TV Interview: Spotlight on Cocooning Catharsis

PBCJamaica "Spotlight" TV Interview Originally aired January 2014
for the solo photo-Based exhibition Cocooning Catharis at HiQo Gallery, Kingston, Jamaica
(Dec 19 - Jan 13th, 2014)


This was thankfully a casual but in depth discussion on the inspiration behind the work, and some of the methods used to make the pieces.  It was a great hang with the crew too.

Select works available at HiQo Gallery






Related links and articles:

Smile Jamaica/TVJ Morning Interview

Petchary Blog Review

Arc Magazine Release

The Gleaner

Another Robin Hood Capitalist Goes to Africa

“This is a relationship that could bring us all the things we desire,” Jeffrey Wright said. [from NYT Article]
 Will it really?  Not from what I can glean.

Michael Christopher Brown/Magnum, for The New York Times

A few days ago a dear friend sent this New York Times Magazine Article: Jeffrey Wright's Gold Mine, and I had to sit with it for a bit because quite frankly I didn't want to express too soon my innermost reactions of utter distaste.

I am all for the worldwide excitement that now swirls around Africa; I'm overjoyed and inspired by the throngs of Afropolitans who are relocating  there in record numbers to reclaim and rebuild. They, we, have her best interest at heart in investing in her growth and resurgence as the power that she always was - due to her most abundant bossom and talented children.  And make no mistake, this is a very significant event that has created such terms as "reverse migration" or "reverse brain drain" which are being used to describe a very specific socio-economic effect.  Once the Westernized educated classes of third world nations would leave their countries to help build the already powerful industrial nations from which capitalist driven standards hailed.  The effect of this was brain drain (human capital flight) which often left the poorer nations struggling to compete effectively in any international industry due to a lack of skilled work forces.  In turn this would of course affect a nations GDP (gross domestic product) growth.  Now for the first time in the LONG and (still debated) complicated history of world economics, the reverse is occurring.  The wide significance of this can be sourced to many publications and statistical reports, not least of which by the World Bank citing in 2013 that the fastest growing economies belonged mostly to African nations - and Sierra Leone is sustaining her top ranking position on this list.  Time Magazine and The Economist actually had the

same Africa Rising cover issue titles when reporting this phenomenon! There is no coincidence in the fact that the(current) race for Mama Africa (headed by China over 10 years ago) reawakened Europe's interest, and now supposedly 'concerns' that of the USA; - a crazed rush of which her own children are keenly aware.  Africans want ownership interest in her future - OBVIOUSLY.  No child of hers wishes to see her raped and robbed again!  Which brings me back to the responsibility of the individual, and this move by actor Jeffrey Wright and his gold mining project - which sorry, does not have the appearance of real interest in development or profitable investor growth FOR MY country Sierra Leone.  It looks like just the opposite.  

Is it me, or does his pet gold mine project have all the earmarks of the old imperialist model of exploitation for industrial and western profit?! And worse still because he does it under the guise of his right and spiritual destiny as a black man coming to do his part to help rebuild a chosen African nation which he has tricked himself into believing he has interest in!  How can it be real interest if you offer partnership to outside investors (he included) for profits to be removed from the very country you dig up for your personal enrichment?  Unless I'm misinterpreting something here - it seems he's recycling damaging strategies that put Sierra Leone in the very mess he proposes to be aiding to clean.  What fucking hypocrisy!

There are many well-meaning celebrities who have put their face, and sometimes time, effort, or money into charitable pots created by humanitarian organizations - and sometimes unfortunately to little avail.  The model of charity is indeed being reexamined as one that doesn't ultimately help to lift a troubled nation out of poverty. The old adage is true - better to teach one how to fish.   “Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.” [from NYT article].  Agreed.  Wright cites this quote  in the article - and yes this is true in many cases, but certainly the alternative is not to repeat models of exploitation behind the cloak of a radical Robin Hood capitalist digging for gold instead of diamonds.  And especially not if you're robbing the poor you propose to be educating and empowering Jeffrey! Hello! Ugh - this man, this artist is in the specific performing profession of the empath - that's what you do as an actor, but all I see from this article, as I frankly have seen in some of his performances, is one of an arrogant self-appointed massah.

