BIRDSEED

2010-11-03T06:12:00.002-07:00

2010-10-20T12:39:00.002-07:00

2010-10-20T12:09:00.002-07:00

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

Amended Playlist

2010-10-19T19:57:00.001-07:00

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

2010-10-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

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.

2010-09-29T11:27:00.005-07:00

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

2010-09-28T08:26:00.001-07:00

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)

2010-09-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-22T06:37:00.000-07:00

Shadows
by John Cassevettes

Look at that beautiful face.

Note To Self: Your Life is Going to Change

2010-09-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-11T20:48:00.002-07:00

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

2010-09-08T16:23:00.005-07:00

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.

2010-09-08T12:13:00.002-07:00

Elephant Journal article #6

2010-09-08T04:55:00.004-07:00

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

Almost Home

2010-09-03T07:06:00.001-07:00

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

2010-08-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-29T10:26:00.002-07:00

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

CALIFORNIA

2010-08-23T09:14:00.001-07:00

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.

2010-08-20T18:47:00.001-07:00

Yes a heart will always go one step too far.

2010-08-18T14:06:00.003-07:00

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

Of course I would have an amazing weekend.

2010-08-16T11:31:00.005-07:00

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

2010-08-14T06:53:00.001-07:00

Brianne Milder made this: Brianne's Artworks

Can I say can I say can I say

2010-08-13T12:56:00.002-07:00

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

Countdown

2010-08-12T10:58:00.003-07:00

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.

2010-08-10T22:35:00.002-07:00

Devendra is marriage material. "Marriage material."

Beck is 40.

2010-08-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-07T09:04:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-06T18:49:00.003-07:00

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

2010-08-05T09:20:00.002-07:00

2010-08-03T21:20:00.001-07:00

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

2010-08-02T18:12:00.003-07:00

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.

2010-08-02T06:43:00.002-07:00

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

2010-08-01T11:24:00.001-07:00

Mood: Happy.

2010-07-29T10:20:00.002-07:00

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

2010-07-27T17:37:00.002-07:00

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.

2010-07-25T03:59:00.000-07:00

Manana: Nueva York

2010-07-24T09:49:00.002-07:00

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?

2010-07-23T20:07:00.003-07:00

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

2010-07-23T19:20:00.002-07:00

Where does pain come from.

2010-07-17T19:29:00.004-07:00

2010-07-13T12:07:00.000-07:00

July 22nd. Dark Dark Dark at Rotture.
All my dreams come true.

2010-07-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

"The yogi who turns the face upward, holds the tongue in the cavity, meditates upon the highest shakti, and drinks the clearn stream of flooding crescent water - flowing from the head to the sixteen-petaled lotus, obtained from prana and Hatha - that yogi lives long and without disease, body soft as the root of a lotus."

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika is a fifteenth century text that outlines various cleansing and purification practices, ranging from simple asana to complex purging exercises (including feeding a wet rag down your throat into your belly, performing a self-colonoscopy, and threading a string through your nose down into your mouth). Clearly, it's a take it or leave it kind of yogic manual. Svatmarama also provides lists of recommended food and drink. One list includes sugar, candy, butter, mung dahl, and cucumbers. Random? Rather.

Unrelated:

New York Magazine Review of Nox

New Yorker Review of Nox

Hail Thee Full of Grace

2010-07-09T22:31:00.003-07:00

Babies, Childrearing, Maternal Impulses, Nurture Fantasies, etc.

2010-07-07T23:25:00.010-07:00

As a young woman who has taken care of other people's children for the past ten years, I have a lot of feelings regarding my possible future as a mother. There are instances of tremendous longing (typically attributed to the proverbial biological clock), anxiety and doubt, and even strong rejection. There are moments in which I feel no desire to procreate, and then I encounter waves of wanting. I was not brought up in a family that stresses marriage and babies. But even I am under a pressure (with no discernible source) to do this purportedly selfless thing and give life.

If there is one thing I've concluded from observing the parents of the children I take care of, being a parent is incredibly selfish and selfless at once. More about this later.

On the occasion of my college graduation, my paternal grandmother told me to never get married, and to never have children. She was married at nineteen, and had six children over the course of ten years. She loves her children, her grandchildren, her big messy family. I heard regret in her warning, but not with regards to her sons and daughters. What she was talking about, I suspect, was a somewhat vague yet utterly undeniable lack of happiness, and the regret of not having found that something that everyone talks about searching for, discovering, and cherishing.

Many of us believe that that something resides in the family life, life with a partner and children. Many of us have experienced the cult of parenting and the fetishization of bringing up children that is now perpetuated in middle to upper-middle class social circles, and is seeping into the consciousness of my peer group. Our understanding of how to go about having a family and children, and being parents will be heavily influenced by what is happening now in the thirty- and forty-somethings-with-youngsters set.

I'm interested in the development of ideas surrounding parenting and childhood, but I'm not sure where I stand. I appreciate many of the theories, yet am skeptical about their applications. The progressive, cerebral approaches are the ones that supposedly foster joy, play, and an intelligent connection between parent and child. I've gathered that the aim of these methods is to establish a fluid, calm, easy channel of communication. For example: by taking the word "no" out of interactions with a child, and by phrasing everything in the positive, you are teaching her that the world is not made up of the good and the bad. Instead, you are introducing a spectrum of possibility, and the better in sync she is with this spectrum, the more likely she is to say "yes" when asked to do something. Ultimately you are investing a great deal of faith in the child's intelligence and powers of reason.

I am no doubt simplifying it, and I cannot speak from the position of a parent, but I can speak from the position of a childcare provider when I state: the logic doesn't work out in life as well as it does on paper. In fact, all of that "yes" actually results in a lot of "no" from the miniature party, thereby creating plenty of fissures and rifts.

Ultimately, any parenting method is directly correlated with the parents' own striving towards happiness. This can't be ignored. Most parents care about their offspring's happiness. Women and men seek happiness in the very act of having a family, which, if you think about it, can be a dangerous thing.

Lacan posited that in almost all cases, children are born in order to fulfill unmet desires. The child becomes a symbol, a stand-in for that which cannot be articulated, and the child's life is formed in the configuration of intersecting desires between the man and woman, or man and man, or woman and woman. And yet, when the anticipated happiness does not arrive (this goes beyond postpartum), where is the mother and/or father left? Hence the selfishness that everyone tries to deny. This is where guilt arises. Parenting (and even just taking care of kids who are not your own) does require a degree of selflessness, but the selflessness by no means eradicates the desire to be alone, to be free, to have time, space, quiet.

