La La La La La La

Terrorized, I was suffocating in the world of uncertainty and I was losing my balance. Small, I hung on a branch with my strength, the water was flowing over me and into my mouth.

“Ahhhhhhh”, I wanted to scream, but instead I asked you about your life. Because we were supposed to be in the moment. But which moment? How do we stand together with those who were terrorized? Their lives went missing and the loved ones left, eternally crying. What about Sandy Hook? I had no time to heal and the NEWS were blaring in my years again with the unspeakable. Only, it was not here, not now.

How do we stay in happiness or have hope when seeing what we see?

No, here, I was trying to enjoy my life.
We found that there is a trail through the woods that we could take to the gymnasium. We walked through the park. I was feeling worries about the future and the inevitability of my hopeless state becoming even more hopeless, but the bare trees and the pines had another story. The winter’s cold darkness messed with my mind, but a cold afternoon walk through the woods was sobering.

I feel better.

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The One

9:38 pm

I only had few hours to work today.  It was a shame to start something that I couldn’t finish so I didn’t start anything.  I bounced aimlessly from one short task to another, feeling the pressure of passing time.  With so little time to waste and a nanny on the clock, to procrastinate like that is illegal.

In my aimless internet meander, I ended up blog surfing.  From one blog to the next, reading what my comrades have to say.  One after another the souls splayed open for everyone to see.  Shamelessly debriefing their fears, hopes and dreams.  Experimenting with the search for truth, all in different ways.

In my sad state of procrastination my first reaction was of shear horror.  I thought I was special in my quest.  Me, the brave warrior.  Why should I bother with this freakish exposure if I am not special.  I am just another whiny voice along with millions of others, describing my inner most insecurities and exaggerated discoveries.  It is all a waste of time and it is embarrassingly narcissistic. 

I got myself out of the house.  I did stuff.  Stuff that was on the piece of paper in my bag.  I crossed out, with pride, lines of that piece of paper and added more lines to cross out later.  I got myself to a coffee shop for a holy hour of writing.  And nothing came.  Just boring venting about my life of having everything I ever wanted.  Nothing blog worthy, not even therapist worthy.

And then it came to me, a thought.  I am honored to be a part of this blog revolution.  Or revelation.  When is the last time in history that millions of people happily divulged their innermost truths for the world to read?  Proudly, these warriors are all shining the light on their humanity for the sake of finding themselves but also in the hopes of helping others find themselves.  That is why we aren’t just keeping diaries  This is not something to take lightly, something powerful is happening here.

In the light, I don’t care if I am just one voice in a million.  When anyone is on a creative path and everyone is on a creative path, they start with this questioning.  Why would I be special enough to be “the one”?  That question comes up in all of us.  That question came up for me when I started jewelry and now it is back again.  The question discourages people from ever living to their potentials.  The question is wrong.  The point is not to be “the one,” but just to be one.  One whole being.  One of a whole.  One true self.

A dear blogger friend Blue answered the question for me with a quote that have since tattooed on my heart.

“You wouldn’t have the desire if you didn’t have the ability to achieve it.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

10:13 pm

I don’t want to be grumpy

9:10 pm

I tried to nap today but all the writing was looping in my head.  The untold stories.  My writing teacher said today that if you don’t write for three days in a row, you will get grumpy and start attacking your husband.  You need to do something creative.  I had an inkling about this phenomenon so it was good to hear her confirm my theory.

I am only happy when I live out of inspiration.  Inspiration for life and its infinite capacity is the source of it.  Expressing this in some way is my purpose.  Expressing it well feels intoxicating.  My theory is that it is happening with everyone.  We are created equally, believe it.  We are creators by nature.  If we are left restless, we become destroyers by nature.

I saw this played out in Russia, when I was a young girl.  I left before Communism ended so I only know it that way.  People stripped of creativity and whipped into fearful submission.  There are good memories but most of all I remember the angry faces.  I am reminded of them when I go to Brighton Beach or Little Odessa of Brooklyn.  I love the Russian food but not the mean clerk who sells it to me.  They think that being rude is having a sense of humor and if I don’t get it, I am the dumb American who smiles too much for false reasons.  Even in light of their new freedom, they have been so beaten up that they come here without abandoning their old mentalities.  Their mentality is survival.  Survival, if they have to lie, cheat or steal.  Survival if they have to work their whole lives in a job they hate.  Survival because they were taught that they were not special, but mediocre.  There are only a few special and gifted.  These are divine and if you are one, you would know it.  Otherwise, you should keep your thoughts and ideas to yourself because they have all been said and better said than you can say it.