"Sierra Leone was one of the world’s most failed states. And it is ringed by war-ravaged Liberia and by Guinea, whose government was fast collapsing. To all but the most intrepid, Sierra Leone’s gold didn’t seem worth the gamble." [from NYT article].  And being among the most intrepid gives you no credibility in my book if you can go into such a state nonetheless and take resources and personally control trade in the name of nation rebuilding.  It absolves you of nothing.

Guess I still haven't cooled off yet...

Thank you Bea - this woke me from my personal silence. xo

"The narrative will always glorify the hunter until the lion learns to write."
Just like you said Komla Dumor
#VoiceOfAfrica 

Full New York Times article here

The Scary Business of New Beginnings...

They say you should do something that scares you everyday… Well, check!!

Moving they say is among the top traumas a person can experience, and prior to a couple weeks ago - this whole business of moving out and giving up everything I own was a great conversation piece that inspired only release and celebration...and zero fear.  Then suddenly one day recently, that all changed.  Everyday since has been an exercise in recalling the meditative and spiritual work of this year - and remembering to breathe.  The challenging asanas I've pushed myself in yoga all year to do, I call on now as practice in the asana of release.  Funny that I find myself clinging so tightly now just as I'm about to let go. 

I heard Rev. Bacon say in an interview with Oprah last week that change is like the tumult in a plane.  Pilots explain that when the craft is about to break through the sound barrier the cockpit shakes the most and the body of the craft is at its most unstable.  I love this.  Kind of like the constricting  trauma of the birth canal before air and light; but this new analogy is serving me right now. I'm breaking through the sound barrier - my apartment is the cockpit, and I'm wanting to grip for security before releasing to the cruising altitude on the other side.   Deep and interesting process to observe on a daily basis.  

I'm now at the 2 week mark and I FEEL my body poised and sharply focused on the task at hand.  There is not a single moment for renegotiation left.  It's do or bust. And I'm doing this most involved work WHILE preparing for immediate travel and 3 exhibitions!  Of course.  Hahaha.  But stoop sales are the biggest 'DO' right now and I don't particularly enjoy them because I feel like I'm in a fish bowl brandishing my panties for the world to stare at!  That said - I've been ushered prior into this process by the presence of friends and family so I could get my feet wet.


But unlike those other days where we've had mini impromptu stoop parties, today I had my first solo stoop sale and it was not only a real physical work out, but a true test of breathing away the histrionics, overcoming the fears and getting necessary work done.  I set this all in motion when I decided to release my life here in New York,  and so I have to go through these logistics - which are hardly as romantic as the reasons or the stories behind them. 
       
So...I didn't have the hand holding today that  my little heart yearned for, but such conditions yield deep spiritual truths about where to hold energy and how to stand in an exposed vulnerable space with your center in tact.  It's not easy watching people assess the worth of your belongings...that for you  are so rich with sentimental value.  But with each breath, I experienced the liberty that this entire move is ushering me towards.  And added to that, I was called and visited by sweet souls all day who delivered gems of deep encouragement for this soul work.  Even the guys in the clothing store across the street watched my stuff for me when I had to walk away or show someone my stuff for sale inside the apartment. It's remarkable how sweetly held I was by strangers and new neighbours and passersby who questioned and then celebrated my reasons for my move. It emboldened my sense of courage to continue, to sit in my fish bowl and get about the business of releasing my things, my emotional attachments, my fears, my ego...

These moments are the practice for when I am untethered and on my way to Sierra Leone at the end of the year.   This is the TRUTH right here.  Wow.  Yemaya. 

Humbled • Scared •  Determined • Grateful. 

For Trayvon Martin: In. The Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams.

A little over a year ago I collaborated with some friends to create levitating imagery as a first reaction to the news of Trayon Martin's untimely demise. The titles of each triptych portrait were part of a whole sentence: In The Hood We Will Witness Lives and Dreams. 