There are individuals who truly flourish in the role of caregiver, homemaker, mother. And I do love spending time with babies and little ones - I love their wonder, their affection, their humor. It's tempting to believe that everything we have ever wanted to be or feel is wrapped up in the existence of a new being. But is there less and less room for those of us who have complicated and somewhat shameful feelings about our ability to do the job well, or our doubt as to whether we want to do the job at all? How do we distinguish between what we want and what we have been told we should want? How do we deal with these conflicting notions of what it takes to be happy, and not only that, but what it takes to be a valued and contributing member of the community?

According to this piece in New York magazine, raising a child is not always the joyful, playful, stimulating adventure it is purported to be. Rather, it is an exhausting and often maddening feat, and people's lives are not necessarily the better for it, despite popular myth. I have met people who glorify parenting, and others who are matter-of-fact about the cost of such an enormous choice. The mothers I have worked with clearly love their children more than anything in the world, but it has seemed, in moments of tension or exhaustion, that they hesitate to speak honestly about what it is they are feeling, as though admitting to a complicated love, peppered with feelings of despair or dissatisfaction, means they are doing a poor job and falling short of contemporary mothering standards.

At a family reunion several weeks ago, I asked my aunts Michele and Jeanine and my uncle Peter how they ever managed to have kids - what with the exhaustion, the worry, the defiance, the crying, the threat of sudden infant death syndrome, the sleeplessness, the tantrums, the endless messes, the picky eating habits, the diapers, the boredom. All of that. How?

Peter said casually, "Kids are so much fun."

Granted, there are people who have written entire books for and against this premise. But perhaps that is reason enough to be optimistic, or hopeful, or to not dread the tick-tick-ticking. Or it simply begs the question, fun for who?

Most importantly, as the researchers themselves have pointed out, all of the good cannot be quantified in the same way frustration, anger, or exhaustion can. The negative feelings are noted, even captured on camera and in written accounts. But the problematic aspect of any study on parenting is this: there is simply no way to adequately describe and measure the abounding love that is shared therein. And ultimately, there are many different forms of happiness - there is the moment-to-moment variety, and then there is the gradually accumulating, life-long, foundational happiness that accompanies feelings of having accomplished something after investing lots of time and great labor. Which is, it turns out, the sort of happiness many mothers and fathers garner.

This article says it far better than I ever could:

Why Parents Hate Parenting

2010-07-01T22:38:00.002-07:00

Favorite Books of the Past Six Months

In Light of India : Octavio Paz

Be Here Now : Baba Ram Dass

The Savage Detectives : Roberto Bolano

2666 : Roberto Bolano

The God of Small Things : Arundhati Roy

The Monkey Wrench Gang : Edward Abbey

The Rachel Papers : Martin Amis

Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview & Other Conversations

Blueberry Galette, Lemon Shandies, Sunshine & Growth

2010-06-26T18:59:00.003-07:00

"Look, I'm a grown up person."

2010-06-26T10:09:00.003-07:00

A movie about one of my as yet unfulfilled relationship fantasies.

2010-06-25T13:17:00.001-07:00

I am a chef for babies.
Kelp noodles, carrots, broccoli, zucchini & tempeh, stir-fried in a wok with coconut oil. Garnished with peanuts & mung bean sprouts.

Chapbook Contest: Between Dreams: Poem Letter #5

2010-06-23T21:48:00.002-07:00

To Marcel: Nocturne

Once I woke up murmuring,
once I woke up spitting,
alone.

I was thinking of Lacan and sheep,
I was thinking of the body as organism,
the body as language,
I was thinking of first love,
I was thinking of screaming.

.        .        .

I cradled you long after your death, like many.
I populated my own life with your objects and characters and sensations,
so much so that I no longer felt
crazy.

How many hours of your life were spent sleeping?
Dreaming?
Flailing and kicking and trying to breathe?

The beauty you offered began with a murmuring, a spitting,
thick mucous in the chest,
lungs swelling with desire,
fluttering like fish gills, like an accordion played fervently.

.        .        .

When I woke up murmuring and spitting and flailing,
I thought of you, your heavy-lidded eyes, and your eternal symptoms,
and my own hypnogogic affairs,
all terrific
in the original and unpleasant sense.

I was thinking of decadence and sensualist politics,
the eroticism of flora and fauna,
the way my hair tangles on the pillow,
my first love and screaming.

My first love and screaming
and sleeping
and lungs filling with water,
and spitting up upon waking,
my love, Marcel,
you reek of cork and stagnant air.

.        .        .

I watch you carry the beauty of your mind in your hands like a cup of well-water,
not getting enough sleep or enough breath,
tirelessly carrying the beauty between your mind and the page,
like blood from the heart to the lungs,
from the heart to the lungs.

Happy Summer

2010-06-22T20:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, after practicing 108 Sun Salutations at the top of an inactive volcano (Mt. Tabor) in celebration of the summer solstice, all I felt was love and gratitude. Sure, today my hamstrings and my shoulders ached like a mother, but I still feel remarkably uplifted and light. I am thankful for every bit of sunlight that gets past the stubborn Portland clouds, and I am thankful for the fruits of the earth, for my strange and beautiful family, for my friends and loves far and near, for my teachers, for words, for everything that is coming.

Detox Day Four: Abundant Energy

2010-06-17T22:53:00.001-07:00

Today I experienced a delirious vibrancy. I woke up early and went to a yoga class first thing. After practice, I had a delicious cup of caffeine-free rooibos, a banana, and two clementines. Then I hustled over to my therapist/analyst's office, then headed to an amazing raw food restaurant, where I had raw soup and rice for lunch (thank goodness rice is allowed).

After lunch, it was back home for a shower, packing for my quick weekend trip to Chicago, and several hours of research work. I sipped dandelion root and ginger tea all the while. Work, errands, etc. - and then another yoga class to wind down the day. Bookending a busy day with yoga is the best remedy for fatigue and tension. And I can assure you, all of these fresh raw fruits and vegetables supported my good mood today. My energy levels actually increased throughout the day. It took the Portland sky until around 5:30 p.m. to shed the gray and let the sun shine. Amazingly, my mental, emotional and physical states were closely aligned with this meteorological unfolding.

The final day of my cleanse will be spent traveling, but all the motion will end with a big, beautiful reunion. I have baby carrots, pears, a fruit smoothie, and kombucha on hand for the trip.

Detox Day Three

2010-06-16T21:51:00.001-07:00

This is the halfway point. I can't determine whether it's better to work 8-10 hour days while detoxing, or if you should take a vacation in order to cleanse and maintain your sanity. The upside of working and detoxing is the distraction of task after task. However, if you spend 9 hours chasing small children, pushing strollers up canyon hills, and serving as a human jungle gym, it can be a challenge.

I ate a peach for breakfast, and then managed to make a carrot-celery-parsley-strawberry-banana smoothie a couple hours later. Shortly thereafter, I ate a banana with raw almond butter (I figured raw nut butters are probably allowed). I ate a nectarine mid-afternoon, and then two peaches on my way from work to a therapy session. Now, later than I would have liked, I am eating a huge salad of romaine, spinach, raw cabbage, raw red pepper, sprouts, chickpeas, onion, and some organic Green Goddess dressing. I'm not sure why Green Goddess is permitted, but I will absolutely take it. And, I drank jug after jug of dandelion root tea with lemon all day long. Dandelion root tea tastes a bit like watered down coffee and it cleanses your liver.

I went from therapy to yoga (the most luxurious pairing I can imagine) and took a wonderful class taught by Manda. Lots of twists, slow sun salutations, and deeply held standing poses.

The last day of the cleanse, Friday, is a big travel day for me - hours and hours of flight towards Chicago for a family reunion. I suppose the ultimate challenge will be finishing the cleanse on a good note while in airports, airplanes, and at the mercy of my Italian-American relatives.

*One of the toughest parts of this cleanse is remembering not to eat fruit after meals. Fruit will actually ferment the food already digesting in your stomach, creating gastrointestinal issues.

Detox Day Two

2010-06-15T22:07:00.003-07:00

It makes sense to detox right around now for a litany of reasons, but the most obvious one is this: all the raw, delicious fruits and vegetables you could want are available and ubiquitous. I walked into a co-op this morning and saw dozens of things I could eat - not a common experience for the detox-er.

Breakfast: Orange.

Lunch: Raw kale and romaine salad w/ Annie's Green Goddess Organic dressing. Big mug of miso soup with carrots and kale.

Snack: Kombucha. Blueberries.

Snack: Grapefruit. Grapes. Ginger tea w/ lemon and organic honey (lots and lots of this).

Dinner: Kombucha. Kale, parsley and romaine salad w/ pumpkin seeds. Peach.

The trick is to eat frequently and/or to eat large quantities of the above. Juicing is an ideal way to detox because it saves you a lot of chewing (kale can take a while to break down, especially if it isn't super fresh). Am I hungry? Yes, I'm hungry. But a detox is also a period intended for contemplation, and if you can get past the immediate discomfort of hunger, it is possible to access deeply hidden emotional and psychological matter. Not to mention, my yoga practice has shifted in a matter of days. This evening I attended a class taught by The Yoga Space's lovely director, Michele Lowe. Despite my hunger and fatigue at the end of a long workday, I found myself flowing through Surya Namaskara A and B without breaking much of a sweat and my twists were much deeper.

The most significant element of the class was the sense that it was really a preparation for stillness, rest, and eventually, sleep. I love this ritualistic aspect of the practice; I love that specific sequences aim to do different things, and that the postures themselves are everything and nothing - they are symbolic, functional, and yet many maintain that asana means very little, if anything at all, without the other philosophical and spiritual limbs.

On an entirely separate note:

Larry David was sexy. Is sexy?

Summer Solstice Cleanse

2010-06-14T12:38:00.002-07:00

The good folks at The Yoga Space in SE Portland are hosting a week-long cleanse to prepare for the seasonal shift from spring to summer, or in Ayurvedic terms, from a kapha season to a pitta season. I happen to enjoy cleanses, and try to do one every 4-6 months. This will be the first time, however, that I follow a program of some kind. This detox, designed by Heather Harahan, a Kundalini teacher, just requires discipline and good organic food. It isn't a starvation detox, although some might think eating only fruit, raw vegetables, mung beans, and a little rice for 5 days is equivalent to starvation.

Caffeine, alcohol, processed foods such as tempeh and tofu, bread, starch, sugar, dairy, eggs, cereals, acidic condiments, salt - these are all off the table for the week. And meat, of course. The aim is to make the body more alkaline, since acid in the body is a breeding ground for illness, discomfort, and even (eventually) disease. A seasonal detox revitalizes the organs, cleanses the liver and kidneys, and re-balances the nervous, circulatory, and digestive systems. I'll track my progress here and let you know how it goes.

Today is Day 1.

Breakfast: Grapefruit & orange, water.

Lunch: Raw kale & pumpkin seed salad w/ Annie's Green Goddess Organic Dressing, large mug of miso soup.

Snack: Blueberries.

Snack: Banana, grapes.

Dinner: Grapefruit.

Yoga: 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

The quality of the food is very important. Conventionally grown fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, etc. are full of toxins, including pesticides that can damage the nervous system and reproductive system, and have been linked to various kinds of cancer.

Artificial ingredients are literally dangerous: blue 1 & 2, red 3, and yellow 6 caused brain, adrenal gland, thyroid, and kidney tumors in lab rats.

Canned foods need to go: BPA (found in the lining of tin cans, some water bottles, and in baby bottles) can wreak havoc on a woman's reproductive system by disrupting the hormones that let the ovaries know when to produce an egg. It has also been linked to birth defects.

Note: I know not everyone can afford to buy organic produce all the time, and I resent the people who make it out to be some moral deficiency if you do not eat organic. But, if you can afford it, then buy organic. And if you can't, then seek out local CSA options that will cut the cost and make organic food more accessible. Also, many health food stores now take food stamps.

*Also, today's meals were more measly than necessary. The cleanse can include juices and mung beans with rice. I just didn't have time to cook, and I don't have the equipment to juice.

The First of Nine

2010-06-11T07:20:00.004-07:00

To Roberto: On Being Unable To Sleep

When I dream about you I dream
apocalyptic skies and sunstroke,
the backseat of a dusty car,
wildfire in the desert,
sexual violence.

I dream of your liver
in Mexico City.

A telephone ringing in an empty hotel room;
a knife placed on a countertop
appears as indecent and dangerous
as a knife held in a hand.

Now that you’re gone,
would you write it all the same?

I dream of your liver
in an autopsy pan.

Coordinates on a map, cities
and airports,
vacant
beds, and your hair
tucked behind your sallow ear.

Is death the abandonment
you imagined?

I dream of your liver
prayed over and buried.

The end of the world
begins inside
each and every one
of our torsos.
The panicked heartbeat,
the seizing abdomen.

We have given over,
things have gotten worse,
and I dream of your liver
like a prophet,
covered in sand.

Sometimes I can't read this and eat at the same time.

2010-06-08T11:24:00.001-07:00

"Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze paths into the unknown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or what amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they have no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle against that something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wounds and stench."

2666, p. 227

Housesitting and armed.

2010-06-02T16:29:00.000-07:00

Yes, please

2010-06-01T22:15:00.001-07:00

...true freedom means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.

