I haven't felt this overwhelmed in a while. To be honest, I haven't felt overwhelmed in this particular way, ever, in my life. Things are changing, but not like they changed before.
At this point in my life I think I'm finally able to see the consequences of the choices I am making. What I mean is, the difference is I finally realize that when you reach out toward something new, when you pursue your hopes and dreams, you transition from an environment full of blessings and faults, into yet another environment, with both of those things, every time and always.
I think there's a good chance I might get hired for my dream job. I try not to get my hopes up, but based on the facts it seems highly likely. At the very least, I'm faced with the possibility of it and now, I am thinking about it. As always, my future is just on the horizon and I am envisioning possible trajectories, which is a very human thing to do. As one of my best friends put it, things could be worse. Things could be stagnant.
What may happen if I get hired is unimaginable. I would have a full time job doing something I love in the only place that ever felt like home to me. What may happen if I do not get hired, is also unimaginable. I just know that no matter what, great things are on the horizon.
I love so many people, and I am so loved. I can't tell you how satisfying this is to me, but you probably know because you are loved, too. It feels really good to know this, and it seems like a really simple thing to understand, but its taken me my whole life to really know this.
How can you lose, then? What can you do, except be happy, be a better person and know your own beauty the way you know the beauty of those around you. Look at us broken, flawed things. Look how perfect we are. Sometimes I can't even stand it and I think my heart is going to burst and I mistake it for pain, and I'm threatened by it.
I am scared. I know how much I am going to miss my family, and most of all, how much I am going to miss Alex. My life without him, just doesn't shine as bright. I used to be afraid of relying on a person like that. But after all we've both gone through, we are brave and our hearts are strong, but more importantly our hearts are strong for each other. It's not that he makes me invincible, it's that he makes me aware of my own invincibility.
I'm scared because even though I am going to be doing something wonderful, in a wonderful place with wonderful people, I will have to let go of some other wonderful things. I won't get to have pedicures and dinner and yogurt with my mom and talk about how we're both growing up and moving into different phases in our lives. I won't get to have beer and play games with my brothers. I won't be a short plane ride away from my Boston family and I won't be able to spend the summer at Riverside with Alex and the Bishops.
Maybe I'm not so much scared as I mourn the loss of those possibilities. But I've made decisions like this before, and they have made me who I am, which is someone I don't regret becoming. I made the choice when I was 13 to stay in Fort Worth with my grandparents to go to Country Day School. I gave up the remainder of my childhood with my mother and watching my brothers grow up. But I don't even know who I would have become if I hadn't made that choice, and it was the right choice, because here I am and I love you, and I know that I am loved.
I have to let go. I have to be patient.
I was thinking earlier today as I was rushing around waiting tables to make sure my customers did not have to wait long, that patience is really the most valuable thing you could ever learn.
I was just thinking, everything around us tells us to hurry. We want to do things faster, have things sooner, and get from point A to point B as efficiently as possible. But who is it that decided that the efficient way was the best way? Most of the time, it isn't. When you want something done right, it is probably much more likely to happen when it is done with consideration, and not in a rush.
I know that most of my sadness is coming from knowing that I won't see Alex for a while. I miss him so much. Moving across the planet from him is the last thing my heart wants to do. Every day I wish I could hold him.
But I know that taking this job is the right thing to do, because loving someone means that you love yourself enough to know that you need to make decisions based on what will shape you into the best version of yourself, and just have faith that if you belong with someone, your paths will find each other. I will always be looking for him. And I know we will find each other, it just might not be soon. So I guess, it's more a matter of impatience than anything else. Impatience is what makes these tears fall down these cheeks.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
The Final Form of Love
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. ...
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint.
Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.”
Reinhold Niebuhr
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint.
Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.”
Reinhold Niebuhr
Monday, January 3, 2011
The Union of Man and Nature
"It is nobler to imitate things in nature, which are in fact the real images, than to imitate in words, the words and deeds of man."
- Leonardo Da Vinci, c. 1506-1508
Born of Failure
“It hasn’t been some kind of fairy tale for me. All of my success has been born of failure. Your childhood dreams are always tales of glory; reality is a lot messier and more dramatic.”
- Sean Parker, Founder of Napster, Former President of Facebook, Vanity Fair, October 2010
"The creation of a business from the embryo of a concept is the genius of the entrepreneur."
- Eduardo Saverin, Co-Founder, Facebook
- Sean Parker, Founder of Napster, Former President of Facebook, Vanity Fair, October 2010
"The creation of a business from the embryo of a concept is the genius of the entrepreneur."
- Eduardo Saverin, Co-Founder, Facebook
Friday, December 31, 2010
An Imaginary Tool
When I woke up this morning, I saw that I had typed this on my facebook status update on my phone but did not post it.
"I dreamt all night about my grandmother who passed away one year ago to the hour.. I dreamt that we had this week between Christmas eve to spend with her but then she got sick again. We spent all night trying to get across the world to bring her an 'imaginary tool' that would fix her, but then we realized that doing a dance for her would help about as much so we all sat in a circle and my mom danced for her until sunrise in a yellow print dress and it was beautiful.. Then i got an email that she died again this morning and cried ( I woke to alex texting me that he was going in for surgery).. Also, I had some kind of inception-style dream within a dream that my grandmother sent me a message to my family to tell them not to ignore the conflicts between them, and that allowing a family relationship to deteriorate was disrespectful to her.. Anyway sorry if no one cares about this and it's the longest status update ever, I'm just trying to write it down before I forget and this is the screen my phone was on."
"I dreamt all night about my grandmother who passed away one year ago to the hour.. I dreamt that we had this week between Christmas eve to spend with her but then she got sick again. We spent all night trying to get across the world to bring her an 'imaginary tool' that would fix her, but then we realized that doing a dance for her would help about as much so we all sat in a circle and my mom danced for her until sunrise in a yellow print dress and it was beautiful.. Then i got an email that she died again this morning and cried ( I woke to alex texting me that he was going in for surgery).. Also, I had some kind of inception-style dream within a dream that my grandmother sent me a message to my family to tell them not to ignore the conflicts between them, and that allowing a family relationship to deteriorate was disrespectful to her.. Anyway sorry if no one cares about this and it's the longest status update ever, I'm just trying to write it down before I forget and this is the screen my phone was on."
Last Night You Saved My Life
Thank you to my partner and best friend Alex Incyde for reminding me of this passage.
The original quote characterizes 'the DJ' as male, but just for kicks I thought I would change all the 'he''s to 'she''s. You know, just for kicks. Enjoy!
It's a mystic art indeed. It seems so banal, but it holds the potential of phenomenal, inexpressible power. A great DJ can arouse more raw emotion in her audience than the composer of the most bittersweet opera, or the author of the most uplifting novel, or the director of the most life-affirming film.
When you're DJing and you're great at it, you're not playing records, you're playing the dancefloor. You're not just mixing tunes, you're mixing energy and emotions, mixing from surprise into hope and happiness, cutting from liberation to ecstasy and love. When it goes right, you're inside the bodies of everyone in the room, you know what they're feeling and where they're going, and you're taking them there. You're sweeping them off the earthly plane and transporting them to a higher place. You're moving their bodies and their souls with the music that flows from your fingertips.
You're putting them in the moment."
- Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton, 2000
The original quote characterizes 'the DJ' as male, but just for kicks I thought I would change all the 'he''s to 'she''s. You know, just for kicks. Enjoy!
"The disc jockey has been with us for almost a century now. In that time she has been ignored, misunderstood, despised, worshipped and adored. She has stayed in the forefront of music, twisting and shaping it into fresh forms, perverting technology and forcing from it stunning new sounds. She has conjured a series of novel genres in her endless search for material to keep her dancers moving. In the U.S. the DJ created amazing music, then the UK gave her a home and made her a star. She continued her magic and around her there grew a musical culture more revolutionary and more enduring than any before.