The idea stemmed also from what I have noticed and experienced in American culture especially - and painfully so - the attachment society has to limited, definitive emblems and symbols of a person, rather than to recognize 'the being', the character, the soul. To state repeatedly that we all have soaring dreams whether we live in 'da hood' or in a homogenized or insulated gated community, whether we wear a suit or a hoodie, is indeed a social conditioning that must be created and pressed consistently and actively into our collective psyche if such dangerous misconceptions are ever to change. We witness not only what unfolds before us, but we create what we witness, by bringing our perceptions to a scene, a conversation, or chance meeting.  If Zimmerman saw a child instead of perceiving a black gangster, Trayvon Martin may possibly have lived, or in fact benefited from his protection rather than to be hunted.

For the triptych works - I asked friends from mixed backgrounds and professions to pose for me in their hoodies for front and back portaits, and in levitating action sequences as a visual attempt to represent the static stereotype whilst actively transcending it.

A short film was also in development to accompany this that I'm hoping to complete by the end of the year.

If only we all remembered simultaneously that it's a simple shift in one's perception that can create huge change...just like the butterfly...

In. The Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams.

Via Flickr:

In. The. Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams., a set on Flickr.

Series Title:

In. The. Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams
A response to Trayvon Martin's misidentification...

Naked in the Shadow

The Shadow came and covered my place, my doorway, my face.  It was like having a solid steel block placed over my heart-space while I lay flat on a cold ground gasping for air.  

That damn persistent Shadow...

I have never stopped myself so consciously from writing before.  I never experienced so physically the effects of such mindful resistance.  I feel it now as I write.  

My whole life I've been told to write, or that I would inevitably be a writer.  I never wanted to accept such prophecy because it meant so many things that I somehow concluded would make my life a misery.  It meant I would be alone.  It meant I would never dance.  It meant I couldn't act. It meant I wasn't pretty enough.  I could never be a popular or fun person who attracted the company of other popular or fun people if I spent my whole day writing about all the crap that ran around in my head.  Funny - as nowadays none of these conditions hold my interest.  Well that's not entirely true.  But the recluse I feared I would be as a writer, is now actually how I choose to exist.  It's how I feel safe.  And now my head is full of thoughts that must come out - UNinterrupted.  Ha!  Isn't that it?  Writing is speaking your mind UNinterrupted?  

Anyway despite my resistance, -a lifetime of active resistance through a number of other activities and professions- I would still write.  Since the age of 6 I started writing...copiously.  And when the rush of thoughts would barrel through me, nothing could stop me from recording it.  Added to mounds of journals, I have so many napkins, internal book sleeves, and scrap papers with sentences, phrases, or whole passages scribbled on them.  I can't count how many draft documents I've typed, never written for public consumption mind you, just for the release I uncontrollably needed. 

In fact the only public consumption of my writing have been assignments in college, a mere handful of published essays and articles, and this blog.  I never tried to take it beyond that you see.  But in each of these instances, I was frightened when my work was well received.  The fright was that I made possible the prophecy of being a 'writer', and thus the Shadow that could rob me of the otherwise active life I thought I wanted.  

But this last month I felt suffocated in a way I never expected or experienced.  I would be sitting on my outside stoop or on the train, or doing some other activity when suddenly a rush of thoughts and words would come over me and through me.  I know this feeling so well and precisely how I've always reacted to it. But this time I would literally, consciously decide to let it slip away.  I would plant myself, sit it out,  STOP myself from grabbing a pen or running to the computer to write.  And that freaked me out.  It is freaking me out.  It's freaking my friends out too.  So much so that as I verbally explained this to one of them, my dear Vernice made me sit down immediately to write this in her presence to release myself...

So here I am, ...naked.