David Foster Wallace, 2005

2010-05-28T21:36:00.000-07:00

Anyway, these ideas or feelings or ramblings had their satisfactions. They turned the pain of others into memories of one's own. They turned pain, which is natural, enduring, and eternally triumphant, into personal memory, which is human, brief, and eternally elusive. They turned a brutal story of injustice and abuse, an incoherent howl with no beginning or end, into a neatly structured story in which suicide was always held out as a possibility. They turned flight into freedom, even if freedom meant no more than the perpetuation of flight. They turned chaos into order, even if it was at the cost of what is commonly known as sanity.

2666, p. 189

On Agnes Varda

2010-05-20T20:34:00.002-07:00

Kiddywinkles

2010-05-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

The Days Resemble One Another

2010-05-14T21:26:00.007-07:00

7:15 a.m.: Wake up. Put together some ridiculous outfit that will transition easily between work and yoga.

7:35 a.m.: Spicy soy chai.

8:00 a.m.: Arrive at Job #1, which today has become Job #1 and 1/2: one of the mother's I work for has asked me to help her neighbors (who have just welcomed premature twins into their fold) for the morning. I've never met them before. I'm shown around the house and briefed on what my duties will be for the next four hours. Seville, their 3 year old, wakes up and immediately begins crying and telling her father that she doesn't want to be my friend.

9:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.: I fold laundry and make dinner for the family while Seville watches a kid's show about the alphabet. The babies, Oswell and Brickeley, are the tiniest things I've ever seen, and they make creaky choking noises in their sleep. The most developed parts of them are clearly their vocal cords - when they get hungry they scream like nothing I've ever heard.

10:30 a.m.-12:00 a.m.: Skye, the mama, joins me in the living room and breastfeeds her babies while Seville hides from me/kicks me playfully/tells me how much she loves her babies.

12:10 a.m.-3:00 p.m.: I return to Job #1, where I put Avi & Marley down for their naps (it takes about two hours to successfully persuade Avi to surrender), clean the kitchen, sweep, and finish reading the May 6th issue of The New Yorker. Saul Bellow's correspondence, Hilton Als's article on Tyler Perry, and a broad review of books on terrorism/counterterrorism are the most notable pieces.

3:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m.: Job #2: Research/editing.

7:15 p.m.-8:30 p.m.: Yoga class (thank you, thank you, thank you).

9:00 p.m.: Shower.

9:30 p.m.: Begin another back issue of The New Yorker, which features a piece by the late Roberto Bolano. His posthumously published 2666 sits on my nightstand. I finished The Savage Detectives a week or so ago, and I think about it every day. Bolano is superior.

(This post clearly inspired by the Diary work I've been immersed in).

NOX

2010-05-11T20:08:00.001-07:00

THIS IS MAGIC

Nucular Aminals

2010-05-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

That's right, a band with a misspelled name. I saw them at Slabtown, a bar in NW Portland, a few weeks ago, and I bumped into their keyboardist at the bank a few days later. Their show was great and their keyboardist is a slow-talking lovely lady. Listen to them on that socialist music site MySpace. I particularly like their song "Ooooh Kill Ooooh." Sexy.

The Savage Detectives, page five hundred and thirteen

2010-04-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

Inaki Echevarne, Bar Giardinetto, Calle Granda del Penedes, Barcelona, July 1994.

For a while, Criticism travels side by side with the Work, then Criticism vanishes and it's the Readers who keep pace. The journey may be long or short. Then the Readers die one by one and the Work continues on alone, although a new Criticism and new Readers gradually fall into step with it along its path. Then Criticism dies again and the Readers die again and the Work passes over a trail of bones on its journey toward solitude. To come near the work, to sail in her wake, is a sign of certain death, but new Criticism and new Readers approach her tirelessly and relentlessly and are devoured by time and speed. Finally the Work journeys irremediably alone in the Great Vastness. And one day the Work dies, as all things must die and come to an end: the Sun and the Earth and the Solar System and the Galaxy and the farthest reaches of man's memory. Everything that begins as comedy ends as tragedy.

Afternoon Light Dance

2010-04-27T20:57:00.001-07:00

I met amazing people this past weekend.

2010-04-27T19:20:00.001-07:00

To name a few:

Ekayani, a beautiful house music artist. She performed at StreetYoga's fundraiser, Yoga on the Dance Floor, named after Ekayani & The Tom Glide Space's album. It was just one stop on a West Coast tour. She and I also observed a class for homeless youth at Outside In, a revolutionary facility that provides a safe space for kids living on the street, in shelters, or in foster care.

Dana Flynn (the lady in the air). She taught the most incredible yoga class I have ever been a part of. Really and truly.

The theme of the workshop was connecting with the belly and the core power dwelling therein. Dana has an ecstatic, intoxicating energy. I smiled and giggled the whole way through, and connected to the practice in a whole new way. The studio she co-founded with Jasmine Tarkeshi (the supine lady) is called Laughing Lotus, and they are now in two locations: New York and San Francisco. I'm seriously considering a weekend trip to San Fran just to take a couple classes with Dana and Jasmine, and I am psyched to check out their studio back East.

Jasmine & Dana opened their Greenwich Village space when they realized their approach to yoga happened to differ from that of other New York studios. They place tremendous emphasis on embracing your own organic movement as a practitioner, and avoiding any dogmatism about form and method.

The class on Sunday consisted of long, exhilarating periods of flow with intermittent alignment/technique demonstrations. Dana's instructions were clear, precise, and poetic. Her gentle encouragement (Relax your beautiful face) empowered us to keep moving, even at the most challenging points. And there was this vibratory feeling from mat-to-mat, wall-to-wall, and I felt grateful, and that feeling of gratitude was palpable in every other face as we deliriously rolled up our mats at the end of the two hour session.

2010-04-18T23:12:00.002-07:00

my most favorite band has a new album

2010-04-16T21:56:00.003-07:00

well i remember when i met you in the park our eyes were shooting stars

2010-04-12T22:22:00.001-07:00

this is how i feel, approximately

2010-04-11T22:17:00.002-07:00

all hail mcsweeney's

2010-04-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

2010-04-10T09:52:00.003-07:00

Last night I dreamed of a party. I was uncomfortable. There were people in attendance who I did not wish to see. I was surprised by their appearance and felt betrayed by my own mind, as it really cheated itself out of refuge.

In the dream, at the party, I ate a piece of cake. It was something like chocolate and cream cheese, but it was old and sour and too rich and maybe a little moldy, and I spit it out of my mouth, scraped it off my tongue, gagging. The thick cream and cake had generated mucous in the back of my throat, so I tried hacking it up.

