Recently, I got a notice from my building asking if I’d like to renew my lease, something I normally anticipate months in advance as I start making plans for the coming year and all the changes it’ll bring. When it came in the mail this time, my first instinct was to start looking for another apartment on CraigsList, as usual. But before I could crack open my computer, a thought occurred to me—the first of its kind that I think I’ve ever had: I don’t want to move. After five years of packing up and switching spaces, I think I'm going to pass on the ritual this time around. Part of me is totally surprised. The other part of me is breathing a sigh of relief.

I love moving. Always have, and in every way. I’ve always liked the physical act of getting up and going. I danced for 11 years. I have that shaky-leg syndrome whenever I'm sitting down. I picked up and left home at 18 to move to New York--pretty much the city of movement--and I've hopped from apartment to apartment every year since. My mind relishes in distraction. I have a feather tattooed on me to remind myself of how beautiful it can be when things stir; some of the most special moments in my life have been when I felt things shift inside of me.

But for the first time, I think I’d like to stay where I am, in a little apartment made up of walls painted yellow and blue, decorated with pictures and art and shelves stacked with books; a little apartment that, occasionally, a little mouse scurries across; a little apartment with a rusty fire escape and not very much storage space; a little apartment that has grown me up in the past year in entirely unexpected ways. Yes, I think I’d like to stay where I am.

In yoga, Savasana, or corpse pose, is considered by some as the most challenging—you lie on your back, palms facing up, and remain perfectly still. What makes it so difficult is that you have every opportunity to move, you just choose not to. It's in this pose that you become acutely aware of every single swing and vibration in your body, reminding your senses of how much we miss in the shuffle. Like buds that bloom or leaves that peel open and out, just because things don’t move doesn’t mean they don’t change. There is so much to feel and unfeel by just staying, finding the freedom in remaining absolutely, perfectly, still. 

Maybe that's part of being whole. Stretching in place, knowing when to remain, learning yourself in the quiet. And before you know it, you're the person that you always were and not at all what you expected.

Why he writes

"Linda was nine then, as I was, but we were in love. And it was real. When I write about her now, three decades later, it's tempting to dismiss it as a crush, an infatuation of childhood, but I know for a fact that what we felt for each other was as deep and as rich as love can ever get. It had all the shadings and complexities of mature adult love and maybe more, because there were not yet words for it, and because it was not yet fixed to comparisons or chronologies or the ways by which adults measure such things.
I just loved her. 
...Even then, at nine years old, I wanted to live inside her body. I wanted to melt into her bones--that kind of love.
Neither of us, I suppose, would've thought to use that word, love, but by the fact of not looking at each other, and not talking, we understood with a clarity beyond language that we were sharing something huge and permanent.
...And as a writer now, I want to save Linda's life. Not her body--her life."


-- Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

Sibling bonding

mmmm...umford & sons...

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP5brJ94uAI

A love story

Once upon a time, in India...

She was in her twenties, he in his forties. She was unwed, the eldest of 10. He was the father of two sons and a sickly wife. They lived across the hall from one another in a small apartment complex, and, sometimes, they would stand in their doorways and glance (shy).
Soon, his wife passed away, and a love affair began. Her brothers and sisters would hear her sneak out in the middle of the night and return with a fruit-- a pear, a mango (a token of his affection). She would eat it, quietly, in the dark. Her parents disapproved, and when her mother passed away, her father guarded the front door of their apartment like a watchman. For five years, he wouldn't step foot outside, for fear that his daughter, Ramila, might meet with her love, Shankarlal. So they waited...

Then. On a trip to visit her uncle in a nearby town, Ramila, pushing 30, explained why she refused to marry: "If I ever wed," she said, "it will be to Shankarlal."
"Ok," her uncle said,"I give you my blessing."
Just like that: with her uncle's approval, and without telling her father, Ramila married Shankarlal.

For years, her father was outraged. But over time, he grew to know and love Shankarlal, and near the end of his life,  if Shankarlal was ever late or absent from the breakfast table in the morning, her father would ask, "Where is he?"

One day, Ramila and Shankarlal had a baby girl.  They named her, my mother, Zankhana, meaning deepest wish, truest hope, because she was the product of what they had wished and waited for: each other.

Super Superbowl ads

These two got standing ovations in our living room:

watching you go

This little girl, she has no idea why everyone is crying. She is spreading a blanket on the ground, crawling on her hands and knees, making room for her tea party, and she is whispering

because that’s what her mother told her to do.

