Sunday, November 24, 2013

intuition

At first, I was totally intimidated by many (most) of the people I worked with at SFMOMA. It was a dream of mine to work at that museum. It was my first professional job after graduating from college. I know how to keep my cool, and I tend to air on the side of indifference- my default in a nervous or anxious state, but I was in the company of people I was genuinely interested in, people I wanted to know about, their history. But, of course, there is nothing worse than appearing too eager. It was a situation in which I had to ease my way in.

After I'd assimilated, wearing what I wanted and not giving a f*ck, my new friends urged me to sign up for Friendster. "You have to." That was the line. "You have to!" It didn't appeal to me at all. Back then. Back in 2003. I didn't like it. I didn't need it. I didn't want it.

But I signed up.

"Yeah! You did it!"

Weird. Strange. Too modern for me somehow.

I have the ability to keep moving forward and not dwell on the past. At times the past haunts me in the same way I can be sure it haunts many, but I keep going. Friendster, and now Facebook, posting about my life, sharing details of my self, being connected in an often superficial and meaningless way, to people I never think about, has a bizarre subconscious tax on my life experience. It connects me to the past in what feels like an unnatural bond. When I am near Chicago Lake on a perfect autumn afternoon, after having hiked many miles, the last thing I think to do is take a picture, let alone a picture to post on Facebook. That gesture makes my heart sink. And I don't mean to judge people who do, people who write and post and connect and share it all. But I want to let it all go.

I want to change, and challenge myself, and to have fun adventures always, but I want to do it for myself. I don't want to train my brain to need my experience to be validated by other people, to only feel it is worth something if it is known to others. I prefer to try and establish more of my own rules, and forget more of the systems, and expectations, that can feel so heavy.

And, I guess, what I realize is that I am a private person. I love and hate attention.

I hope that I continue to make conscious decisions about how I live my life based more on intuition than on social norms.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

like Venice, CA, or Barcelona, or, for some reason, the American south

Once in college while I was driving, for whatever reason, the light, the weather, whatever I'd done that day, whatever I was going to do that night, something made me feel a sharp and remarkable, overwhelming sense of gratitude to be alive. Maybe it's because I was going through a Thoreau phase? I felt joyful and happy and light. Right after the feeling struck I looked up and there was a heart-shaped cloud in the sky. The outline of a heart. Unbelievable. And, I was either listening to All Is Full of Love by Bjork or it came on at just that moment- my memory is foggy on this detail (Bjork's birthday is today, November 21st, I found out on Radio 1190 this morning). That feeling of pronounced gratitude I felt back then, I've experienced it multiple times since. It happens a lot when I travel. Really free and inspired and in harmony with the environment. When I am in a place I just love love.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

i love inspiring interviews

One interview I remember having a profound influence on me was in ELLE magazine, circa 2000. It was my sophomore year of college, and the interview was with Uma Thurman. She'd just had a baby, and so the interview had that filter about it- where so many aspects of a persona seem heightened or changed or attuned to the poetic nuances of motherhood. She was 27 at the time, and according to the interview, many thought she was young to be having a baby.

Something about that interview caught my attention. Something about what she said, and the mood of it, and the images produced by the writing, that moment in time... it must have wrenched my heart a little. I always pay more attention when my heart is in minor distress. I remember reading that interview and feeling strongly the importance of taking risks, forgetting what anybody else might have to say about my decisions, and answering to myself. In the interview Uma has this I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude, but it came across so gracefully. The author captured the free spirited power of new motherhood.

There's this part at the end where Uma talks about the decision to become a mother (as I recall). And she gives a metaphor of: the bus is going to show up, and you have a ticket in your hand, and sometimes you just have to get on the bus and go and never look back. You don't need prodding or pushing, you just get on and go. And I love that. I loved that back then in 2000. Take the chance.