And here I will stay...embracing this prophecy.  Many thoughts have bubbled in this winter of introspection.  I was so still that if I wrote anything, it would be the only action and so...resistance. 
It seems awfully obvious now, and reveals me as a bit mad and slow on the uptake...but, of course I can do everything I've done before, just now it's time to openly embrace 'writing' as one of...  But on the way here, maybe it's okay, as Saul Williams said: "to throw away the pad and pen, and simply be the poem." Perhaps all this exploration has been to gather tales and living poetry to share; dispatches from a mad lab of endless searching for wholeness. 

Indeed.  And this search shall take me home, the reports of which will be shared through my lens and my pen.

Sierra Leone.  

It is time.

The (Humbling) Humour of Loss, Growth, and Change

Oh how long life is and what a gift it is to have witnesses...life long witnesses, who may not be close to you by any active means, but have seen you either at pivotal shifts on the journey or a few steps in the sub-lifetime of those shifts. These most important beings help to keep WHOLE the picture of your life, the image of yourself, your journey, your growth. They join the dots. They know you in ways your closest friends over shorter and especially recent periods cannot as they are not mired as you are, by the a litany of current distracting details.

--

It was a beautiful Ash Wednesday beach day specifically for the purpose of rejuvenation and support of our dear friend Sean who had recently lost his baby brother Joseph.  After our day out, we settled by the poolside of Jason's mother's home in Kingston.  There we spoke in deep wonder and acceptance of the journey of loss and rebirth that we all have and must endure.  At the close of this, Jason's mum was rushing about, late for her game of tennis, and her sparring partner who came to fetch her was already parked outside:

Friend JH: Berette, do you know who that is in the car outside?

Me: No, who is it?

JH: It's Sister Mary Catherine

Me: What?! No way. From Immaculate??? Lemme see!

I ran outside around to the driver's side of the car where a middle aged woman was seated. Same childlike face that I remember from so many years ago. Except in the place of the Franciscan nun's habit was a tennis headband, bob-length hair flowing free:

Me: Sister Mary Catherine!! Is that really you?!

SMC: Ah...yes...(?)

Me: It's Berette...

Me/SMC: Berette Macaulay (?!)

Me: Yes Yes! Oh my gosh I can't believe it - how long has it been?!

SMC: I know, oh my goodness! I can't believe it. How are you? Where have you been?!

Me: I'm fine! I've been living in the States the past few years. I'm an artist - well currently a photographer...

SMC: How wonderful!! You...you look...well...(!)

Me: Yes, I am.

SMC: I see your mother on television sometimes, and whenever I do, I wonder "what ever became of Berette". And I see you are fine...(as she gazes at me)

Me: Yes, yes I am (smiles, gasps, giggles)

SMC: I'm so glad, because you were such a troubled child. (eyebrows earnestly furrowed, coupled with a smile of disbelieving.)

Me: (laughs in agreement) yes, I was, but alas I've grown to be quite conservative in my old age (laughs more)

SMC: I can see, yes, I'm glad to see you are alright, and healthy, and well.  I didn't know you knew these guys! (referring to our mutual friends) 

Me: Yes, a long time too, in fact I met Jason when I was a young child in Sierra Leone, before my 'troubled' teen years! Yeah - the world is small isn't it?!

His mother comes out to get into the car:

SMC: Berette very good to see you.  Take care of yourself.

Me:  So very good to see you too Sister Mary Catherine (I say this

wondering if I should call her this - as she left the nunnery years prior).  Oh wait! Please, before you go, please can we take a picture together, I must have this for posterity.  

SMC:  Of course!

Darling Sean, whose shock and loss was just a week old - was standing by looking on.  We had all been in the deep conversational search; reckoning with the mystery of life...the whole reason for this day of togetherness in the sun.  He immediately grasped the seemingly random continuity of this moment and runs around happily to oblige:

by Sean John

As they drove off - we (Sean, Nicky, Jason, and me) all laughed and reeled from this mysterious journey called 'Life', and the never-ending opportunity to complete the circles that help us make sense of it all.

Lessons learned and reinforced:


This life is long, and this life is funny, even while it hurts. Stay awake. Keep joining the dots. Keep searching and creating connections.  Keep loving actively. Go on. 