There is something so essential about this way to die. It’s the essence of what a life is, maybe. Or what death ought to be. Because if you must die—and we all must—shouldn’t it be this way? Surrounded by the people you spent your life with, your memories with. This is your enormous family all thinking of you as a child, as a man, as a husband, as a brother. All thinking of you at your alivest.

And there is nothing we can do. So

we will sit and we will wait and we will fill our hearts
with so much love that we can only feel grief while we watch your soul slip out of your body. There is nothing we can do but love you,
so we will watch you die.

We will breathe shallow breaths, saving some for you. We watch you go.

With every labored breath, every yellow touch, every slow, slow movement, we watch you go.
We all knew this would happen.
You are not ready. We are not ready.

In one moment, there will be all of us, breathing in and out,
and in the next there will be one less.

These people you leave behind, these pieces—your porch, your garden, your children, your shirts and pants and cologne and shampoo—will be your calling card, your existence, long after you have left.

And when the rest of our lives happen, we will watch for you.

This little girl, she will probably remember you the least. She will remember this day as the one where everyone cried while she begged them to play make believe.

-- For Kalapi Mama

enough now

I don’t miss you.

when I stopped feeling your eyes on me,
stopped feeling your hand on my shoulder,
when I stopped feeling your kiss on my back,
I stopped missing you.

How could I miss you?
You came, and you stayed
in my breath and voice and thoughts
until you left.
And now you are finally,
finally gone,
and I can taste air that doesn’t belong to you
and oh, it’s never tasted better.

You came to me as soon as I let go
the first time
but this time I’m letting go of you.
So take back the space you gave to me
because I don’t need it,
I have enough now.

But I’ll keep some things.
I’ll keep the music the tent the dances the blinks.
I’ll keep the day you sipped my beer
I’ll keep the flower you put in my pocket
I’ll keep the pieces of the shell you cracked

I’ll keep the electricity
I’ll keep the motions the words the firsts
I’ll keep what was mine, always mine,
and maybe I’ll keep some of yours.
But the rest, I don’t need it, I don’t want it
Those things will belong to you
Oh, this way is better.

You take the sandwich dates the empty signs the last chances.
You take the name that won’t leave me
You take what kept me awake
You take the part of me that wanted you.
I’ve had enough now.

Take back the space you saved for me
Because I won’t take it.
I have enough now
And oh, I’m feeling better.

“When I put my hands on your body on your flesh I feel the history of that body. Not just the beginning of its forming in that distant lake but all the way beyond its ending. I feel the warmth and texture and simultaneously I see the flesh unwrap from the layers of fat and disappear. I see the fat disappear from the muscle. I see the muscle disappearing from around the organs and detaching iself from the bones. I see the organs gradually fade into transparency leaving a gleaming skeleton gleaming like ivory that slowly resolves until it becomes dust. I am consumed in the sense of your weight the way your flesh occupies momentary space the fullness of it beneath my palms. I am amazed at how perfectly your body fits to the curves of my hands. If I could attach our blood vessels so we could become each other I would. If I could attach our blood vessels in order to anchor you to the earth to this present time I would. If I could open up your body and slip inside your skin and look out your eyes and forever have my lips fused with yours I would. It makes me weep to feel the history of your flesh beneath my hands in a time of so much loss. It makes me weep to feel the movement of your flesh beneath my palms as you twist and turn over to one side to create a series of gestures to reach up around my neck to draw me nearer. All these memories will be lost in time like tears in the rain.”

-David Wojnarowicz

Marcel the Shell...be my friend?

No words. Just Puppies.

a roof over your head

I often say that to live in this city is to love this city, because no one in her right mind would pay rents like these to live in a smelly, dirty, loud, crowded town like this one for no good reason. That's how i know i really love New York-- because i can't bear to part with it. the apartment i live in is just a roof over my head; the city is my home. The NYTimes City Room blog published this awesome piece recently after asking readers for some of their worst nyc apartment stories. Some hilarious, some humbling and some outright horrifying, these make me grateful for my place, especially as the weather starts to turn (ahem, 60 degrees on December 1st whatthehellisgoingon). A couple of my favorites...

After I broke up with my live-in boyfriend, at 22, I wanted the camaraderie and company of roommates above all else. I thus chose to live with eight people in a “duplex” (read: first floor and dank, dark basement) on 6th and Avenue C after they wooed me with a backyard BBQ. My 8 x 8 subterranean room was $500 but also wet and cold, and one morning I woke up to find an ant line marching from the window (which was near the ceiling and looked out into the dirt of the garden) across my duvet over my chest, to a muffin on my nightstand. I did have company, though after all: A giant African bullfrog one of the roommates had freed in the garden would mush itself against the windowpane at night, and croak to me at all hours. Unfortunately, not the prince I was looking for.