They took the “we are created equally” part and flipped it.  Instead of meaning we are absolutely unique and special in our equality, all capable of greatness.   They translated for us into, we are absolutely conventional and mundane.  It is easier to rule “the masses” if the masses have no face of their own.

I felt this way most of my life.  Now I know that if I am not growing, I am shrinking.  If I am shrinking, I resent the world for it.  Because at the end it does boil down to self-love.  Love thy neighbor the way you love thy self.  For me, the saying would be more useful if it said love yourself the way you love thy neighbor.   The prior assumes an inherent self-love.  I am pretty sure Jesus did not want us to tell our neighbors that they need to lose weight or work on themselves harder.

9:49pm

 

What do you do?

9:57 pm

My sister had a party for her kids, my niece and nephew.  My husband, my son and I went to Pennsylvania, where she lives for the occasion.  Some parents came and dropped off their kids.  Some stayed.  At one point I was introduced to a husband of my sister’s friend.  He said, nice to meet you.  What do you do?

Hearing him say that was expected, but at that moment, I just wanted to scream.  What do I do?  What the fuck does it matter to you what I do?  What I do does not define who I am!  Why is that the starting point of every boring conversation on Earth?  Why don’t you ask me how I feel?  I did not say that.  I said, “I am a jewelry designer,” smiled and made an excuse to leave.  I did not talk to any adults that day, for the fear that they will ask me what I do.

What do you do?  Next time, someone asks me that I will say I am Jehovah’s witness.  The next sentence will be, did you know that Christ is our savior?  You want to be boring?

There was a sign on a chalkboard out side of a bar in Bushwick.  It said, What? You want to be boring?  Not in this bar.  I wonder if anyone there asks anyone what they do?

When I worked on Wall Street, that question, what do you do, used to hurt me more.  I guess I am getting closer to my core.  I hated saying, I am an analyst, not because of boredom.  The answer to me was like saying, I enter a torture chamber everyday from 8:30am -7pm, and you?

My Boss Janet, gave her life to becoming a big powerful boss.  She only said few things to me during my two and a half years there.  There is no free lunch, was one.  Her husband was a big real estate guy.  When they went to parties, she found herself surrounded by his colleagues and their wives.  Their wives had no jobs, other than shopping and charity work.  Janet said, Could you believe it?  None of the men ever ask me what I do.

10:07 (10 minutes baby)

Bushwick

10:59

Tonight I went out with my friend Megan for her birthday in Bushwick.  We walked into a restaurant with a faint sign and a small window.  The window was blocked so you could not see inside.  When we walked in, a whole world opened up.  This quiet industrial street, seemingly dead was alive inside.  All the tables were full with, most likely, artists.  All talking and eating the most deliciously creative and inexpensive foods.  The feeling was the same as Williamsburg when I fist moved there in 2003.

I first started coming to Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2002.  I came to visit my friend Ryan and Josh, who lived there.  When I got off the Bedford L for the fist time, I realized how few people were there.  It was not bustling with crowds like Manhattan where I lived at the time.  The air was quiet but I could feel there was another kind of life brewing.  At the time, I did not know what “hipster” was, I don’t think that word came to me until few years later.  When I first moved to Williamsburg, there were no hipsters, there were artists.

Musicians, painters, designers, writers all hanging out by day at coffee shops, keeping wrong hours and dressing in crazy clothes.  I smelled the freedom in the air.  It was contagious.  It was painful to walk to my Wall St. job through Williamsburg at 8 am every morning, when my little artist town was sound asleep.  It was not the sleep that I was after, it was the art.

Williamsburg has changed since then.  It changed fast.  The restaurants went from a handful eatable ones when I first moved to 100s.  There is not one open store front on Bedford ave. that is not occupied by a coffee shop, restaurant or a trendy boutique.  It did not take long for the Williamsburg invasion.  I am not an old lady recollecting the past, this took place in less than 10 years.  It was building before that, but in the last five years it boomed.   I still love Williasburg there are still good vibes but it is not the same.

Today, when I went to Bushwick, I felt it again.  I got out of my car, and I could smell it in the air.  Only a few people on otherwise desolate streets but I felt it.  I saw something in their faces.  It was the look of people who have found a haven away from it all.  Yes, Bushwick is just few more stops on the L train but for the rest of the world, it is lifetimes away.  The artists have found their new Williamsburg and it is nice to see it emerging from the dust.

11:57 pm