July 5, 2009
I Could Probably Calm Down A Little
Posted by mayiwrite under 4th of july, my life, new york city, photo | Tags: frustration, july 4th, sunset |1 Comment
July 5, 2009
And I can read it and see that it lacks focus.
But it’s really no different than any other time when I decide to write about whatever.
I mean, I can write about whatever.
This is my venue.
And it’s public domain.
I guess I can find focus.
Like it’s easy.
My thoughts are scattered.
Which means MY THOUGHTS ARE SCATTERED.
How much more vulnerable do I need to be?
Whatever I don’t write about isn’t public.
Whatever I don’t talk about I’m not ready to talk about.
I can only control so much, you know?
If you really want to be rid of me, just say so.
I can disappear without having to leave.
Which is kind of what I’ve done with this blog lately.
Because everything’s not clear.
Your concern.
My impatience.
I’ve become blurry, and you don’t see me.
And it’s just going to take time.
This is my blog.
This is your heads up.
July 4, 2009
Broad Stripes and Bright Stars
Posted by mayiwrite under 4th of july, my life, new york city, world events | Tags: 2009, july 4th, naturalization |Leave a Comment
Officially, this is my first Independence Day as an American citizen. A draft of something lengthy and involved and emotional and largely unfinished sits on my laptop. I hope it emerges eventually.
I love this country. I love my freedoms here. I love the servicemen who devote their lives to keep this country safe and relatively secure. I love this country’s founding fathers and their vision. I want their vision, especially when we get things wrong.
I love my family and their sacrifice and unending support. I love my friends.
I love seeing new and different people every day, making eye contact that means we know we’re in the greatest country in history.
These thoughts are no different from previous years. But a friend reminded me yesterday of my citizenship, and I got excited, and I started clapping, and now there’s all this … power.
I’ve lived and worked and thought like an American for all of my life. People have assumed I was American for just as long.
And now I am. I wish I could describe it. There’s nothing like it.
Happy Independence Day. Happy July 4th. Share the excitement about being American.
I’m off to a picnic and maybe attempt to watch the fireworks. We’ll see.
July 3, 2009
Windows
Posted by mayiwrite under friends, health, writing | Tags: awesomeness, guest blog, light, sarah, yoga |Leave a Comment
by Sarah G., Guest Blogger
Light streams through the trees and throws dappled shadows over the ground. The shadows morph and shift with the light as limbs and leaves respond to the breeze. Light has a way of looking and feeling different throughout its daily life cycle, and morning light is my favorite.
The shadows and light, just two dancing partners on Nature’s vast stage, begin to creep through the window and climb up the wall. The effect is that of a thousand butterflies alighting momentarily and then taking flight, over and over again. I stare up at the wall, admiring this performance, and begin to feel warmth on my face as the sun sends itself through the window panes. I close my eyes and I can still see the massive swarm of butterflies through what seem like semi-transparent lids.
I open my eyes and fill my lungs with air. I breathe out and extend my right arm, my hand slipping into a patch of sun on the floor. Most of my arm is still cloaked in shadow, but my upturned palm is awash in pinkish gold, catching the hundreds of tiny particles that sun rays reveal. This is why they’re all here this morning; they are all reaching for the light. Emerging from the darkness, longing for the luminous, they’re embarking on an epic journey out of night.
At least for a little while.
In my three years teaching yoga I’ve worked with cancer patients, cancer survivors, a blind woman, an Iraq War amputee, a school shooting survivor, and someone who barely escaped the collapse of the first tower on 9/11. Sufferers of multiple sclerosis, peripheral neuropathy, degenerative disc disease, osteoporosis, scoliosis, rheumatoid arthritis, trigeminal neuralgia, epilepsy, bulimia, depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder. Parents mourning the loss of their children to tragic accidents, children mourning the loss of their parents to age and disease. I’ve seen people in unspeakable amounts of physical and emotional pain, tears slipping silently down their cheeks in class. I’ve taught doctors, lawyers, soldiers, community leaders, teachers, musicians, farmers, artists, children, athletes, a professional skydiver and a NATO pilot.
