TRAILER " WOMEN ARE HEROES" from SOCIAL ANIMALS on Vimeo.

Amended Playlist

Beast of Burden : Rolling Stones
Tighten Up : The Black Keys
Green Grass : Tom Waits
Hip-Hop : Dead Prez

I Want To : Best Coast
Don't Do It: Sharon van Etten
Yes, It's Good for Me : Nucular Aminals
Boots of Spanish Leather : Bob Dylan

Maple Leaves : Jen Lekman
My Sweet Lord : George Harrison
I Luv the Valley Oh! : Xiu Xiu
Almost Crimes (Radio Kills Remix) : Broken Social Scene

GirlMusic

Of late,  I really only listen to Mountain Man, Sharon van Etten, Best Coast, and Warpaint. I think it's the female voices. I'm into girl-centric things at the moment. Not to be all binary about it.

Today my sweet and lovely friends Courtney Anderson & Noelle Serafino said some things to me that made me want to twirl around like Fraulein Maria, so I did it and I sent Courtney a video of me doing it, and this is that video. 

Dance Dance Evolution

Yeah girl.

Songs: 

Woof Woof (Dan Deacon)
The Faraway Nearby (Cyndi Lauper)
Grass (Animal Collective)
Lights Out (Santigold)
Almost Crimes (Broken Social Scene)
Sprawl II - Mountains Beyond Mountains (Arcade Fire)
Kids (MGMT)
Summer Mood (Best Coast)

Greetings from Crown Heights, baby.

4-5 days a week I trek around the city with my backpack, tote bag, and yoga mat. I stay in Brooklyn with friends or on the Upper West Side with family, and then Laughing Lotus is my Chelsea home away from home. 2-3 days a week, I'm on Long Island with my papa and my brother, living in a sweet little cottage on a beautiful expanse of land. The two phases of my week are polar opposites, and I hover somewhere in between.

Shadows

Shadows
by John Cassevettes

Look at that beautiful face.

Note To Self: Your Life is Going to Change

Joana Smith is collage-maker, poem-writer, wife, mama, and who knows what else. She makes very interesting contributions to Elephant Journal. Check it: Elephant Mommy

Love Skool

This is my new yoga home. Laughing Lotus on West 19th between 5th & 6th. A beautiful, bright, vibrant practice space constantly occupied by big hearts, sweet beats, and declarations of love. I just completed my first weekend of fall teacher training with the Love Skool, which means I am sore, tired, and ecstatic. My teachers Dana, Sheri and Ali are highly skilled, dynamic teachers. My mentor is wonderful. My mentor group is incredible. My study buddy is so lovely.  

I believe my engagement in this program has significantly altered my approach to New York City in general. Instead of being totally stressed out and overwhelmed, I'm loving the constant flow of people and energy. This place is such an (im)perfect microcosm of the world: for every kind face there is a scowl; for every give there is a take; for every frantic movement there is a much needed, much appreciated moment of stillness and quiet. I am grateful to my friends for giving me their couches, beds and showers. My birthday weekend was all about yoga and loved ones. I went to the Brooklyn Book Festival and brunch with my dear friend Teff, then hopped over to the Lotus for a 5 hour training session with the otherworldly Dana, after which I headed back into Brooklyn and hunkered down in south Park Slope for a cozy little birthday celebration with Noelle, Camila and Josh. I slept soundly. I have a feeling I will be sleeping soundly for at least the next 13 weeks - the Lotus flow is an exalted, wild, purifying, exhausting beast, and I'm deep down in its belly.

24 Things for my 24th Year

I turn twenty-three in a half hour. The last year of my life has been strange and funny and difficult and beautifully tumultuous. I lived in a new city on a new coast, I made new friends, I felt new kinds of joy and new kinds of pain, and I learned a great deal from a few terrific people. Now I'm back in New York, and it feels like anything could happen at any moment. I've begun studying for my 200 hour teaching certification at Laughing Lotus, a super fabulous yoga center in Chelsea. And I'm playing with the idea of moving into Brooklyn. I'm listening to men shout in the streets of Crown Heights and I'm feeling happy.

I have drawn up a list for my 24th year.

You can only loosely plan. You can have a rough idea of what you'd like your life to look like, but at this point, so many things will inevitably shift and change and be gained or lost. There's no telling how it will all unfold, so it's best to be open and curious, at least in my opinion. But these are the 24 people/places/things that I would like to encounter in the next twelve months. 