We all piled into our car, and drove off all singing along with this song:

Lovely Day by Bill Withers

(Dedicated to Joseph Buchanan, Feb 3rd, 1984 - Feb 14th, 2012, Fly in Peace beautiful one)

RELATED JOURNEY POST:

- Let Go II: Ties That Bind (Jan 2010)

Acting in Evolution

This is new kind of share (and update for some of you) about a most timely and beautiful opportunity I had this summer.  I'm always going on about 'the journey' and usually a very internal and personal one at that - with the occassional dash of work/professional news.  But as these two aspects of our lives are intrinsically tied - I must share this recent and particularly meaningful connection. 


I have been excavating a whole heap of stuff over the past couple of years, and one aspect of my past has been left unexplored:  acting.  It's kinda ironic, but not entirely uncommon, to find myself on a professional journey that has little to do with my course of study in college: Theater Arts.  I have certainly created real connections between this and photography, in so far as how I develop my work, and how I attempt to go about the business of creating it.  The principles of collaboration that I seek always to work by, come directly from the culture of the theater world.  But acting - well, this I have not done for some years now. As I often would put it when it came up:  I haven't spoken text on stage/on camera for....  

As I've been on my other artistic explorations, I've missed acting, not sharply mind you, but rather, I've been aware of its absence as a form of expression.

My friend Danae Grandison, another soul-searcher/explorer and accomplished graphic designer, decided to switch gears and explore the artform of film making.  Her first film, Unconditional Love, is a work straight from the highway of personal explorations, directly from the heart, a beautiful distillation of what it means to come out on the other end of a growth passage emotionally in tact, and in fact, to find yourself utterly in love with life and all the vicissitudes therein; to arrive at acceptance, wonderment, and open curiosity to what comes next.  We can only be in such a place when we are willing to release the past, and thus the expectations it invariably breeds for the future.  


I auditioned at precisely the right time for the part in this 2 minute short - when I could understand the meaning of such a personal evolution.  It was also therefore, the right project to bring me back to this art form.  Oh the connectivity!  


Danae's work premiered at SVA (School of Visual Arts) at the end of her film course this past August, and she received the Audience Award for her work.  I was so chuffed too of course - haha! 


Here's our Labour of Love - which was shot in the New York City heat wave of 115ºF!  Not easy, but totally cathartic.  Thank you for this journey Danae!








 
Unconditional Love from Danae Grandison on Vimeo.
Time to release the bags you collect along the way...

Featuring Berette Macaulay
Written and Directed by Danae Grandison
Edited by David Lee

BIG PICTURE Fun on the Rock

So I just made my photographic debut in Denver this last Friday with the opening of the BIG PICTURE show in celebration of the Month of Photography. It's a cool idea really - where photography meets street art on a global scale, with a clever use of geotagging so all can attend - all conceptualized by the directors of ILLITERATE Media Gallery. 

Though I'm clearly not in Denver to see my work up (I do have spies on the look out tho - heehee) - I was excited to get Jamaica on the BIG PICTURE google map by posting work by Colorado artist Brenda Biondo - sent on from the gallery. 

It was also a great opportunity to get Studio 174 involved! It's a great community art space located @ 174 Harbour Street in downtown Kingston, and founded by Rozi Chung, where the creative potential of inner-city kids is unearthed, nurtured, and fully expressed in Saturday morning art workshops.



Rozi and I have been in conversation about creating outdoor projects specifically aligned with global outreach programs for kids, most specifically with CITYarts in New York (more on that in another post). Anyway this came along and Rozi was the best person to run to! Luckily volunteer clinical psychologist, Dr. Tammy Haynes was on site as well; both women were so excited and  accommodating in letting me treck my zerox prints and yucky wheat paste down there for the kids to put up our work outside on the studio walls.