— Sarah

2002, South Side of Williamsburg.
The apartment looked great, 3 bedrooms, eat-in-kitchen, one bath and a walk-in closet! Except:
– It was a former crack house. People would come by and reach through our windows asking for god knows what.
– Water pouring from light fixtures because of leaks in the building.
– No heat (my shampoo would freeze in the winter); I would turn the stove on and sit on top of it with the door open for heat.
– No super. One awful winter our window was stuck open for a month.
– Roaches
– Mice
— southsider

"I write only because
There is a voice within me
That will not be still"
— Sylvia Plath

because cool cameras make everything look good...

my old hood...

steps make me taller.

from the archives...

here is one that really has a hold on me. look at him, lying there with his fingers laced in mine, resting his forehead at the nape of my neck, on my shoulders, my arms, my hands. look at him, his green-brown eyes watching me as i turn and twist into his body. here, he takes my leg and wraps it over him, pressing his chest so close to mine that when he inhales it feels like i am breathing. listen to him sing into my ear, softly, out of tune, and hear me sing along, filling in the words he forgets. see me feel his rough cheek under my palm. watch him take my arm, and raise it over his face, and watch him gently bite the soft, light flesh on the underside, because kissing is not enough.

no, it is not enough. this isn't enough; to hold him now and let him go. it isn't enough to ask and touch and learn each other for only now not for long.

So just watch me wait for him. watch me while i close the door behind him and fall back asleep, and go on to hold and kiss and learn someone else. watch me forget the feel of his lips and the color of his eyes and the sound of his voice. watch me let him go, but just watch me wait.

Sore but Zen

By Eve Ensler, c/o my yoga instructor

"Maybe being good isn’t about getting rid of anything. Maybe being good has to do with living in the mess. In the moment. In the frailty. In the failures. In the flaws. Maybe what I try to get rid of is the goodest part of me. Maybe good is about developing the capacity to live fully inside everything. Our body is our country, the only city, the only village, the only every we will ever know. Our body is the carrier of the stories of the world, of the earth, of the mother. Our body is our home. We live in a good body"

On growing up: a dialogue

The following is a lengthy excerpt from an email exchange between myself and the older brother (A) and father (J) of my dear friend. I'm sharing it now, months after the fact, because thankfully, I feel like I'm beginning to step out of the terrible puddle I was in back then. I think they've got some really interesting insights, as a brilliant but struggling law student (A) and a successful businessman and father of two (J). Then there's me, who just had to throw her two cents in. Enjoy (If you can make it all the way through)!

**names have been held to protect identities (just in case they don't want the 6 people who read my blog to read their ruminations)

A*:

They should seriously have a required class at all large state universities that everyone has to take final semester of senior year titled "Real Life Sucks." College is the end of the fairy tale. Happiness genuinely takes on a completely different meaning once you graduate. I don't know a single individual that was prepared to cope with life after college. People can tell you over and over and over again that college is so much different (read, worse) than the rest of your life. You hear it, and you just don't have the perspective to understand it. Your entire life, as far as you're concerned (whether you realize it or not), has been college. You find yourself in college. Psychologically, the only person that you know is the person that you are today, and the person that you are at high school graduation is not yourself (perhaps that is slightly oversimplified, but I think the conclusion is clear). Therefore, your subjective perception of reality is based purely on the experiences that you have encountered as "yourself." As a college student.

One day, everyone wakes up at 7:00 AM, gets in the shower to get ready for work, and thinks, "Really? This is what my life is now?"

People say that just as your perception in college is skewed, as you move further away from college your perceptions of fun and enjoyment are shifted back, closer to "real world reality." Think about that for a moment. Some person has the audacity to tell me that my perceptions of fun and happiness were at too high of a threshold, and the only way that I will shake my self-loathing is to forget how much fun I can actually have. Seriously? That is the world that we have to dive back into?

Now obviously the transition from college back to the real world isn't this catastrophic for all people. There are two sides to examine how precipitous your decline in happiness will be: (1) how much fun you had in college (Were you in the greek system - clearly not a pre-requisite to fun, but let's be honest, it just presents you more opportunities to do fun things - Did you have a lot of friends? Did you always have something to do, every night of the week? Was a stress in your life deciding which party you were going to have to skip? Did you get outside and do stuff? Take trips with your friends? Skip class to do things that may have been dangerous (skiing)? and (2) what your real life experience begins as (Are you living at home "for a few months?" (don't); Are you going to be doing something you really enjoy? Are you going to be well compensated? Are you living in a town where you know a lot of people? Do you have to work weekends? Is your boss an asshole?