1. New England/Canada road trip

2. Submit manuscripts 

3. Intern at literary magazine
4. Plan an extended trip abroad: Trans Siberian railway/India
5. Write an analytical paper

6. Become a certified yoga instructor
7. Preserve/can/pickle various vegetables & fruits

8. Write a screenplay
9. Write a collection of short fiction/poetry

10. Conduct an extensive interview project

11. Make a short film (or two)

12. Make a book

13. Take a solo hike in the mountains

14. Learn how to wear lipstick

15. Learn how to use a letterpress

16. Travel by bicycle as much as possible

17. Volunteer on a farm/urban garden

18. Learn how to give a good massage

19. Hold a successful, formal dinner party

20. Begin to pay off student loans

21. Thoroughly research M.F.A. programs in California, New York, Texas, Rhode Island, and Georgia

22. Conceptualize & execute a photography project

23. Read at least two more volumes of In Search of Lost Time

24. Nurture existing friendships/cultivate new friendships

Words I Say Too Often: A Work in Progress

Intense, like, totally, ridiculous, yeah, sure, understand, beautiful, dude, love, are you kidding me, guy, awesome, actually, god, goodness, gosh, funny, baby, kid, child, children, apparently, obvious, organic, Law & Order: SVU, yoga, books, passion, breath, sorry, how, guess, woman, sex, marriage, munchkin, but, darling, kind, food, what, country, and, water, unbelievable, amazing, incredible, true, right, money, will, thought, action, do, why, wish, believe, try, dream, gross, scary, oh man, should, terrible, horrible, crazy.

Love & such.

 

Elephant Journal article #6

 

On my second day home on Long Island, I woke up to a thunderstorm. 

Almost Home

More than halfway across the country, we have encountered brilliant sun, torrential rain, oppressive heat, and the slow burn of a Southern night. This is our trajectory thus far: down the coast of California, through the Redwoods, San Francisco and Los Angeles. (California is now home to a dozen of our friends and neighbors from Hampshire). Then to Las Vegas for one manic night. On to Albuquerque, through the alien landscape of Arizona and New Mexico. Then to Austin, where we saw another gaggle of Hampshire kids. Austin to College Station for two days to visit the lovely and talented Alberto Moreiras and Teresa Vilaros (Camila's parents) in their new house. Alberto now drives an enormous truck and Teresa wears a cowgirl hat with true grace.

After College Station we stopped for lunch in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to visit with our dear poet-rice farmer friend, Rachel Roche. We slept well in New Orleans and fell into the Cafe du Monde tourist trap in the morning (charming but lacks integrity). New Orleans is a place I will return to.

Now in Athens, Georgia, I am entirely stunned by how much I love this state in particular. California and Georgia are the two places that I have fallen in love with on this trip. The South is such a romantic(ized) place, and I'm a little bit frightened and very much enchanted by it. Camila and I have had exceptional hosts in each place we've stayed, but this Camp family (who live in a very beautiful home near Athens) makes me want to stay behind and hunker down and learn about what it's like to live in Georgia and read and write and listen and explore the land here. 

Yet we are still New York-bound, and leave for North Carolina early this afternoon. I feel deliriously glad about everything. 

Morning

by Frank O'Hara

I’ve got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death
in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe
chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow
At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes
I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine
although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you’d be proud of
the parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle
what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it
is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone
Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I’ll not be cordial
there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is
when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go

Famous People

We saw famous people in Los Angeles, namely Natalie Portman and Linda Cardellini. Both hot ladies. We were stuck in traffic next to Natalie, who was driving her Prius. It looked like she was carrying on a serious conversation with herself, but I'm sure she had an earpiece in. However, it is tempting to believe that, like me, Natalie Portman talks to herself while driving.

We saw Linda Cardellini in the tea room on the top floor of The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, which is right around the corner from the Temple for Krishna Consciousness, or something like that. This particular five square block area of Los Angeles holds endless fascination for me. 

It's been nearly a week since we arrived in San Francisco, and we are already halfway across the country in College Station, Texas. All is well. 

 

Newness

New blog.
It's about wandering and perpetual wonder and the whole world being one big curiosity with myriad curiosities within it: VECTOGRAPHY

CALIFORNIA

Portland to Redwoods: 6 hours.

Redwoods to Oakland on the Pacific 1/101/128: 12 hours.

The Bay Area is more beautiful than expected. California in general - more beautiful than expected. Yesterday we woke up in the Redwoods National Park. We ate breakfast at the Hiouchi Diner (oatmeal w/ raisins and walnuts for me, one egg, bacon, and one slice Texas Toast french toast for Camila), which was like a Northern Cali version of the Double R Diner in Twin Peaks.

It took us about 12 hours to drive from the Redwoods National Park to Oakland, but we took the scenic route, and it was absolutely stunning. I sent a text message to my boss, Arianne, about how spectacular the Redwoods are, and she replied, Nothing like trees older than Jesus to help you stop worrying about your career. Truer words. 

My aspiration is to treat life like a big giant road trip: rolling with the punches, taking a good long think before acting, being ready and open, feeling wonder and surprise. It's all just one big adventure.

Yes a heart will always go one step too far.

  

All my thoughts are hairs on a wild, wild boar runnin' slowly down the lilac slope.

Of course I would have an amazing weekend.

I leave Portland in five days, and of course I just had one of the best weekends of the year with friends Chipp and Genevieve. We cooked, we ate, we talked, we laughed, we got tattooed, we went to Mt. Hood for a barbecue, we lolled around in the heat wave, we took a yoga class, we hung out at a bar until last call on a Sunday night. It was stupendous. I feel so grateful for their company, and for Genevieve's good sense and for Chipp's good humor. It makes the idea of leaving a bit more difficult to swallow, but I'm happy there is at least a modicum of resistance and doubt - it means I haven't spent the past year of my life hanging around a place that wasn't worthwhile. 

Portland is totally the greatest city I have ever had the privilege to reside in. Last night we were talking about how we wish all the places we love could be a hop skip and a jump away from each other. If I could rearrange the country, I would bring New England, New York, and Oregon together, but I would let them all maintain their respective characters and climates.

I feel like my heart is hovering over the country with its roots sprawling from coast to coast.

Take a good look

Brianne Milder made this: Brianne's Artworks

Can I say can I say can I say

Can I just say: this is a good life.
Love you, bye.

Countdown

The countdowns begin.

9 days until I leave Portland,

1 month until I turn a ripe 23 years old. 

The days leading up to a birthday are always a good time to take pause and wonder, what am I doing? Where am I going?

Is it possible to answer these questions?

Over the next month, I will assemble a list of 24 things I'd like to do/accomplish/manifest in the next year of my life. Maybe I'll post the list, maybe I won't. Not that I assume the readers of this blog (5? 6?) are chomping at the bit to know what my internal road map looks like. But lists are fun!

Here's a list for ya. A playlist.

Running, Returning : Akron Family

Postcards : An-Horse

With Arms Outstretched : Rilo Kiley

Play With Fire : The Rolling Stones

Please Don't Be Upset (?) : Jack & Jeffrey Lewis

Driving : Sibylle Baier

Omaha : Liz Isenberg

Farm, Ca. : Jana Hunter

No, No, No, I Won't Come (Go) : Michael Hurley

Exit Music (For a Film) : Radiohead

Postcards from Italy : Beirut

Chin Chin & Muck Muck : Devendra Banhart

Vicious Traditions : The Veils

Nobody Has To Stay : Mirah

Bright Bright Bright : Dark Dark Dark

This is what a garden looks like. If I could be buried in a place like this, that'd be swell.

Don't care what anyone says.

Devendra is marriage material. "Marriage material."

Beck is 40.

So I'm late on the uptake, but Beck turned forty last month. Why does that seem impossible? He's the eternal teenager.

Today I packed my books in a big brown (faux?) leather suitcase. It weighs a ton. Despite my minimalist Portland lifestyle, I'll be lugging about 80 books across the country.

BACK EAST

Elephant Journal: How To Be Alone 

Elephant Journal: In Transit (by me)

Elephant Journal: Leaving Your Yoga Teachers (by me)

Today's Date: August 6th, 2010

Scheduled Departure from Portland: August 21st/22nd, 2010

After approximately one year of living the (not-so) easy life in Portland, Oregon, I've decided to get a move on.

Why? Well, the reasons are many. My year was full of surprises. It's been beautiful, sad, funny, musical. Damp, gray, bright, earthy. I planted things that never grew. I began novels that may never be finished. I searched and sometimes I found, and  of course I am still fumbling. I've had moments of true delight. I've also been a lone wanderer, and in some ways this was exactly what I wanted. But it's time to wander further. 

On August 21st or 22nd, my dear friend Camila and I will strike out from West to East, down through California, over to Nevada and Utah, down to New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and up the Southeastern/Northeastern seaboard to New York.

New York! Where I'm from. 

If everything goes well, I'll be in India from November until March, studying at the Ashtanga Research Institute and traveling. 

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. There's a big splendid trip in my very near future. I've given notice to my employers and now feel fully committed to this next adventure. 

What I'll Miss About Portland:

Townshend's Tea House

Random Order Coffeehouse

Powell's Books

Prasad Vegan Cuisine

The Yoga Space

The People's Yoga

The Hupperich Family

The Siegel Family

Cindy C.

Arianne, Nathan, Mabel

Alberta Street

The Southeast

Street Yoga

Vita Cafe

6006 Atlantic

New Seasons

Video Verite

Farmers' markets 6 days/week

Cheap shows

Random nudity

WAKE UP

Back on the West Coast. Let's focus on gratitude.

I'm really happy with my New York adventure. It was the most nourishing thing I could have done at this particular moment. It also felt rather selfish - everywhere I went, I just wanted to soak up all the love and generosity that good folks were offering. I hope I was able to give some of that back.