 

 

  

 

 

Rozi Chung - founder of Studio 174

 

Rozi and Jason, also a one of the DIGICEL Mural Artists (see YardEdge)

Crude as the finish appears, I think it's cool, and it was a really a fun and fulfilling Saturday morning with those kids.  With just two moderately sized 16x20 prints and everyone getting their hands in on fitting the pieces and sticking - a smooth finish was not the point - at least not in the end - ha!  Participating in the exchange and showing the work was, and ohhhh yes, I'll have more please! Can't wait to see it up on the map. Stay tuned!

 

*Workshop fotos by Me and Dr. Tammy Haynes

**Studio 174's Rozi Chung, Dr. Tammy Haynes, and photographer Max Earle have cofounded INSCAPE. It is a non-profit organisation which evolved from an earlier collaborative endeavor known as the Tivoli Resolution Project), which helped traumatized young victims of the Tivoli incident last May (2010), through visual and performing art therapies. The mission of INSCAPE is to provide the space and resources to continue such work in the inner-city communities in Jamaica - free of charge to those in need. Please follow the links to learn more about them and how you can help.



Big Picture Works on Live View in Kingston on Harbour Street:

Plant With Roots © Brenda Biondo

Behind The Hidden Gate © SeBiArt

Big Picture Works on Live View in Denver:

CrowDeD - Maki © SeBiArt

Dragon's Lair © SeBiArt




View the BIG PICTURE Worldwide MAP

Confessions from the Gap

One random and uneventful day in the last couple of months of 2010 I caught myself barely hanging on to the edge, with just small traces of motivation to maintain my grip - and so, I fell in anyway. Those days were made up of worry about what the heck I was doing with my life, how hard it had become to stay home in New York, how false it felt to propogate any attempt to network or market myself or my work, anywhere, and how unwilling I was to pour my heart out to myself or to you, or why the hell I felt so uninspired to do ANYthing.  

Falling into a real depression was what it felt like, but like a functioning alcoholic - one never would have known it to look at me. I didn't know it!  I was still getting out, or getting online, still going through the motions of a 'fine art photographer' with another show opening to close off a good year - which meant life was moving forward right?  Or just moving in any event...  But internally I felt stagnant - resigned to keep falling through the dark gap, smacking into the detritus of strange, reactive, accidental, or just plain stupid choices I made - including the complacently coorperative (or indecisive) moments that played out in several areas of my life over the course of the last year.   

          

It's funny to say in contrast that I didn't feel dark, or sad.  There wasn't the typical dose of self bashing, that I'm fairly good at, nor were there tears (which sometimes I desperately wanted), but there was some anger...the type that tends to rise when I'm in NYC, or what I'm now transporting to Jamaica.  I'm learning slowly to see/feel it's usefulness for creation though.  It's an anxious irritability that forces me into a silent period where I begin to look, listen, fall into communicative spells of imaginative trances - and from there I work, unencumbered by impatience or self judgment.  It's textures and colors useful. But it's dimensions dreadful. 

      

I heard Maya Angelou in a preview for Oprah's Master Class show on OWN, utter the words "Love LIBERATES.  Love does not own - that's Ego.  Love LIBERATES".  It happened in the middle of the night, around 2:30 in the morning on January 2nd. Quite suddenly, like a light switch being flicked up, I hit ground zero - its landing like a freshly fluffed pillow covered in silk. After a long dark fall, I fell into this soundless open cavern surrounded by portals of light - none promising anything, all inviting liberation.  I ran to grab my diary and a wrote, and cried, and laughed, and purged.  Sounds mad - but it was just my way of crawling slowly back out of the gap.  

2010 was a year of countless fortuitous events for me both professionally and personally, but I judged myself for not being enough of an architect of the better looking structures formed out of those events; thus I named myself a reactive dweller in my life.  I stopped practicing yoga, continued daily to promise myself to return to dance - and each day breaking the promise, and I took up smoking again (I know, I know...).  I basically sat around a lot, pressing auto-response buttons to my life to at least engage in minimal participation of the opportunities afforded to me.  Or so I thought.  But in actuality, I drove myself down every yellow brick bumpy road I found myself on - I just dared not admit it in a moment when loving myself was not on the agenda.  

But love LIBERATES.
  
How easy it was once I just recognized my own bullshit!  Isn't that always the case?  You crawl out of denial only to discover what a simple fool you've been for investing such energies in a self imposed (imprisoning) cover up operation.  And for whom??? For what?  To arrive where?  Well, here I guess. Full and empty. Released and ready to begin building and balancing all over again.  And yeah...to quit smoking too. Again. Sigh. 

      

Dare NOT to live in auto pilot mode - because it is precisely there that gaps form;
DARE to live inside your dreams, be in touch with your unique imagination.

There, is your evolution, 
There you flourish, 
Only there, can you oppose all external expectations of the 'established' paradigms of successful living.  
There, is a place where you can create, approve of, and use your own paradigms. 

Unpredictable ends and the fear of them make this a hard-sought and hard-won place, 
But there is the place of charged confident comfort in knowing your purpose;
a place of  sustainable contentment, innocence, strength, wonderment, and grace.  

To live there is to indeed be a free radical.

     Be radical. 
     Follow Your Heart.
     Become Your Dream. 
     MIND the GAP.

Awakening in the Illusion

I've pretty much done away with the old anal me, the organized, neat, over-planning freak  who had to be certain of every iota of everything in order to move forward with anything.  I'm paraphrasing my internal mantra here, but now each day I sludge or skip forward with this guiding belief:  


The only way to travel light is really to release the heavily packaged idea that you need to know everything.  Release into the unknown, dance with the uncertainty of fudged plans; only there lie the surprises of certain rewards. 


Lofty innit?  But you know, I've honestly found this to be quite true.  Just two years ago, I, and a couple witnesses in my life, would have laughed at the idea of how I live now.  Guilt and fear were my close allies in how I perceived my life or any possibilities that lay before me, and they informed how I would arm myself against disaster (though I did often contradict myself, thereby creating fine messes to clean up anyway).  As I shared with a dear friend the other day, it recently  dawned on me that I currently have stuff left in homes of friends and family in 3 regions of the world - and, unbelievably, I'm not bothered!  

That said - I've not brought this gypsy-footing around to the close I imagined I would have by now. The marvelous lesson and gift of detachment that I've gained with all this jumping around, has also enabled a not-so-complimentary trait of mine: indecisiveness.  It would appear that I no longer know how, and thus by default, where to land - which is beginning to concern me...but only a little bit. Not being tied to a calendar has filled my mostly unscheduled life with an immense amount of fulfilling activity, that ironically now seems to need a bit of structure.  With all this ambiguity about where to finally unpack my suitcases, I've been wondering a lot lately if the impending external pressure to do so means it's time to grow up, or if this is really the distance for me. 


I mean, I handle the business of adulthood as well as the next person I suppose; attending to duties and responsibilities with a fair amount of acceptance (haha) and efficiency, even aplomb on occasion!  Admittedly though, my hypersensitivity to the realities of post-childhood life will sometimes grip me with sheer panic beyond what I've observed in others.  But, I soldier on, as must we all! 


Given such observations, I must concede to the truth that I chase novelty at every turn, because I have yet to truly make peace with the sheer regularness of living. Does this mean that my development is stunted? Or could it mean simply, that I reach for constant expansion? I really fear that too much routine (though I synchronously yearn for it...) will put me to sleep, but who's to say really that I'm even awake? I could be just an indulgent escapist, justifying my ever changing mindset and physical location as necessary creative food for my artistic and spiritual development! 

What is it to be living in an illusion?  What is it to be awake?  Can we do both; can we "dream awake"?  Really, is there a satisfying  definition of either choice, and which therefore is the more beneficial and actionable prescription for a fulfilling life?  What has been a most amusing thing to me for the past couple of years, is the common mantra that "life is short", and its expression is often followed by an urging to figure out the 'how' and the correct 'how' now, so as to live it to the fullest.  But I think life is long, really long.  The changes are constant and the shifts can be huge, and if you're really paying attention and being honest with yourself, even the obvious answers are never really clear because they're simply not static enough to be always useful and ever true.  So - I have no idea what the right prescription is.  But maybe it's just choosing NOW and all that now has to offer, since all else - as new age philosophers and meta-physicists may propose - doesn't really exist and therefore doesn't matter...