Maybe I am such a pessimist because law school sucks. Maybe I just speak the truth. I don't know, but I lean towards the latter.

J*, A's Dad:

I think you're speaking the truth. There is no shortage of art (plays, songs, books and movies) that deals with the issues of personal dissatisfaction, alienation and malaise. The transition from childhood through adolescence to adulthood is too rarely an easy one. Happiness is unquantifiable and elusive. The one thing that age lends, is perspective. I can see from here that I wish I would have gone to college in a better place than Boring Green, Ohio. Frankly, doing anything, anywhere, would have been more fun than that place, so I started with the bar so low that things were bound to improve. All I knew was that I had to get away. No more Ohio. Wound up in Phoenix, then Atlanta--both significant geo-upgrades--having a blast. So, one solution to avoiding the precipitous decline in post-graduate happiness, is to go to a mediocre Land Grant college in the rust-belt.

Perhaps an advantage of going to school in Boulder is that you can see the possibilities of living an exciting, fulfilling life. Of course you have already elucidated the disadvantages.

The reason I counsel anyone who asks, "Do what you love, and you'll never work a day," is precisely because waking up at 7 AM to go to a job you hate is a no way to live. Most people are not fortunate enough to have a passionate interest in something tangible from an early age. Nor do most recognize that, say, enduring the pain of law school while young, guarantees options when older. Fact: life is short unless you're stranded without an income, a place to live, or the talent, temperament and training to get those things. Then life is long. And tedious.

I think what we're looking for is control of our own destinies. A successful life might be one that allows us the freedom to generally be where we want to be when we want to be there. Few achieve that. Even fewer achieve it early in life. The thing is, you both have the native tools (intellect, formal education, social grace, etc.) and the work ethic to get there sooner rather than later if you want to. All I ask is that you not lower your expectations; that you work toward a happy and fulfilling life--whatever that may mean to you--and that you not give up because it's hard and occasionally disappointing. It's not always fun, but should be on balance. Something else a little life experience will put in context for you.

Me:

Might I chime in?

I'm learning now the significance of doing what you love; pretty much because I'm not doing it. These days I'm enduring the throes of underemployment (a perk of graduating during a recession). I have a degree in journalism and economics from a competitive private university; I've traveled around the world; I have so much to learn. And yet, I spend an inordinate amount of time updating my boss' outlook contacts and making restaurant reservations. When I get a spare moment, I whip out a finance textbook from the shelf behind my cubicle and study, or write freehand in a notebook tucked away in a drawer. THAT'S how much I miss college. For me, the question doesn't come in the morning. Rather, it's when sit at my desk in the middle of the day, in a deafeningly silent office, job hunting on the down-low, that I stop and think, "This is what my life is now?"

I was lucky enough to go to college in a playground. New York City is the place to have a blast in school--almost dangerously so. I say that because college in New York is a different kind of fairy tale, complete with glamour and accessibility and a lifestyle that no one should get accustomed to without earning. And I never did get accustomed to it; in fact, I lived in a constant fear that it would be taken away from me at a moment's notice. But I realize now that that was kind of amazing: to be so painfully happy that you were actually afraid it would end.

All that stuff they tell you-- about conquering the world, following your dreams, doing what you love-- is sounding more and more like a distant echo. I learned when I traveled to India that purpose is a luxury, and that it's a product of someone else's sacrifice. Maybe being a grown up (or being good at it) is about trying to find purpose in small ways, and compromising without settling. But it's a harsh realization, learning that you can absolutely do what you love, as long as you pay the rent. I hope I can find that balance. These days, I'm really afraid that this won't end. And I'm desperately trying to find some control over my own destiny: I want to work with people enjoy, for a cause I care about, in the city of my dreams...and pay the rent. I knew it wouldn't be easy, but, damn, I didn't know it would be this hard.

Thank your dad for me, though, for reminding me that it is the people who make a life rich. I'm surrounded by angels, near and far, who have given me the luxury of purpose: If I'm here for nothing else, it's for them.

I hope this doesn't scare you into submission; I think this kind of disillusionment is normal, to a degree. I'll snap out of it. After all, we are young, and we MUST FIGHT!

The real stuff

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Read read read:

This:Then this:
And then this: