that needed assembling?  Moving from one apartment to another?  Help was only a phone call away.

I live on the East Coast now, and have been similarly spoiled to be close to my mom’s side of the family, who were born and raised in Brooklyn.  My aunt has become my go-to source for intellectual stimulation and emotional comfort, popping over from suburban Scarsdale to discuss men, politics, entertainment, and life over cheap Mediterranean food.  My mom, who fled the cold of New York for Atlanta, hops on the two-hour flight several times a year, to make sure I have enough culture in my life (Broadway plays are always a must-do on the weekend agenda) and color in my clothing (“it’s so much more flattering than all that black you wear, sweetie!”).

It snuck on me as the unconsidered yet blaringly obvious fact of my move to London:  this is the first time I will be living on my own, an ocean away from my family, my points of stability and unconditional love and comfort and constancy.  I’ll have my boyfriend---my partner in all of this---but the support and interactions that come with a romantic relationship differ so greatly from those offered by family.  Yet it makes me ponder something I’ve never before factored into my thoughts or decision making (sorry, Mom and Dad!):  the value of living close to family.  I’ve chosen the cities in which I’ve lived based on their worldliness, their amazing restaurants, their walkability, their job opportunities.  While the dynamics of family relationships have morphed as I've grown older (although having my dad show up with chicken soup when I'm sick will make my heart tingle even when I'm 50), the relationships themselves have been omnipresent.  Family, so consistently, blatantly there, has unintentionally slipped to the backburner for being there in physical form.

I don’t know where Zack and I are going to move when his graduate program ends in two years.  I don’t know how much at that point family will factor into our decisions after having experienced the other end---the being far after being so close.  Do you try to live near your family?  Or try to live far away, or not factor in it at all?  I’d love to hear your take.

III. normandie

One summer I live in Normandie for a month. Clémence is my host sister, about to start her last year of lycée, French high school. We have just spent the past month at my home in Ohio, and now it is my turn to come with her to France. Clémence and I are the same age and height, and thrown together like this we are fast friends.

She lives with her parents, Pauline and Roger, in the countryside just outside a small town called Bernay. Their home is an old barn they spent years converting into a house. It is beautiful, all dark beams and old stone walls warmed by a fireplace that burns real wood when it gets cold, which is often, even in August.

I am given a small bedroom of my own. It is up the steep, narrow wooden steps to the attic, where the ceiling is slanted and the floors creaky. I push open the window and the view is of misty, grey-green grassy fields, scattered with cows and lined with hedges. I can see the next-door farmer baling hay from where I stand. It doesn’t look too drastically different from rural Ohio, but I find it all endlessly romantic.

When I come back to the Unites States it’s my senior year of high school. For New Year’s, my friend Liam has a party out at his house. I drink too much vodka and spend half an hour speaking French to Liam’s cat. Everyone is impressed by my accent.

Lessons from the Hamptons...

Dearest Clara,

Summer has nearly come and gone---most people believe it ended this week.  But I still stand my ground, and will to the end, that autumn doesn’t really begin until September 21^st! So in my book, there are still summer days to enjoy in this next couple of weeks that bridge us to the cooler seasons.   People are right to some degree though, it is somehow not quite the same once you pass the Labor Day mark.

To celebrate summer’s last real weekend, we finally made a trip up to the Hamptons, on the New York Coast, visiting the friends we’ve been promising to see for two full summers now, and I’m so glad that we finally made it.  I had never been before, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I was afraid that it would be a very long drive for a beach that would be different than what we’re used to---something crowded and full of everything we’re trying to get away from in the city---but it wasn’t that at all.  In fact, our weekend did nothing but exceed my expectations, and we’re already looking forward to that next summer invitation.  Here are a couple of things that I’ll keep in mind from this trip:

• Keep your eyes open:  Let’s face it, the Hamptons are a bit of a see and be seen kind of place.  I’m terrible at people-spotting---in Washington, senators, politicians, and world leaders pass me by nearly every day without my noticing, and celebrities in the Hamptons were no different.  If you keep your eyes open better than you mother, I bet you get some pretty cool people watching.
• Try everything on for size and find your niche:  I had mistakenly thought that “the Hamptons” were a singular destination, but it’s not so at all.  It’s a collection of small towns, each with their own distinct personality and crowd.  If it’s your first visit, give them all a try with an open mind and then settle in to the one that fits your own style.
• It’s windier on the water:  The beach alongside this coast is wide open, and the wind can pick up very quickly.  Bring layers and an extra hair elastic, and be careful as currents form in the cooler water.  But wind isn’t necessarily a bad thing, retreat to beat the heat here and who knows, you might even take a surfing lesson or two.
• Eat (and drink) local:  This little stretch of island is gifted with so much abundance, especially in the summertime, you can’t help but to want to take it all in.    Fruits . . . vegetables . . . lobster . . . fish . . . take advantage of all that’s here when you make your choices for what to make or what to pick off the menu.  Even the local rosé would give the south of France a little run for their euros.  It makes you feel more summery just having summer’s gifts right there.   Don’t be afraid to stop at the roadside stands. Those extra treats will come in handy when you find yourself interminably stuck in traffic on Route 27.
• Prepare to share:   The Hamptons are a more is merrier kind of place, just the way I like it.  There always seems to be room at a house for another overnight guest, room at the table for another couple to drop by, room for a few more on the beach blanket. If you’re staying at someone’s house, bring hostess gifts for more than you think.  Some parts of summer are best enjoyed with others and in this respect, the Hamptons nail it.

All my love,

Mom

Myanmar, A Land Of Pagodas (And Smiles)

I’m sitting on a plane flying from Yangon to Bangkok. My journey throughout Asia is almost over---in seventy-two hours I will be in Milan again, less money in my pockets, but certainly richer and more conscious than I was when I left Italy a month ago, unaware of all the things I was going to see and learn in the days ahead. I’m writing this piece on a ripped piece of paper. On the back, a list of do’s and don’ts in  Myanmar---some basic rules our guide gave us and that we were supposed to follow in order to behave respectfully in the country.  I’m wondering---did we do something wrong? Were we good and considerate guests? While I’m trying to retrace all the things that happened in the last 10 days in Myanmar, many images and stories come vividly to my mind.

“Accept or give things with your right hand. However, when you offer something to a monk, a nun or an elderly person, use both hands.”

I’ve always been curious about the way monks and nuns live. There are many different kinds of Buddhist monks. In Myanmar, all men are required to become monks at least twice in their lifetime---once when they are young and once when they are adults. So, while some children decide they want to be monks forever and stay in the monastery for good, some others opt for shorter terms, which can last from a few hours to a couple of weeks. Myanmar is a land of temples and pagodas. There are thousands of monasteries all over the country where men can retire and learn the basic principles of Buddhism. During this period of learning they leave everything behind and every morning wander from house to house in search for food. Once they return, they sort through the offerings. Some of the food is eaten straight away for breakfast. The rest is saved for the last meal of the day, which is normally at noon.

“Try to speak Burmese, the local language. Simple “hellos” and “thank yous” are  always greatly appreciated.”

Myanmar is also the land of smiles. Just by saying “mingalaba” (hello) or “chei-zu” (thank you) we got the biggest smiles we have ever seen. Despite a land rich in natural resources, from precious stones to natural gas, families in Myanmar are poor, and the average salary is between $60-100 a month. But no matter how much people make, they are always happy to offer you a cup of ginger tea, and fried peanuts and chickpeas with sesame seeds . . . so yummy!

“Remove your shoes before entering a private house and be ready to share and learn.”

One day, on our way from Bagan to Mount Popa, we stopped at a private property where a family of nine have been making candies and liquor out of palm trees for generations. Myanmar people are the best at using whatever resource nature has to offer. They cut the palm leaves, collect the drops in coconut shells, and boil the liquid until it becomes a paste. Before the paste dries, they make small balls of candies, which harden under the sunlight. The candies were delicious . . . I had so many of them that I think I got myself cavities! My husband and I really enjoyed the day, watching people work at their own pace, while sharing their family tales with complete strangers like us.  There was Kyi, who was intertwining bamboo and making hats and small purses. And then there was Htay, her husband, chewing tobacco leaves while boiling palm sugar and making liquor out of it. Grandma was all for the grandchildren, who were home from school for a holiday. They were running around, laughing out loud and screaming words unknown to us. But, even though we had no clue about what they were saying, we were sure of one thing---those were words of happiness, a universal language as sparkling as palm tree drops, which resonates whenever one has the capacity of hearing it.

Excerpt from Mandalay, by Rudyard Kipling

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,

There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;

For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:

"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"

    Come you back to Mandalay,

    Where the old Flotilla lay:

    Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?

    On the road to Mandalay,

    Where the flyin'-fishes play,

    An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

The DIY Illusion

Long before Pinterest, which seems to have become the ultimate repository of DIY dreams, I was cursed with the insatiable desire to surround myself with beautiful and interesting things and to announce proudly to the world that “I did it myself.” This urge to emulate the creations and achievements of others extends even beyond the realm of tactile objects to skills and feats as well. When I visit a museum, I can’t help but think, “I will return next week and copy the masters!” When I discover that someone has written a poem a day for a year, I think, “What a great idea! I should do it too!”

This impulse has resulted in a number of false starts. I seem to recall joining one of those 356 groups on Flickr and subsequently following through for about three of 356 days. After reading Eat, Pray, Love, I bought an “Easy Italian Reader” and a yoga mat, both of which have seen embarrassingly little use since their addition to my collection of very-useful-yet-unused self-improvement tools.

I know I’m not the only one. Tutorials, how-tos, and advice columns make up some of the most popular information on the internet. We want to know, in 500 words or less, how to build our own websites, sweep own our hair up into classy side chignons, and paint striking works of modern art for our homes.

Don’t get me wrong—I love reading this stuff, and I love writing it too. I am a strong advocate for homemade food and handmade things and tools for self-improvement. But I often find that I don’t give enough consideration to the “yourself” aspect of DIY inspiration. I so easily forget to account for where I'm starting from. I see a hair tutorial and try to ignore the fact that my hair is the frizzy, chaotic alter ego of the long, silky locks in the photo. I see “Easy Italian Reader” and realize much later that I still can’t read it if my Italian vocabulary is limited to food terms.

This is not to say that we should all abandon our DIY dreams and leave the doing and creating and achieving to the experts and professionals. There’s certainly nothing wrong with gathering inspiration from the creations and achievements and adventures of others. But if I hope to cultivate motivation from the things that inspire me, rather than disappointment at my failure to replicate them, perhaps a bit more self-reflection is in order.

The DIY illusion is not the idea that we can do things ourselves. Every piece of inspiration we encounter broadens our sense of what’s possible. There’s certainly room in this world for more faith in what each of us is capable of. The illusion to be wary of, however, is that we can do new and unfamiliar things quickly and effortlessly, if only we had the right tools or the time to watch a five-minute instructional video.

So the next time I file away a glamorous photo or add a new how-to book to my wishlist, I hope to take some time to differentiate between inspiration and aspiration. Often what’s most inspiring about beautiful creations and fantastic achievements is not the glamorous photo of the end result to which we may aspire but the story of the person or people behind it, the combination of time, talent, learning, commitment, failure, and perseverance that made what’s possible real.

Lessons from a conference...

Dearest Clara,

We’ve been on the go a lot, both with and without you, these last few weeks.  Most recently, I was in New York again, but this time for a conference.  I seem to have a lot of those---some for my day job, and a lucky few just for my own interests.  Conferences can be a little intimidating, a bit like the first day of school.  And when those presenting and attending are people whom you’ve long admired and want to learn from, you always wonder what your place is.  You wonder if you will be brave enough to talk to people.  And you’ll always wonder what you’ll say as you work up your nerve.   These are the things that have helped me in these kinds of events:

• Bring lots of business cards: It’s a great way to break the ice and it’s a great way to have something to talk about.  And bring more than you think you’ll need---you’ll give them about because you meet people, because you have to leave one with your luggage, because you’ll want to leave behind your contact information, or enter to win something.  Just have lots---I promise you’ll use them.
• Know something about those speaking: They took the time to prepare a presentation, so take the time to prepare and learn something about them.  That way, if you have the opportunity to meet them or sit next to them at part of the event, you already have a few things you can go to when making conversation.
• Remember most people---even if they don’t show it---are just as nervous: Don’t be intimidated.  Everyone else is outside of their comfort zone too.  Introduce yourself, bring others in if you see they want to be part of the conversation, and don’t sweat it if a conversation doesn’t go the way you planned.  Try to be an even more friendly and approachable version of yourself, and be inclusive.
• It’s okay to take a break: Sometimes conferences and events can become overwhelming---they’re full of people we don’t know, and hopefully new ideas we haven’t seen.  It’s tough to be always “on,” and the days can become long.  It’s okay to duck out for a few minutes into a corner or quiet space, or even take an hour back at the hotel to decompress and reset.
• Go to more than one! Believe it or not, these things get easier over time, and when you’re a repeat visitor, you always know someone too, which makes for smoother sailing.  All of the sudden, you become the person that others come to see.  A few events a year where you’re exposed to new people and new ideas are good to stimulate your own ideas---choose wisely but make the investment!

Now back to the sessions!

All my love,

Mom

window boxes

[gallery link="file"] When it comes to bringing a bit of the country into your city life, there's not much that does it better than a window box. Perched somewhere between public space and private space, a window box offers something pretty for folks streetside as well as a welcome view for those inside looking out. I'm especially fond of the range of window boxes that you can find on a walk around the block. Sometimes they're lush and full, sometimes they're utterly abandoned, and still other times they're completely accidental, just vines and leaves and no box at all. Here, a few shots from our neighborhood.

On Being Unmarried

The assumption was that I would go with him.  The whole time that Zack was filling out his applications; that we were reading and rereading his submission essays; that we were laughing about ending up in Tempe or Boston or Pasadena-–-the assumption was that I would go with him.   Two years earlier, he had left San Francisco to help me pursue my dreams in New York City.  Now we were both ready for a new adventure, a global roll of the dice, letting fate and admissions officers decide where we would land.  On the day he would hear back from his first choice school in London early that March morning, his whole body was shaking as he clicked open the email.  “I got in,” he said, his eyes telling me and questioning me at the same time.  “I got in.”  In my mind, my bags were already packed. And then the government stepped in.  I’d assumed that, with my freelance job, I could simply pop over to Europe whenever my tourist visa for the UK expired.  A quick search online proved me wrong.  On a tourist visa, I would be allowed to stay in the UK for six months out of every twelve.  Period, or as the Brits say, full stop.  I looked at the screen despairingly, picturing seeing my boyfriend for only half of every year, of being unsettled and without a real home to call my own for the next two.  We had our relationship to consider; we had my mental health.  We had, perhaps most importantly, a very needy cat.

At this point in the story, my friends and family often ask why Zack and I didn’t just get married.  It’s a fair question-–-we’ve been dating for almost five years and still actually like each other.  We talk about the future as a statement, not a question, and split holidays between our family’s houses.  It would’ve been an easy visa to get, the only kind of romantic relationship that, for better or worse, is accepted without question around this country and the world.

Yet.

When I get married, I want it to be because there was a moment where a man-–-my man-–-looked at me and decided he couldn’t foresee a life without me.  I want to get married because my partner and I are ready not to build a family-–-kids, in my opinion, have little to do with marriage-–-but be a family, just the two of us as a unit, together.  As a fairly pragmatic person, there’ve been too many events in my life that have taken place for the sake of convenience.  Zack and I moved in together after six months because his lease ended and it was cheaper.  I spent years wondering when I would have made that choice naturally, if it were left as simply a choice to make.  I don’t want my marriage to be like that.

I’m proud to announce that Zack and I are happily unmarried partners.  Thanks to the state of New York, we now have a document that declares us in all of our unmarried glory.  It means we’ve been living together, in a serious relationship, for at least two years.  It means I can ride in an ambulance with him, and that’s about it.  I don’t have access to his healthcare (national health care in UK, here I come!).  We can’t file tax returns together, he doesn’t get access to my money or I to his, and, if we choose to, either of us can dissolve our partnership with the click of a mouse on an online form.  It’s exactly enough to get me a visa to go to London, so that my partner and I can continue to live our lives together, happily unmarried.  There’s plenty of time for the rest later.

Oh, the places you'll go

If you’d asked me ten years ago, or even two years ago, where I’d be living at age twenty-five, I might have guessed New York or Boston. Perhaps I’d even shoot a glance toward the West Coast, but I certainly never would have guessed I’d find myself in Atlanta. Atlanta’s a lovely place, but it was never on my radar. Before I showed up, I hadn’t internalized any stereotypes about the food or the people or the culture here. In fact, I had no idea what the place even looked like. (So many trees! So many strip malls!) It’s been a really wonderful aspect of settling in here, I think—arriving without assumptions and just taking it all in.

The thing about just showing up is that you get to notice exactly how a place folds in around you. When I moved to Boston for college, I had so many ideas about who I’d be there and how I’d belong. But you can spend a long time wrestling with the difference between who you think you’re supposed to be in a place and who you really are.

I moved here in June without much of a plan for what I’d do or who I’d be in this new-to-me town, and I like it much better that way. Somehow, it feels simpler this time, getting to know myself and my new context without having to make comparisons to what I’d expected. It’s a little scary approaching life in a new place without a detailed map and itinerary, but it’s pretty exciting too.

As a writer, I love trying to think ahead, imagining how the arc of a story will pan out. I love answering questions like, “How do you imagine your life five years from now?” It’s comforting trying to predict the future.

But I’ve learned that life doesn’t really work that way, plotting out a set of points and connecting them with straight lines. Instead, my imaginary future is most helpful for understanding the present.

When I was in sixth grade, I was set on becoming an astronaut one day. I loved learning about the universe, and I really wanted to leave my small town behind for fabulous adventures. Years later, that same impulse landed me not on Mars but in Divinity school. There I didn’t study how the universe looks or how it works, but rather a bit about how each of us imagines the universe from where we’re standing.

From where I’m standing today, the universe looks very beautiful and strange, and the future looks wide open. I wonder a little about where I’ll be five years from now, but I’m learning to wonder more about how I’ll shape today.

When I focus more on where I am than on where I will be, life starts to feel less like a timeline and more like a spiral. Even as we move forward, we can look back and notice how we’ve circled back around to familiar places and ways of being.

Recently in the Jewish calendar, we’ve entered the month of Elul, a time for reflection and contemplation in preparation for the High Holidays. I’ve often spent this time reflecting on past mistakes and shortcomings and planning how to do better in the year to come. This time, I’ve set myself a new challenge: to delight in what the past is teaching me about today and to allow the future, real or imagined, to illuminate possibilities for the present.

Summer Soft

A collection of photos from the beach, celebrating the softness of summer's last days. [gallery link="file" exclude="4234"]

Lessons from a Road Trip...

Dearest Clara,

This past vacation, we took what we call “The Great American Roadtrip”.  Except, we didn’t take it here in the US, we took it in Europe.  We called it that because we drove for hours and hours through countries and countries to get from the Austrian Alps to the French Coast, and that seems like the kind of thing that one would do here in the US.  If someone tells you that they just drove across ten states, I think you would hardly blink twice.  But in Europe, if you tell people you just traversed ten countries, they’re not quite sure what to make of that.  Like the gentleman who stopped us at the gas station in Switzerland, who just couldn’t believe that our license plates were from Vienna, even though we were only half way on our trip.

But despite the long hours in the car, road travel is still one of our favorite ways to really “see” a country.   The landscape, the people you meet, the dishes you have to try, the improvisation that you have do to, the strange items you can purchase at the gas station – all of that gives you an entirely different sense of place.  It’s a bit like adding salt to food – it’s still the same food you are eating, just with a flavor that becomes more alive (assuming of course, that you’re not adding too much!)

Road trips turn out the best when they’re not overly planned, but still, a few things have become good lessons for us over the kilometers and miles we have traveled, at least for Europe:

• Always have a map and water:  Always.  Whatever fancy gadget your generation will have when you become of driving age might fail you, it might get stolen, it might get forgotten or it might get lost.  In short, nothing replaces a paper map.  Have one just in case.  And have water because you should for a myriad of good reasons, the most important one being because your mother said so.
• Learn how to change your own tires: I’m no pro at this, but if you learn how to drive and you put yourself on the road, you should know how to change a tire.  Don’t think that you can call up Triple A anywhere in the world, and in many areas, the faster you get off the side of the road, the better, and the best way to do that is to know how to do it yourself.
• Make time for the scenic overlooks: There’s a reason why they call those out on signs.  You probably can’t stop for all of them but make time for some – and don’t forget to take your picture in front of them! You’ll develop a fondness for them when you come home.
• Know how to drive manual:  Often times in Europe – or nearly anywhere else in the world – there will be no other option.  You don’t have to like it, but you do have to know how to do it.  Ironically, once you learn how to do it, you’ll probably love it.
• Go with your gut: If it looks like a fun place to stop, stop.  If you had a planned stop and it looks like a bad idea, don’t.  The more you move around, the more you’ll develop a sense for these things, so trust yourself to make those calls.
• Always take advantage of the bathroom: This applies to travel of any kind but if you see a legitimate bathroom, whether porcelain or tree shrub, take advantage, you never know when the next stop will be.

Lots of love,

Mom

A date with myself at the local library

If you’ve read The Artist’s Way, you know that Julia Cameron considers regular “artist dates” to be one of the two pillars of the creative life (the other is “morning pages”). Whether you consider yourself an artist, or simply wish to live a more creative life, I’d definitely recommend this book for getting unstuck, getting inspired, or getting started. You can find out more about morning pages and artist dates by reading the book, but for the purposes of this post, an “artist date” is simply a little adventure you take on your own—something playful and restorative and separate from work.

One of my favorite artist dates is a trip to the local public library. This, for me, is quite different than a trip to a university library. As a college and graduate student (and as a student library employee), I spent plenty of time working in libraries. Many university libraries are perfectly lovely and contain their own sort of magic and possibility, with their stacks and stacks of scholarly tomes.

But when I really need a little creative restoration, I find it at the local library. Small public libraries do not have everything—every book ever written, every article ever published, all of the newest best-sellers—but sometimes “everything” is a little too overwhelming for an artist date. Instead, when I make a trip to the library, I’m really only looking for two things: a seat by the window and a book I don’t already have at home.

I tend to gravitate toward the nonfiction section, or more specifically, the how-to books and instruction manuals. These books usually don’t try to tell you how to think, but rather, how to do. As a hardcore overthinker, I find the whole doing perspective so refreshing.

Last weekend, I discovered the wedding books section, which was delightfully sandwiched between books on dying and anthologies of fairy tales. I even found a couple of gems like Weddings for Complicated Families and Wedding Planning for Dummies. Then I wandered through the shelves and shelves of biographies and thumbed my way through a few travel guides before snagging a corner window seat.

You can learn a lot about a community through its library, especially if it’s a small one. You can notice which books made the cut for their limited holdings, which books have been donated, and which books have a waitlist twenty people long.

I love finding the particular, and I love finding the universal among those shelves. By skimming along the titles, it’s easy to discover that many of the questions that seem so personal have been asked before, and someone, somewhere has tried to answer them. How do I find my purpose in life? Which dog breed is right for me? How is my religion similar or different from others? How can I live a healthier life? Or, a favorite from last weekend, How do I move to Canada?

Everyday questions jostle for space right next to whole-life questions on those library shelves. I think I’m more interested in the questions than in the answers when I meet myself for a library artist date, which is probably why I end up with stacks of library books that I rarely finish before their due dates. They seem to have more magic in their natural habitat, offering delight simply by their juxtapositions on the shelves.