I woke up out of the dream and found myself still hacking, trying to get a glob of mucous out of my mouth. Not believing that this nearly unbroken link between dream and life was possible, I tried going back to sleep, still making guttural sounds. I couldn't go back to sleep, of course. I spit into a glass jar near the bed, then I drifted off.

2010-04-09T17:19:00.003-07:00

My sense of time is shifting. A single moment can feel incredibly open and vivid. In the next moment, time is compressed; I haven't any idea how the past several hours have passed, how last month began and ended, how anything and everything in the past year of my life has actually taken place.

It's all happened and yet it feels like I exist in a time vacuum, and that once I emerge, everything I knew before will have been preserved, petrified, standing still and waiting for me.
The fact of this (sort of) expectation is mildly disconcerting.

what have we done

2010-04-07T19:39:00.001-07:00

2010-04-06T20:17:00.001-07:00

Fill your chest with salt breath and climb the bluffs like an animal. There are points on the ascent where you must use your hands. Where the dirt is dry, likely to give way. You may want to use your hands when the dirt is soft and moist, too, because it feels good. You may even want to dig a bed in the hillside to lie in and feel how cool and soft and moist the earth can get. When you reach the top of the bluff you see the ocean on the other side. Clear blue-green. This means the water is so very cold. This means if you were to fall from the tip of the bluff you would feel the terrible shock of frigid water only a second before hitting the rocks, and it would be the most terrible thing to feel before dying. There is a row of magnificent unreachable boulders jutting out of the water, and all of them are covered with birds. They’ve come home, you think, you being a Northern creature. You think: when birds leave for winter, it’s vacation; when birds return for the spring, it’s because they must return to their true home near the cold ocean and the black rocks shaped like chunks of graphite. It’s the same for you. You are standing at the edge of the bluff looking down and hoping you won’t lose your balance. You feel tethered. You understand that the world is round and you cannot walk on water. Fill your chest with what feels like ten million particles of purity and grace. Feel shame for the weight of your mortal body. And look down.

2010-04-02T21:08:00.003-07:00

Wife

He was good to me in that he made me feel like my spirit
was tethered to some solid post in the middle of a field,
steeped in black fog,
broken like a feral thing with a cultivated heart, wanting warmth, having only known
the cold.
The mending
is like surgery
of the spine, sewing up the center
of the body. The brutality
of desire,
howling down the hallways
of my nervous system.
All the good I’d been saving turned to ashes,
cinders under water turn to mud.

[Poem from Part II: Fracture of Fracture]

Mary Gaitskill on Writing

2010-03-30T18:59:00.003-07:00

Writing is technologically primitive—it’s black-and-white words on a page. But if somebody is good at it, these black-and-white symbols can shock or anger or bring a reader to tears. And all this comes from some person sitting alone in a room. Something written a hundred years ago can be instantly alive in the reader right now...

Writing is less physical than dancing, say, but nonetheless comes from the body and not only the mind. A lot of modern fiction feels grossly disembodied. It’s important to connect to the physical, bodily energy of telling a story.

2010-03-30T09:00:00.001-07:00

Post-Street Yoga Teacher Training

2010-03-29T13:00:00.002-07:00

The Street Yoga Teacher Training wrapped up late Sunday afternoon. First thing in the morning, we were given a beautiful back care and pranayama class by Chandra, a skilled teacher and a member of Street Yoga's Board of Directors. Our discussion, for most of the day, revolved around Boundaries - emotional, physical, and psychological. We also used role playing to explore the many layers of youth social services and to get an idea of how the young men and women in any given Street Yoga class have been shuffled around from shelter to shelter, foster home to foster home, social worker to social worker, hospital to street, again and again. We also hashed out boundary scenarios and designed custom classes for specific populations: the chronically ill, pregnant women, obese people, hyperactive kids, etc. The training came to an end with all the teachers and students in a big circle, giving thanks and celebrating each other.

The next several steps: observe a class at a site of my choosing. Decide upon the specific population I would be interested in working with. Educate myself further about that population's needs. Select a site of interest in which to volunteer. Make a long-term commitment to teaching there.

In other news: organic rolled oats cooked with chopped up apricots and dates is delicious.

Also:

Big Green Smoothie

5-6 leaves of kale
5-6 leaves of lettuce
2-3 carrots
1/2 Granny Smith apple
1/2 tbsp. organic apple butter
1/2 tbsp. organic almond butter
1/2 tbsp. hemp seed oil
Ginger root
1 c. water
Ice, if desired

This smoothie can come out a little thick, so add water as needed. It's really yummy and energizing, with tons of raw, unadulterated vitamins, minerals and protein. The apple butter sweetens, the ginger spices, and the almond butter/hemp seed oil strengthen the whole concoction.

Street Yoga, Day 2

2010-03-27T20:54:00.001-07:00

Another truly fantastic, long and full day of Street Yoga teacher training. By the time we disbanded at 3:30 pm I was brimming with the good energy of my classmates, and it seems as though the weight of the entire day has been carried through on that wave of exuberance. I received a call from my landlord earlier today with the news that I don't have to move on May 1st, which puts an end to a rather stressful housing search. I also learned that I might have landed a much desired job as a reporter's assistant. It's possible that this announcement is a big jinx, but I'll take my chances. I have a good feeling. And, the weather is better everyday, and my spring cleanse is definitely improving my mental, emotional, and physical clarity.

Back to Street Yoga:

We began with a 30 minute yoga session designed for high-energy teenagers. The volunteer teachers were isolated from the rest of the group while we were given fairly specific instructions on how to make the class nearly impossible to teach by playing various adolescent roles: gossipers, hecklers, restless wanderers, eye-rollers, etc. Although I was too shy to take on a particular part in the chaos, nearly all of my attempts to pay attention were thwarted by my constant laughter. We went on to discuss poses and sequences that would help nearly any group of underserved, underprivileged youth feel safe and respected. This exercise required intensive consideration: we had to examine how certain poses could possibly cause students to feel vulnerable or threatened. I found this to be challenging, since there are numerous poses which I would imagine to be empowering and uplifting for those who have been disempowered, disenfranchised, and dehumanized, and yet many of those poses are not appropriate for individuals who have endured physical, emotional, and/or psychological trauma.

After lunch, we experimented with a 15 minute yoga session for low-energy teenagers: young folks who are depressed, bored, anxious, detached, recovering from substance/alcohol use the night before, or currently using some kind of depressant. Somehow this class turned into a raucous carnival, as well, even though the scenario was supposed to demonstrate the opposite circumstance of the morning's high-energy class. It was after that class that we really got to the challenges inherent in this scenario: how to respond to those who are withdrawn or disruptive, and how to respond to those who are trying in earnest to experience what the teacher has to offer. The entire day was a thorough and extremely informative process of putting theory into pseudo-action, spiked with theater games and movement play.

It's nearly 9 pm and I'm still buzzing.

Street Yoga

2010-03-27T09:05:00.001-07:00

Last night I took part in the first session of this weekend's Street Yoga training. 3.5 hours, roughly 50 trainees, 3 teachers, yoga mats, manuals, bare feet, and big hearts. Street Yoga is an organization that offers yoga to at-risk and homeless youth. The training is for anyone who would like to join Street Yoga and work with children and teens of this particular demographic, but the training can also be used by anyone who would like to teach specific populations: HIV/AIDS patients, cancer patients, sexually abused teens, domestic violence victims, incarcerated peoples, etc.

The training continues today and wraps up tomorrow. By the end of it, I'll have spent a total of 16 hours with some of the most amazing people I've met here in Portland. Last night we did lots of inward searching, bonding exercises: introductions, one-on-one interviews, walking around with our eyes closed and our hands searching for other hands. I learned from people who are trying to integrate yoga with autism therapies and speech pathology work, people who are interested in making yoga more appealing and more accessible to communities of color, people who would like to introduce yoga to severely emotionally disturbed teenagers, people who want to teach sexually abused women how to drop down into their bodies and work through moments of intense fragmentation, people who want to bring yoga into the public school system, and people who simply want to learn more about community service and deepen their own practice. One of the instructors, Sweethome, kept reminding us that the practice of yoga must truly serve each individual practitioner in order for that service to move outward.

I too had to explain why I had decided to take the training (I'm on a work-study scholarship), and the first things that came to mind were: Healing and Lacan. The two don't normally align for me. And no, I didn't whip out Lacan to this group of warmhearted, sweet-faced strangers. I said, instead, Healing and Language. I talked a little bit about my questions around Healing: what does that mean for different people, what does it look like, and is it possible? Then I spoke about my interested in Language, how Language can help facilitate the healing process, but particularly how Language is also limited in conveying things that have been held in the body and cannot be accessed fully or truthfully with words, and how the practice of yoga may provide a powerful vehicle for listening to the body and unlocking those points of containment. It felt a little blasphemous, but it felt right.

I feel such gratitude for this teacher training opportunity. Every time someone in that room opens their mouth I am humbled and inspired. I am so excited for what today and tomorrow have in store, not to mention what I'll be able to do with this information and these ideas once the training is 'complete.'

One of the things that really struck me as an incredible image: the president of Street Yoga is one of the teachers, and he was leading us in a chaos/stillness exercise about midway through the session. We were asked to wiggle our fingers, then rotate our wrists, then rotate the forearm, then spiral the entire arm, all gradually and with intention. He said that when his young son woke up from a two-week coma after falling from a tree, the boy's arm did this very motion: it began with the fingers, then the wrist, then the forearm, then the entire arm. Spiraling. Involuntarily. The symbol for life force energy is the spiral. The spiraling signaled the revival of his conscious body.

2010-03-24T21:30:00.002-07:00

I am reading The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey on the heels of finishing The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Roy's novel has not loosened its grip on me, and I still cannot understand why it took me so long to read it. I'm not referring to the length of time it took between beginning and completing the book, I'm talking about the time it took for me to actually select the book from the proverbial shelf and crack it open. It is so gorgeous and devastating, and if you try to explain this to anyone who hasn't read it, if you even try to break down the generalities of it (characters, themes, events), it ends up sounding like a soap opera. Which is absolutely not the case. It is the furthest thing from a soap opera. But it feels big, epic, loud in its insight and intelligence. This is is why I love literature, why I feel devoted to it: it reminds you of how small you are. For example, as I was sitting on the cushy leather couch in my analyst's office this morning, I couldn't stop thinking about Roy's novel. The tremendous sadness. The heaviness of those hearts. The profundity of her questions. The incredibly stunning beauty she teases out at every turn. Yes, perhaps this is a gross illustration of the bourgeois use of literature. The fact that I include the word 'use.' The fact that pain, even fictional pain, could be used for my own 'healing' purposes. But in any case, this is one of the ways in which literature truly serves. It evokes feelings that might otherwise be muffled, and it illuminates the dark corners of the human mind. It provides a sort of private experience that can have very real, social repercussions. The God of Small Things makes me feel grateful. I need to feel grateful more often. Again, there is the literary theorist of a certain self-conscious school in me who scowls: what the hell does reading have to do with feeling? But feelings make up most of the world, feelings take up a lot of space. I do a lot of it. Somewhat shamefully, but I do. Shame is a feeling, too, isn't it?

2010-03-22T15:19:00.000-07:00

Weekend

2010-03-21T20:13:00.004-07:00

8 pm on a Sunday night after what feels like the longest weekend ever. Friday was Louis's 24th birthday. We made two delicious vegetable lasagnas, and I dressed up the breakfast nook (which has become an any-and-all-meal nook) with a tablecloth and candle. For dessert, Chipp presented Louis with a 'double-thick' piece of carrot cake, and I unleashed a box of true Italian St. Joseph's Day cakes. We also passed a loaf of Sin Dawg around, which is this long, delicious seeded loaf of cinnamon bread by Dave's Killer Bread.

We (Mike, Evans, Jimmy and I) spent Saturday afternoon at Powell's, where Jeff Garlin (who plays Larry David's manager and best friend on Curb Your Enthusiasm) gave a hilarious book talk. I had been planning on bear hugging him but I decided to settle for a handshake after experiencing serious heart palpitations while waiting on the signing line. He consented to a handshake. I played a trick on him. It was stupendous.

On Saturday night, I went to a party, after having not really been to a party for quite a while. It was a 'colorful clothing' party, which turned out to be a misnomer, because I got all decked out in purple leggings, a multicolored skirt, a purple sweater, and blue high-tops, and I was by far the most colorful person there. Evans wore his day-glo orange sweatshirt that makes him look like a road crew worker, and Mike wore a bright pink t-shirt underneath a green plaid button-up shirt. Louis wore bright red, white and blue (his patriotism never fails), and Jimmy wore bold green. Chipp wore loud orange. And we were the most colorful bunch there, which, for those who know us, is really, really bizarre.

Today we went to the coast. We hiked and hiked and hiked. Evans led us astray several times, but then it turned out to be fun and exciting and challenging and scary, so 'astray' became irrelevant. It was a gorgeous day. I met a big black bunny who enjoyed being hand-fed and pet by humans.

We stopped at the Rogue Brewery and Pub on the way back to Portland, which was actually just one of two bars in a one-block town, and we're all pretty sure the proprietors of the establishment are shamelessly ripping off Rogue Brewery. Not only was it not an actual brewery, but Rogue beers were offered right along with a dozen ordinary beers, and there were awkwardly placed, unconvincing ROGUE posters taped up on the walls. The place is located in North Plains, which literally consists of one hardware store, two bars, and a secret meeting house. As we were leaving the bar I heard a man say to a woman who I assume is his wife, "Honey, you can be narrowminded, but it's wrong not to shake a man's hand."

I believe we're heading out to see Back to the Future at a local pub theater. My cheeks are sunburned. I am eating a delicious dinner of eggs, kale and tempeh, with a dab of hoisin sauce. Tomorrow marks the beginning of a week-long spring cleanse.

On Four Walls

2010-03-17T23:33:00.002-07:00

I haven't lived in the same space for more than a year for the past six years of my life. My family moved from house to house while I was growing up, and the migration pattern worked its way into my internal wiring - I find myself antsy from time to time, uncomfortable in my own habitat, searching for loose roots to rip up.

However, I sense that I am more of a nester than I'd like to believe. I like the idea of someday I will have a house of my own. Like a good American private property-crazy consumer capitalist. But actually, it isn't the notion of owning the house that appeals to me - it's thinking of how I will arrange objects within each given room. It's thinking about architectural flow. It's thinking about inside/outside and how to best mingle the two. I daydream about the perfect kitchen for cooking, canning and baking. I think about varying shapes of windows and door frames, quirky doorknobs, salvaged antique upholstery, and how to arrange a home library.

I imagine many people experience the periodic desire to get rid of everything they own and begin anew. I am a selective pack rat (I'm not sure selectivity has much to do with being a pack rat, though), and I keep mostly paper-based things: magazines, journals, newspapers, books, love letters, old stories, new stories, discarded ideas, etc. Most of which have tremendous sentimental value. When it comes to everything else, I'm more likely to discard without much trouble, but 'trouble' is a relative term in this context. I will admit, when my mother was moving out of her house in December, she was absolutely determined to get rid of as much as possible, and I was frantic. I began hoarding: ashtrays, empty ornate boxes, throw rugs, picnic blankets, dishware, spice jars. Anything that rang the nostalgia bell, no matter how gently. And the central logic to this process of reclamation was: these things must be kept for when I have a house. As if objects actually hold parts of us that we barely recognize but can't afford to lose. And of course, I am on the other side of the country from all of those things, which are being stored in a tool shed at my father's house, and I am living in a bedroom that is sparsely occupied by books, a large suitcase, a bed, a chair, a stool, two lamps, a yoga mat, a wire hanger with a photograph clothespinned to it, a throw rug (thanks, Mama) and an assortment of miscellaneous items. And my car, that lovely green beetle wagon, holds almost as much as my room holds, if not more, and that in itself seems like a balance I require: half on the ground and half ready to go.

So there is this play between nesting and wandering, and it informs everything: how willing I am to make connections and cultivate relationships here in Portland, how I imagine my future, the kind of livelihood I strive for, the amount of money I save versus the amount of money I spend. Perhaps this is a very ordinary position for a person my age to be in. Also: could this have anything to do with the alleged biological clock? Is there a nesting instinct that hasn't been smothered by layers of cultural, social, and linguistic evolution? The two sides of the struggle seem equally strong, yet the longing to nest arrives in the form of profound desire to stay in one place and form circle upon circle of love and family and community. When I meditate on the impulse to wander, I see myself, alone, and this aloneness is also appealing because it appears to be the necessary preparation for that eventual settling down.

These domestic spasms have led me to follow the New York Times Home & Garden section diligently. It's just amazing how people envision their homes and then make every move possible to manifest a beautiful, comfortable abode that is reflective of their unique sensibility.

I'm sure all of the people featured are wealthy to some extent - there are certainly no bare bones cold water flats featured. I recall a recent article that described an $8,000 redecorating budget as 'tight'. Ha.
In any case: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/garden/index.html

Feeling Lighthearted

2010-03-17T23:01:00.001-07:00

Examined Life: A Documentary

2010-03-15T21:43:00.003-07:00

We’re beings toward death, we are featherless, two-legged, linguistically conscious creatures born between urine and feces who’s body will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms. That’s us. We’re beings toward death.

At the same time, we have desire, why we are organisms in space and time, and so it’s desire in the face of death. And then of course you’ve got dogmatism, various attempts to hold on to certainty, various forms of idolatry. And you’ve got dialogue in the face of dogmatism. Then, of course, structurally and institutionally, you’ve got domination. And you have democracy, you have attempts of people trying to render accountable elites: kings, queens, corporate elites, politicians. Trying to make these elites accountable to everyday people.

So philosophy itself becomes a critical disposition of wrestling with desire in the face of death, wrestling with dialogue in the face of dogmatism, and wrestling with democracy - trying to keep alive very fragile democratic experiments - in the face of structures of domination: patriarchy, white supremacy, imperial power, state power - all those concentrated forms of power that are not accountable to people who are effected by it...

America is a very fragile democratic experiment predicated on the dispossession of the lands of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of African peoples and the subjugation of women, the marginalization of gays and lesbians. It has great potential, but this notion that somehow we had it all or that we’ll ever have it all has got to go, you’ve got to push it to the side, and once you’ve pushed it to the side it tends to evacuate the language of disappointment and the language of failure, and you say, ok how much have we done? How did we do it? Can we do more?

Cornel West

the maple & the pine

2010-03-13T19:43:00.002-08:00

free show: michael hurley at mississippi records

the way is the way is the way

2010-03-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

watch it

2010-03-03T22:15:00.001-08:00

the business of being born: a documentary

Song

Allen Ginsberg

San Jose, 1954

The weight of the world

is love.

Under the burden

of solitude,

under the burden

of dissatisfaction,

the weight we carry

is love.

Who can deny?

In dreams

it touches

the body,

in thought

it constructs

a miracle,

in imagination

anguishes

till born

in human -

looks out of the heart

burning with purity

for the burden of life

is love,

but we carry the weight

wearily,

and so must rest

in the arms of love

at last

must rest in the arms

of love.

No rest

without love,

no sleep

without dreams

of love -

be mad or chill

obsessed with angels

or machines,

the final wish

is love

- cannot be bitter

cannot deny,

cannot withhold,

if denied:

the weight is too heavy

- must give

for no return

as thought

is given

in solitude

in all the excellence

of its excess.

The warm bodies

shine together

in the darkness,

the hand moves

to the center

of the flesh,

the skin trembles

in happiness

and the soul comes

joyful to the eye -

yes, yes,

that's what

I wanted

I always wanted,

I always wanted

to return

to the body

where I was born.

in colorado

2010-03-02T10:17:00.005-08:00

Mainly I've been back to my books and writings and being nice and quiet and lazy. As I'm writing this, the radio says there's a foot of snow falling on Long Island. I really love snow and wish I could take a long walk in it right now.

Jack Kerouac

Re-reading:

Open Veins of Latin America : Eduardo Galeano
Men in the Off Hours : Anne Carson

Writing:
Something is incubating.

wowowowowow

2010-02-26T15:50:00.006-08:00

women in yoga/ tantrism

2010-02-23T11:40:00.000-08:00

2010-02-22T18:57:00.003-08:00

Race & Literature

2010-02-21T13:52:00.001-08:00

Read: New York Times: Do Not Pass

Light Fantastic

2010-02-20T20:07:00.005-08:00

The heavy hand of winter is slowly lifting: the sun has made an appearance for the past four days, along with mild temperatures and a seemingly widespread social zaniness (people wandering lazily around Portland, wearing t-shirts and shorts and sandals, bicycling their strong little butts off, smiling deliriously). It's remarkable how the dismal rainy season managed to seep into my very being, and now that it is nearly over, it's as though I am slowly shedding layers of scowls, lowered eyes, tired arms, weary feet. Jace (6 months) and I go for long walks and swing about in the hammock. I'm hoping he learns to crawl in the fresh uncut grass. Avi & Marley (nearly 3 and 16 months, respectively) are so much happier when we can be out in the garden for hours at a time, eating kale off the stalk and playing with the dogs.

Interestingly enough, I feel far more connected with weather and seasonal shifts than I did back East. There is something more pronounced about the Pacific Northwest climate, and people seem to exist in sync with their immediate environment. Ever since I arrived here, I have felt compelled by my body to eat according to current harvest, to sleep according to my genuine level of fatigue (not according to feelings of should or shouldn't), to make my yoga practice a priority amongst all the constant going, and to be outside as much as possible, rain or shine. The upside of rain in Portland is that it usually consists of light sputterings, followed by brief interludes of moist air but no precipitation. There have been cats-and-dogs days but not many, so taking a walk in the rain usually isn't out of the question. The world looks different in allegedly 'bad' weather; meaning, when one has the opportunity to be outside and travel daily routes in all kinds of weather, one's experience of the roles of observer/participant become somewhat clearer, or at least more intriguing. It can become a fascinating investigation of ecology and community.

Much of my desire to be outside, not only in the much appreciated sunlight but also in the rain, comes from taking care of children five days a week, and realizing that the last thing I want to do is teach them how to fear exploration beyond the House, even beyond the Backyard. Although my parents encouraged my brother and I to frolic, I became more of an indoor person, and, as a child, even strove to modify my outdoor activities with the comforts of my bedroom - I dragged blankets, pillows and books to a corner of our backyard and set up camp, taking great pains to flick every ant or spider away, trying to secure my little cotton nest against any organic insurgent. In high school I refused to participate in outdoor sports and spent most of my senior year reading on the bleachers while other kids played sports and ran track. None of which I actually regret. But my resistance to finding joy outside came from a general distaste for perspiring, getting filthy, being far from a bathroom, and the headache one gets from squinting one's eyes against the sun. Not to mention the seeming unpredictability of the real ground, sky, air. Heaven forbid it begins to rain, or it gets too hot, or the wind blows hard. For the longest time, I simply couldn't manage that uncertainty.

These habits of mind have been difficult to overcome. Overcome is, perhaps, the incorrect word. I haven't overcome my love of the indoors, because I've decided it isn't something that needs overcoming. Rather, it is a habit that begs for a companion habit in order to locate balance. And so I have cultivated a love of the outdoors, which includes but is not limited to: a fondness for dirt, worms, rain, grass stains, sweat, sore muscles, quick thinking, picnics, tackling steep hills, navigating suburban canyons, weeding, harvesting, running, jumping, sun salutations, keeping an eye out for dog poop and roadkill, paying attention to bird calls, neighborhood cat-titudes, the shape and height and character of trees, the ubiquity of water and sound and change.

Water and sound and change: it's all there.

this book is astounding

2010-02-19T16:09:00.000-08:00

I did not have the imageless vision,
I did not see the forms whirl until they vanished
in unmoving clarity,
the being without substance of the Sufis.
I did not drink the plentitude of the void
I saw a blue sky and all the blues,
from white to green,
the spread fan of the poplars,
and on a pine, more air than bird,
a black and white mynah.
I saw the world resting on itself.
I saw the appearances.
And I named that half hour:
The Perfection of the Finite.

Paz.

don't go to the zoo

2010-02-10T08:22:00.005-08:00

don't go to the zoo, especially the Oregon Zoo.

all zoos are depressing, but the folks at the Oregon Zoo have made little to no effort to recreate natural habitats for their african and southeast asian animal captives. the monkeys jump around behind glass, between beige concrete walls, and stare forlornly at the gawking crowds of screaming children and their frazzled parents. the elephants live on what looks to be a large circus stage without a tent. the giraffe was confined to giraffe prison: a narrow, high-ceiling room secured by two steel gates. the giraffe ate from a box and drank from a small sink, and defecated in the corner. the cougar exists on a small strip of land behind a fence. each and every animal we saw at the zoo looked miserable, even the cows and the goats. the only animal who appeared somewhat content was the otter: he glided back and forth in his little pond, retreated halfway into his den, reappeared, swam, retreated, reappeared, etc., all with a pleasant otter smile on his sweet face.

i felt grossly hypocritical to be one of the crowd, pressing up against the glass, leaning over the fence, craning my neck to really see.
not to mention, it was $2 tuesday, so every family in the portland metro area was crammed into the place, and for every adult there seemed to be four kids, and these kids were everywhere, screaming, hitting, running into people. some of the children were on leashes, and the guardians pulled their kids right along, redirecting them if need be with a quick shortening of the rope. we witnessed a little boy walk up to a stranger and take her ice cream. we saw a brother smack his sister in the face as their mother looked on and laughed hysterically.

before yesterday's excursion, i hadn't been to a zoo since my parents last took me to the Bronx Zoo when i was a teenager, unless you count the Look Park petting zoo in Florence, MA. i had forgotten how wrong it feels to stare, even with wonder, at these animals that simply don't belong where they are. elephants and giraffes and cougars and lions don't belong in oregon. i imagine that parents would want their children to see firsthand the most magnificent beasts and birds from faraway lands, but the zoo is a sad way for children to learn about wild animals. the entire experience lacks all authenticity and reality. one of the most irritating aspects of the Oregon Zoo is the Africa exhibit, complete with mud huts and drum circles. a skeletal and halfhearted approximation of culture. what i want to know is, why not sell the zoo, return the animals to their true land, and donate all of the money to furthering the protection and conservation movements in the third world?

do:
see fantastic mr. fox

do:
read island by aldous huxley