I get to hug these people, offer them my tissues and my ears, and remind them to breathe. They start out seeming like “everyday” folks, but sometimes after class they feel compelled to share their stories and I realize they’re quite remarkable folks. The class is a safe haven for them, a neutral space. I’m not offering medications or judgments or specific advice, but rather an opportunity for them to just feel what they feel and know that it’s okay. Despite what some of them have been through, despite all the darkness and palpable pain in their eyes and their movements, they are so full of light and hope. Their thanks are always so sincere and unaffected and they tell me I teach them so much, but I feel I’m the one who’s always learning. In a gracious symbiosis, I help them see their worlds with a new awareness and they help me see new worlds through their eyes. A job of service is one of constant re-orientation and perspective, and that’s worth so much more than any monetary gain that comes from it. Each time I go to work I am humbled, inspired, and reminded of something greater than myself.
The shadow butterflies grow larger as the morning grows older, and the frenetic dance begins to slow. The room has been given new life with the warmth of bodies and soft whispers of breath. They’ve opened some windows of their own, and they rest in the comfort of knowing that they don’t know. They are reassured, even if only just for now, that the journey isn’t about the origin or the destination; that these shadows and light…they need each other. They’re able to lie back and watch the play, the morph and shift of their lives, and appreciate the beauty of the dance.
At least for a little while.
July 2, 2009
Connecting Introductions
Posted by mayiwrite under friends, my life, new york city, nostalgia, writing | Tags: archives, guest blog, sarah, transitions |1 Comment
The nostalgia level in me right now has gone way beyond obnoxious. Maybe that’s why I keep asking people to guest blog for me: It strengthens and deepens connections. So when I think of you, the bursting of my heart will be that much more powerful. Also, I respect your writing, and your appearing on my blog is a great honor. Please stay tuned: I might ask you next.
I thought I’d give a little background on tomorrow’s guest blogger, Sarah.
Instructions:
Click on this link
Read it
Minimize the window
Come back to finish reading this post
So, that’s what I think of her, at least on her birthday in 2007. And maybe now. ;) Below are some of her words from 1994. I don’t have any current samples, and she doesn’t have a public blog, but once I broke out the old notebook from our senior year, and once I reread what Sarah wrote, I knew her thoughts would more than suffice. It’s kind of a personal letter to me, but this really showcases her thought process. Fine, she was 18 years old, but she still maintains tightness and integrity in her writing. She’s thoughtful and poised and sensitive. And honest. Today, she’s a wife and a mom and a yoga instructor and a cake decorator, so her post tomorrow might pertain to her current life, but she’ll still be Sarah. The following is only an excerpt – the beginning of the letter, because it’s A Very Long Letter and she might be ticked that I’m even using even a snippet - but it’s enough to form a pretty dang great impression of her. (You might also get a sense of some of the vocabulary words we learned back then.) This letter speaks to Adolescence and Transitions and especially Friendship. Something she wrote 15 years ago, not long after we introduced ourselves to each other, is an apt introduction of her to you, here, now, when it still could apply. It still does. Used without permission, of course. 
***
May – Where can I possibly begin? Although it’s only been a little over a year that we’ve been close friends, it seems like a lifetime, yet at the same time a lifetime does in no way seem long enough. I can’t remember exactly when we started to form the bond that has developed into such a strong relationship – I just know that somewhere along the line, because of the crazy AP English class with Mrs. Faircloth (and of course Study Hall), we really connected. I remember you in tenth grade, when you sat all the way across the room (alphabetical order) and I thought you were so incredbily quiet. We were these naive, timid sophomores in a class dominated by Juniors and Seniors. I don’t think I said more than two words to you that year, and I regret it.