These days, I'm practicing presence/clarity of mind. Nothing ever turns out the way you plan. The most significant opportunities for transformation disguise themselves underneath layers of confusion, anger and hurt. It's just all about perception.

Reading:

Guruji : edited by Guy Donahue and Eddie Stern 

(A history of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois's teachings, as told by his own students. Published around the one year anniversary of his passing.)

Yoga on the Road

This afternoon I practiced at The Shala near Union Square. Director and co-founder of the studio, Barbara Verrochi, taught a beautiful, challenging class steeped in the Ashtanga tradition, with a little softness here and there. She was trained and authorized by Guruji himself. 

I bumbled into the studio an hour early - I caught the train down from the Upper West Side, carrying an enormous backpack and an overflowing tote bag. I was hot, sweaty, tired, hungry, and not all together sure if a vigorous yoga class sounded like the best idea under these circumstances. Yet more and more I am finding that I am always in the mood for yoga, in spite of lousy conditions.

I sat quietly on a bench and watched the Shala staff clean and tidy the space. Eventually more students began to file in.  Barbara began by talking about the breath, and how extending the breath and measuring it carefully moment by moment leads to true longevity of the mind and body. "You can live one hundred years," she said. "You'll die of course, but you'll live longer if you are mindful of the breath." (I spend entire classes working on my ujjayi breathing.)

In a place like New York, this kind of attention to the breath is very, very difficult, and very, very essential. You forget how to feel the breath as it moves through the body, as it leaves the body, as it reenters the body. You lose it. You're walking quickly, jogging along, dodging other bodies in motion, navigating, hurrying, halting, carrying your own weight, the weight of your things, the weight of your anxieties. In all of this you lose the breath and you get fatigued, frustrated, confused. You get in your own way.

When I left the studio, I had to strap on that backpack, I had to carry that tote bag. I went down the road to the Jivamukti Yoga School, specifically to eat at the Jivamuktea Cafe. I ate a delicious, albeit expensive, vegan Caesar salad with tempeh croutons. A full hour of sitting, eating and reading. Temporary semi-stillness. And then it was back into the frenetic, electric flow of the city. 

At the end of the day, I'm not sure if I'm a city person. I'm sensitive. Perhaps one day I will have the spiritual and energetic fortitude to handle the urban centrifuge. At the moment, however, I'm thinking: farms, sky, organic food, winding roads, typewriter, books, contemplation, yoga.

 

True love is transcendent and cannot be contained in any one form. I am learning this. New York is for shape-shifters. We are always making our way back.

Real Summer

I

Mood: Happy.

My Grandma & Poppop are funny.

Setting: Raga Indian Restaurant, Setauket, NY.

Poppop: Melanie, you aren't interested in the lamb, are you?
Me: I'm interested in lambs in other ways.
Poppop [rolling his eyes]: Right, you're interesting in birthing and nurturing them.

New York Discoveries

Brooklyn & Long Island

Yes to:

Snuggling with friends
Dinner with Camila & Noelle

Park Slope Yoga

Lunch in Bryant Park

Visit to the ICP

Pancakes & coffee with Julia, Camila & Josh

Dinner with Grandma & Poppop (I discovered that my grandparents use the phrase 'toy boy' - which, it goes without saying, is a variation on 'boy toy')

People in the city are much nicer than I recall. Everyone was super helpful on my journey from JFK to BK on Sunday. This trip is already surreal and satisfying. I'm surrounded by thoughtful, kind, funny people who I love and who love me back. 

I am blessed with a family that really accepts me for who I am. No matter what I do, they offer support and only wish me the best. And I have friends who want to do and talk about all kinds of things, from the serious and heartfelt to the silly and playful. I laughed more in the past two days than I have in the past six months. 

This is precisely what I needed. I needed to remember, and experience, abundant love. For  a while now, there has been a tremendous void, a real lack of love and trust and loyalty. Confronting that is like being in a small plane and having the hatch open suddenly, and dropping out and down into the howling nothingness. 

But, now I'm here, if only for another week, and I'm just trying to soak it all up so I can return to Portland a little calmer, more levelheaded, and with a bit more courage.

Manana: Nueva York

Sunday, July 25th: 6 a.m. flight to New York. Leaving the warm, sunny, non-humid Portland summer for nine days in one hundred degree, sticky, muggy New York weather. I feel terribly sad for many reasons, and a bit lost, and a bit excited. I've never felt so alone and so self-sufficient, and it's all happening at the same time. My whole orientation towards love and devotion has to shift in order for anything to make sense. 

Reading:  

Yoga Mala by Sri K Pattabhi Jois

In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Proust

Listening to:

Govindas & Radha

The Veils: "Vicious Traditions"

Thinking about:

India

Flight

Disillusionment

Pain before freedom

Lighter Note?

 Her name is Chutney.  Check out how weird my hairline gets when I clip back my bangs.