Having forged music more truly universal than any preceding it, the DJ is arguably a conduit for celebration and communion on a global scale. It's possible that the DJ is the ultimate expression of the ancient shamanic role; that the DJ is the greatest witchdoctor there has ever been, unmatched at shaking us out of the drudge of the day and into the life of the night.
Why do we worship at the knees of the record-slinger? Because she is occasionally capable of divinity. When it all connects in a club, there's nowhere you can have more fun.
'A really great DJ is capable of making a bad record sound okay, a good record sound great, and a great record sound fantastic - by the context they put them in, and what they put around them. How they steer them. They can do all kinds of tricks. A great DJ can make people spontaneously cheer just for a little squelchy noise. Which is quite insane really. A little noise like wha-wha-wha and people go, 'Yeeeaaah!' They can have people clapping along to a cymbal, just by the way they're bringing it in. When it's done well, it's fantastic. If it's done really well, it can be quite transcendental.'
It's a mystic art indeed. It seems so banal, but it holds the potential of phenomenal, inexpressible power. A great DJ can arouse more raw emotion in her audience than the composer of the most bittersweet opera, or the author of the most uplifting novel, or the director of the most life-affirming film.
When you're DJing and you're great at it, you're not playing records, you're playing the dancefloor. You're not just mixing tunes, you're mixing energy and emotions, mixing from surprise into hope and happiness, cutting from liberation to ecstasy and love. When it goes right, you're inside the bodies of everyone in the room, you know what they're feeling and where they're going, and you're taking them there. You're sweeping them off the earthly plane and transporting them to a higher place. You're moving their bodies and their souls with the music that flows from your fingertips.
You're putting them in the moment."
- Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton, 2000
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Hope and Fear
Here I am again. It's Christmas, again and I find myself reflecting like I seem to do every year on how much things have changed (and stayed the same). I woke up this morning with a weird sense of conviction that although life is about many things that change over time, and now was the time for life to be about coming together regardless of reason, or time.
The older I get the more unsure I am about whether Christmas spirit is about joy, or anxiety. I feel anxious all the time around this time of year, as if things are supposed to go a certain way and we are all expected to live up to an embodiment of joy and virtue and miracles that is impossible.
I watched a documentary recently about a family in 1956 who had won a trip to Disneyland called 'Disneyland Dream'. I was never alive in the 50s, but I feel like we live with its endless idealism and imagination and disregard for the imminent depletion and real limitations of things like resources, and class systems, and human compassion.
And it makes me wonder why, 50 years later, we guilt ourselves for not having the 9 to 5, the nuclear household in a suburban neighborhood, or the safe retirement plan and latest appliances. Have we not figured out that the life model of going to college and getting a great job and earning that promotion and being rewarded for our integrity is based on the conditions of an American Dream which has clearly crumbled at its foundations?
We don't have Norman Rockwell dinners. People die, and jobs are lost. And integrity is rarely rewarded. And this isn't a tragedy, or a failure anymore than waking up from a dream. Its just the truth.
This Christmas, my grandmother is not with us, and we are not what we once were. Uncles are sick, and injured and unhealthy and Aunts miss their mothers. The children have finally moved out in their near 30s after five years or so of suffering questions of self-worth and capabilities. We are not ideal. How could we have been? But we are a family, and together, we are happy. We are perfect.
If you asked me what Christmas meant to me, the only thing I could be sure of is that this is the time my family spends two weeks out of the year eating food and playing games together- and that's good enough for me.
The new year brings even more anxiety. What is going to happen to us? Will this year be good? Will this year not be good? Will we follow through with the promises that we make to ourselves and others? Is this the year that the apocalypse will come? Am I going to die in 2011?
I forget sometimes, that January 1 is just a day like any other day. It has no magical powers except that it is a poignant reminder of the mystery that is our future, and the uncertainty it brings. It reminds us how much we hope, and fear. My grandmother died on December 31, 2010 and a chapter began in my life that I never even had a concept of. I simply just could not imagine life without her, and here I was, and here she was not.
But then life kept going, and I kept breathing, and I was alive. In June my dear friend Josh died accidentally, and I did not know that I could hurt so profoundly as I did when I realized that he'd had hopes and fears too, and dreams and that we'd never grow old together and be able to look back with joy on all our mistakes and masterpieces.