But then we went on to eleventh grade and our lives were changed forever. Little did I know what a difference you would come to make in my life. I began the year with a lot of misconceptions and I was extremely judgmental. I began sitting with you, Jenny, and Becky in lunch, and then we began having those long talks in Study Hall, and I started changing. It’s funny, those times in Study Hall when we talked about stupid things our brothers and sisters do, about our most embarrassing moments, about the toys we played with when we were little – they seem inane on the surface, but they were the foundation of a really strong system of communication between us. We felt comfortable, the six of us, sitting in that blue room and simply being open; being honest. I realized that you are incredibly compassionate, patient, dedicated, honest, and loving somewhere along the line, and despite the short time I’d known you I felt I could trust you. I respected your intelligence and admired your entire person – time was no factor in my decision to allow you to see me. But I didn’t just let you see me, I let you help make me – I chose to make you a part of my self and some of those qualities I so loved in you started to become my own. You taught me infinite things – patience and a true desire to listen [are] just two of them. I noticed how you benefitted from stepping back and taking in life instead of always having to be at the forefront. You are so observant. You had an instinctive understanding of me and the way my mind operated. At the end of last year, we got so close because we realized what a strong connection we did have and we didn’t want to spend a whole summer apart. We didn’t want to become estranged, but we should have known that with a connection like ours, that was not possible. No lapse of time or distance could deny the structure we had already built.
July 2, 2009
Fanning the Nostalgic Flame
Posted by mayiwrite under my life, new york city, nostalgia | Tags: archives, being lazy and obsessed, transitions |1 Comment
This blog is nearly as old as my time here in New York City. It has become a decent body of work; it’s an okay chronology. I was never this diligent in journaling during any other part of my life, and I’m so glad to have developed the habit.
I revisited the archives this morning, as I tend to do, with “Hometown Glory” at least semi-permanently stuck in my head, and stumbled upon an entry from April 10, 2007. I’ll copy and paste it here. A friend of mine had just moved from the city the week before, and I had a really hard time with it, crying on the train, on my way to my therapist’s for an appointment, and I had cried all the way back home, gotten ready for bed, and gone to sleep. Emotions bombarded me, and the following week this post happened:
***
Depth X Height X Intensity
In high school, friendships tend to go deep, fast. You’re in many of the same classes, even extra-curricular activities. You spend your spare time together. Factor all that in with what it means to be a teenager: self-discovery, learning critical thinking, drilling into everything’s deeper meaning, even if it doesn’t have one; hormones raging; angst flying. Identifying with Rand or Salinger or Hemingway or Dickinson; Pearl Jam, Counting Crows, Sting, Tori Amos. It’s a pretty intense time.
Not everyone has the same experience. Some coast along until they get to move away from their parents. Others live those years with moderate intensity. Others still dare to push, to challenge the limits of their very young characters. Paradoxically, these are the old souls, the kindred spirits.
These were my peers. We didn’t wear our hearts on our sleeves, per se, but I know we had angst, though not the destructive kind. We jammed and cruised and tossed some ideas back and forth and flicked others away, like lint. In the classroom, in somebody’s living room or a porch or a trampoline; out at a park, in the car driving to nowhere in particular, or perhaps coming back from bowling or eating.
I wouldn’t trade those times for anything in the world. I’d die first.
The intensity tapers as life goes on, in varying degrees. The people are different; the transitions suck. Relationships aren’t as much intense as they are weird; they are dis-tense, and the wordplayer in me morphs that into distance, which is the obvious space between me and these other people who don’t seem as kindred – we don’t want to get too close. They notice it too.
Old souls in high school aren’t the only ones. In fact, that phase of life has thoroughly prepared us to spot one now, a mile away; years later, or maybe a few hours. We recognize a certain gentleness and power, a familiar warmth in the countenance; a subtle thawing, like the conversion of winter into spring. Then, the intensity picks up again. You know how it goes.
Another transition comes along, and we haven’t forgotten how much it hurts to say goodbye. And that was 13 years ago. Or even last week. The key is to cherish it as much as you can presently, even if it means an unbearably poignant departure. The key is to cherish it as much as you can presently, even if the thought of goodbye keeps sneaking in on your forethoughts, which bear the trite truth: there’s no such thing as goodbye.
The key is to remember that you are old souls, kindred spirits.
When you do part ways, the key is to be so happy and excited for your friends, so grateful for your paths crossing, that you cry and cry and shudder and hiccup and snot everywhere and pray and cry yourself to sleep; so that eventually, you can look back fondly at all the good times, and giddily anticipate a sweet, joyful reunion. Every single time.
Intense.