London Tube 2007

If...Just for Comfort

Simply aiming for comfort has come to be seen as shooting low, or settling for less - especially in careers, and certainly in relationships.  Since we know I choose constant change and upheaval in the former, I mean heretofore to focus on the latter.  

At present (for this may change), I propose that just because someone impresses you doesn't mean they will be the next love of your life.  And if it looks like this miracle may not be the case, do you walk?  'Yes' some of you may say, but this is what defines the youthful heart I think, which is easily impressed by the magnetic qualities of the object of desire and equating this to that of undeniable love.  
When you 'grow up', and have enough affairs in life however, you learn that a person can be endlessly interesting yet never grips your heart, while a most ordinary soul can enchant you for life.  

Mutual admiration of the hot chemical kind  offers experiences or delights  with exciting fitful tales, but at a certain age, is this height of elation a necessary experience, let alone an automatic inclusion in our personal narratives? Evolutionary biology and psychology show that the timing of our most heated affairs and loves are aligned perfectly with our most fertile, hormonal, energetic years - when we are blind enough to create or believe the singularly aimed love-hype of 'forever after', and, also  whilst we are fit enough for the turmoil all that preposterous or near pathological energy often leaves in its wake.   

We are all taught either directly or indirectly from a young age that we should look for the impossible in a mate; find a  soul that 'completes' us, challenges and delights us, loves us endlessly, unconditionally, AND should be resident in a preternaturally attractive body which should remain that way...for eternity; any thing less being a most unsettling compromise. And no matter how you may have started out: in a bewilderingly beautiful and adrenalized love affair, or, a befouling catastophic event  - you still, in youth, believe this, wish, hope, and look for this tall tale whether you care to admit it or not. 

Then a bit more life happens. And it becomes distastefully apparent that alas, eternity in life (pardon the paradox, but it's what the fairy tales sell, right?), let alone with another, is not meant for some of us mere mortals.   And with one disappointing reality check (aka highway-of-love-heart-wreck) after another, we eventually rewrite the fantasy, the very tale that perhaps set the blind spots in place for all those collisions.

We retreat, we heal, we spend time with ourselves, we create some quiet, and then...we don't look; rather we hold exclusively open auditions (I know, oxymoron again) for someone to share the quiet with.  We become satisfied with the idea of someone filling a less complex role than 'soul mate' or 'self-completer'; we find we can only open up to  someone who is clear, calm, direct, and free of the indefatigable grand arias of yada-forever-bull-cah-cah; you know, someone who can just keep it real.  And if we find them, we herald them publicly as a wholesome catch summed up simply as "there's just no drama."  

I scream on my behalf on this one.  Heaven knows, the gods have ensured throughout my life and so therefore know, my great fortune in love, or at least, in affairs.  I have swept, and been swept off my feet by dashing novas in ways meant only for the movies to be sure, and much to the envy of those who've heard or witnessed my inordinately epic (and sometimes ridiculous) romances.  But - but, at this point the only thing I look for in my new tailor-made fantasies can be satisfied by far less frills, pomp, and unsustainable circumstance. Of course I still want fun adventures, but I also want to relax while having them.  I just want to be...sigh...comfortable.

If... 

If I were but a leaf
    falling from the burdened weight of your weary limbs,
I would waft my way
    through the spaces of your turbulent sways
Leaving drops of my chlorophyll spies
    to fill your horizon with shades of new life.

But here I stick to my heavy branch
    Too weary to detach
My stems uncertain, heaving doubtful sighs;
   eyes blinded by colourless promises in cloudless skies,

Hope floats beyond the shifting spaces,        

    hiding plainly from our weeping lies.

PS. Nothing to do with the topic at hand but, 

here's a great relaxation technique...rock balancing.  

seriously - try it.  

:)