I will always hold that melancholy in my heart. Tears of grief are hot tears and they tattoo our cheeks. Every time we look in the mirror we see their marks, even if no one else can. Every time I look in the mirror, I see my grandmother, and Josh. How could I forget them when they are me?
It was so unexpected. Life has kept going and I have found that it is even more beautiful than I could have possibly grasped ten years ago, or even yesterday. Every day, and I realize how blessed I am to realize this, that out of reason or time we find each other and come together… that out of reason or time we can't help but to help each other find ourselves, lost as we are… we come back changed to the places that changed us, only to find that they have changed too and all of this hope and fear filters through our minds and into our own personal histories… and eventually, some time between now and our last breathe, we will see what an epic tale it is, that your life is a timeless legend so perfect that you couldn't have imagined or anticipated it even if you tried.
The older I get the more unsure I am about whether Christmas spirit is about joy, or anxiety. I feel anxious all the time around this time of year, as if things are supposed to go a certain way and we are all expected to live up to an embodiment of joy and virtue and miracles that is impossible.
I watched a documentary recently about a family in 1956 who had won a trip to Disneyland called 'Disneyland Dream'. I was never alive in the 50s, but I feel like we live with its endless idealism and imagination and disregard for the imminent depletion and real limitations of things like resources, and class systems, and human compassion.
And it makes me wonder why, 50 years later, we guilt ourselves for not having the 9 to 5, the nuclear household in a suburban neighborhood, or the safe retirement plan and latest appliances. Have we not figured out that the life model of going to college and getting a great job and earning that promotion and being rewarded for our integrity is based on the conditions of an American Dream which has clearly crumbled at its foundations?
We don't have Norman Rockwell dinners. People die, and jobs are lost. And integrity is rarely rewarded. And this isn't a tragedy, or a failure anymore than waking up from a dream. Its just the truth.
This Christmas, my grandmother is not with us, and we are not what we once were. Uncles are sick, and injured and unhealthy and Aunts miss their mothers. The children have finally moved out in their near 30s after five years or so of suffering questions of self-worth and capabilities. We are not ideal. How could we have been? But we are a family, and together, we are happy. We are perfect.
If you asked me what Christmas meant to me, the only thing I could be sure of is that this is the time my family spends two weeks out of the year eating food and playing games together- and that's good enough for me.
The new year brings even more anxiety. What is going to happen to us? Will this year be good? Will this year not be good? Will we follow through with the promises that we make to ourselves and others? Is this the year that the apocalypse will come? Am I going to die in 2011?
I forget sometimes, that January 1 is just a day like any other day. It has no magical powers except that it is a poignant reminder of the mystery that is our future, and the uncertainty it brings. It reminds us how much we hope, and fear. My grandmother died on December 31, 2010 and a chapter began in my life that I never even had a concept of. I simply just could not imagine life without her, and here I was, and here she was not.
But then life kept going, and I kept breathing, and I was alive. In June my dear friend Josh died accidentally, and I did not know that I could hurt so profoundly as I did when I realized that he'd had hopes and fears too, and dreams and that we'd never grow old together and be able to look back with joy on all our mistakes and masterpieces.
I will always hold that melancholy in my heart. Tears of grief are hot tears and they tattoo our cheeks. Every time we look in the mirror we see their marks, even if no one else can. Every time I look in the mirror, I see my grandmother, and Josh. How could I forget them when they are me?
It was so unexpected. Life has kept going and I have found that it is even more beautiful than I could have possibly grasped ten years ago, or even yesterday. Every day, and I realize how blessed I am to realize this, that out of reason or time we find each other and come together… that out of reason or time we can't help but to help each other find ourselves, lost as we are… we come back changed to the places that changed us, only to find that they have changed too and all of this hope and fear filters through our minds and into our own personal histories… and eventually, some time between now and our last breathe, we will see what an epic tale it is, that your life is a timeless legend so perfect that you couldn't have imagined or anticipated it even if you tried.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)