***
Needless to say, I’ve found some old souls, kindred spirits in New York City. I’ve been blessed enough to get to know you, to have been found worthy to be a part of your lives. Some of you have left recently, and I didn’t get the chance to tell you how special and incredible you are; how much I miss you. I have hugs reserved specifically for you. Some of you will leave with the next outgoing tide. Some of me will go with you.
July 1, 2009
Song on Repeat: “Hometown Glory” by Adele
Posted by mayiwrite under friends, music, my life, nostalgia | Tags: adele, hometown, hometown glory, middleburg, songs on repeat |[5] Comments
more about “ADELE – Hometown Glory“, posted with vodpod
This song speaks to me on so many levels. First, musically. Listen to the way Adele phrases each line, each word, parts of each word. Listen to the combination of the piano and strings, how it enhances and not overwhelms Adele’s amazing voice. Feel the emotion of the song. Consider the lyrics, bring up old memories of way back when; they’re probably still quite vivid, as if they didn’t happen all that long ago.
According to my facebook profile, my hometown is Jacksonville, Florida, and my current city is New York, New York. I tell people I’m from Jacksonville because not very many would recognize the town of Middleburg, which I hear has turned into quite the suburb. Orange Park has spilled over into the little town where I grew up. It now has a fancy Publix and a Home Depot and a Super Wal-Mart. Housing subdivisions are everywhere, especially down the road where I lived my senior year of high school. Old Jennings Road. Traffic is ridiculous on all arteries leading to and from Blanding Boulevard and Branan Field Road. It has developed into your run-of-the-mill, organized, cookie-cutter chaos. I’ve been back to that part of town, driving around, seeing how Middleburg now very directly connects to Jacksonville, so Jacksonville is also overflowing into my little Middleburg without filtering through Orange Park. The sign indicating the town limit reads in large letters, “MIDDLEBURG,” then in smaller letters below it, “Unincorporated.” That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
It would seem almost everything about my childhood, at least the last eight years of it, has been corrupted. Maybe not. If you drive further south and west, the landscape looks just about the same. Head west on State Road 218 and cross Mimosa Road and you’ll see the same dirt roads and mobile homes and less crowded land. You’ll see untended weeds and stray dogs and horse stalls and chicken coops. You’ll see my junior high school, and if you drive far enough, my elementary school. One noticeable change is a big, obnoxious gas station at Mallard Road.
Once, probably five years ago on a home visit (which had become Jacksonville), I drove to Middleburg. I turned north on Mimosa Road for a few miles, then west on Johns Cemetery Road, which becomes Plankton Avenue. The grass was higher. The brush was thicker. The acre plot of land where I lived from 1987 to 1993 had grown over with indigenous foliage, as well as a bunch of rubbish. The neighboring plots looked very much the same. The Roenisches lived next to me. Becky Fraser lived over on Foxtail Avenue, maybe a mile away. Her cousin, Stephanie Cardone, lived closer, on the corner of Johns Cemetery and Parsley. Jackie Anderson and Lynn Reed lived on Parsley. Mike and Trent McKay lived on Kay Road.
These friends don’t live there anymore. My generation, my peers. That realm – the era, the location – was carved out specifically for that part of my childhood, and no more. I watched in my rear view mirror the cloud of dust the car kicked up as I made my way back to the paved road. This was a part of town everyone shrugged off, ignored, abandoned; purpose served. And that part of town seems perfectly okay with it. Unincorporated, it is.
Seems I needed to revisit, if not geographically, then at least in my mind. Turns out I have similar thoughts here. Those memories of way back when we keep rather close to the surface. We don’t really bury them, after all.
I’ve been walking in the same way as I did
And missing out the cracks in the pavement
And tutting my heel and strutting my feet
“Is there anything I can do for you dear? Is there anyone I could call?
No, and thank you, please madam, I ain’t lost, just wandering”
Round my hometown, memories are fresh
Round my hometown, ooh, the people I’ve met
Are the wonders of my world, are the wonders of my world
Are the wonders of this world, are the wonders and now
I like it in the city when the air is so thick and opaque
I love it to see everybody in short skirts, shorts and shades
I like it in the city when two worlds collide
You get the people and the government
Everybody taking different sides
Shows that we ain’t gonna stand [ - ]
Shows that we are united
Shows that we ain’t gonna take it
Shows that we ain’t gonna stand [ - ]
Shows that we are united
Round my hometown, memories are fresh
Round my hometown, ooh, the people I’ve met
Are the wonders of my world, are the wonders of my world
Are the wonders of this world, are the wonders of my world
Of my world, yeah, of my world, of my world, yeah
June 30, 2009
What Is Real
Posted by mayiwrite under my life, nature, new york city, photo | Tags: awesomeness, clouds, sunset |1 Comment
These were in the sky Friday evening:
Some friends and I surfaced from the 2nd Avenue stop from the F train. In the Lower East Side, the skyline is lower than just about anywhere else in town, and I looked up, and I just kept looking up. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Of course, with the camera I couldn’t capture the clouds the way my eyeballs did at the time. This is pretty close, though. The colors and the textures and shapes, the brushstrokes; the orangey-pink light suspending rows and rows of cottonballs just beyond my reach, this is all real. My friends saw the sky, too, though I can’t account for their experience. Even if I didn’t have the camera, and I couldn’t convince you, I know what I saw, if only for my personal witness – the instantaneous speechlessness, wonderment and veneration in my soul as I raised my eyes to the sky – burned into my memory.
June 29, 2009
[Untitled]
Posted by mayiwrite under friends, links, my life, writing | Tags: a little thinking, alicia, andrea boerem, becky, guest blog |Leave a Comment
Just because I haven’t been writing doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking. And boy, has there ever been time to think. And there has been time to come up with ways to keep from thinking too much. What’s the name of my blog? Right, “A Little Thinking.” And maybe I’ve been writing too much, if you can call it writing.
I’ve been kind of cheating, jotting down thoughts here and there, scrawling out drafts of pieces, pieces of drafts, even letting people read them. By “people,” I mean friends and fellow writers. But mostly friends. What’s up with that, letting people see the product, far from finished? It didn’t used to be that way.
Maybe all of that is the essence of the break. I just don’t feel like polishing and tightening drafts right now. Ever since Mrs. Faircloth returned assignments with “Revise, please” written on them, that triggered something in me never to publish, post, discuss anything with anyone until the drafts are final.
And so sits at least eight posts on their respective back burners. How big is my stove, you ask? Even I don’t know that. But maybe I’ve been insecure and self-conscious, and maybe a little prideful. So now, sometimes, I can share what’s a little (or a lot) rough around the edges. Whatever pushes me to strive for honesty in my writing says it’s okay to do this.
I really appreciated last week’s guest posts. My friends give great insight about their approaches to life. And to writing. Which is about life. One could find definite commonalities in each of the entries; the differences are obvious. For me, they cause me to reflect upon relationships: with other people and my dynamics with them; with things/ideas/sports that I don’t like and reconciling with them; with words and my obsession to get them right and to do my bidding when in fact it is I who ends up submitting to them.
Good reminders, all.
The DVR (Super Maynard) at Becky’s is still broken, even though she now has a free month of HBO and Showtime for the inconvenience. Andrea still probably really hates all other sports but super-hearts trapezing, and the utter delight on her face proves that. And Alicia’s woman, with the tiara, she’s just not ready yet.
At some point, we all have to wait.
The process is seldom easy, and not always pretty.
***
Anyway, I’m well aware of what’s going on in the world. My good friend Brian, his twitter feed keeps me current.
June 29, 2009
Just a Thought
Posted by mayiwrite under food, friends, miscellany, my life, single life, weekend | Tags: ice cream, kissing, weird |1 Comment
So, three girls at a banana split social. It’s a girls’ social. And they have these bananas. And ice cream – vanilla and chocolate flavors. And walnuts. And caramel. And chocolate syrup. And maraschino cherries. With stems.
After these girls finish their sundaes, they’re found concentrating. Sitting together. On a bench. Away from the crowd. Not talking, but intensely focused. On tying their stems into knots. With their tongues. Of course.
That’s got to be the reason these girls are single, right?
Right?
