Just heard this song on the radio. If the ocean breeze blowing through my windows had a rhythm, it would be this, a flow like water in sultry summer air, a breath of tidal freshness wandering dark streets and urging me to follow.
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It’s 101 degrees outside. Hot, humid, and depressing. The news is full of stories about psychotics who get away with murder and sexually tormented little girls and Africans who survive an epic drought by eating leaves.
ENOUGH.
Here and now I demand: GIVE US COLOR!
Thank you.
Don’t you feel better already?
Now, I understand that bright objects in variegated hues aren’t on par with, say, international aid. They’re less convoluted, for one thing, the conjured relief immediate. Color is a band-aid with cartoons on it, and while we ultimately need more to cure the wounds of humanitarian and environmental tragedy, we also deserve small bursts of joy.
Or big ones!
Take the example of the Favela Painting Project. Haas & Hahn, an artistic duo whose real names are Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn, decided to painting enormous murals in the slums of Brazil, layering color across the faces of woeful buildings in the heart of Rio di Janero. The result is an unexpected explosion, a firework of youthful energy and artistic passion that has revolutionized the community.
Transformed!
So take the power into your hands. GIVE YOURSELF COLOR!
Grab your pencils, your markers and paints; take to the streets or a sheet of white paper.
Let every home feel like this:
And commission all hand soaps to be arranged thusly:
And as you draw and brush and play, spread the news! We DO know how to be happy, we HAVE the power to change the world, and we WILL find joy in a crayon box, in leaves of paper, in the overflowing prism of our colorful, creative hearts.
And good news! Coldplay is already on board.
Ultra 10
I really want to do this.
Over the last month, I’ve cultivated a deep appreciation for simplicity. I streamline more than I ever have, and as a result I recognize the benefits of utility, flexibility, and durability. I’m also newly obsessed with this idea of dedicating myself to on-going projects composed of small, conscious steps toward achieving larger goals.
Or this super-sweet shirt/jacket/skirt.
So no wonder I find Ultra 10 appealing. This collection of ten multi-purpose articles of clothing is meant to last an entire year. It would challenge to one’s creativity to be so simple without being austere, but wow, life must feel easier when you only have 2 pairs of pants to choose from in the morning.
Of course, I don’t have $918 to invest in my own Uniform Project. Before I take the plunge, I think I’ll do some serious culling of my own wardrobe. Because living with less—on my body, in my closet, in my mind—has serious appeal these days.
Susan Wood
When I grow up, I want to a writer like Susan Wood.
Daily Life
by Susan Wood
by Susan Wood
A parrot of irritation sits
on my shoulder, pecks
at my head, ruffling his feathers
in my ear. He repeats
everything I say, like a child
trying to irritate the parent.
Too much to do today: the dracena
that’s outgrown its pot, a mountain
of bills to pay and nothing in the house
to eat. Too many clothes need washing
and the dog needs his shots.
It just goes on and on, I say
to myself, no one around, and catch
myself saying it, a ball hit so straight
to your glove you’d have to be
blind not to catch it. And of course
I hope it does go on and on
forever, the little pain,
the little pleasure, the sun
a blood orange in the sky, the sky
parrot blue and the day
unfolding like a bird slowly
spreading its wings, though I know,
saying it, that it won’t.
Walt Whitman (Miracles)
Blissful.
A funy thing is happening now that I post to my blog every day. I’m enjoying the narrow-yet-flexible parameters of mindfulness as an umbrella topic, but as I go about my day more and more subjects seem to throw themselves at me. As these fun or artsy bits and pieces grab my attention, I find myself wanting to share them with you. Typically, I’d upload these songs or pictures or poems as a Daily Dose, but now I feel stymied. I Dose every day already! I don’t want to confuse subjects and projects and titles in this poor, fledging forum, and the compulsive perfectionist in me demands aesthetic, thematic, harmonic, symmetric consistency
But luckily for you, I’ve championed over my crazy and I’ve decided that I’m not going to withhold slices of brilliance from my dear readership simply because certain tags overlap. So as I resolve my titular conflicts, please take these posts for what they are: my best attempt to share with you the lovelier things in life.
Recently, I signed up for Poem-A-Day from the American Academy of Poets (you should too!).
I love this today’s poem by Walt Whitman and find it especially relevant to my mini-rant yesterday. Like me, Whitman seemed to believe that ‘our hearts crave more than bliss’, and with this work he celebrated the everyday for the miracle that it is.
Miracles
by Walt Whitman
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
National Poetry Month: Mae Chevrette, Sarah Kay & e.e. cummings
April is National Poetry Month.
The first time you wrote creatively, did you write a poem? I happen to think that most people connect with their writer’s spirit (and everybody has one, believe me) through poetry. It’s a funny thing, though, that as we cultivate our faculties for communication, we move away from this form.
This definitely happened to me. When I started the Creative Writing Program at my high school’s Performing Arts Academy, I went gangbusters with poems. Over time, I became less certain of my ability to speak poetry’s language (I wasn’t winning enough contests that way), so I relegated the majority of my verse to personal journals and the odd group critique. These days, prose feels like my second skin, but I can’t help but feel something is missing from my world without poetry.
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady I swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
–the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says
we are for each other:then
laugh,leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
laugh,leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
And death I think is no parenthesis
Here, e.e.cummings makes the point with such elegance it practically brings me to tears. That is the power of poetry; that is why, even as I struggled to make sense of it, I understood all along.
Poetry is not a foreign language. Our minds are likely to confuse it, of course, for this is a voice that cares not for syntax, ignores grammar and common construct. It is moved by the smell of a summer sunset, the pulse of surf, tiny fractures in a sidewalk where young grass comes curling through. Poetry is a whisper, a gesture. Plotlines be damned, says this voice. Try harder.
So we listen, and listen hard. What we hear will surprise us, for poetry—centuries of it, rhyming or rhythmic, spoken or scrawled, my 9th grade musings and the words that wait even now in the back of your throat—all these poems are nothing more the language of our hearts.
The following video is one of the sweetest, most inspirational things I have ever seen. Sarah Kay is a spoken word poet, a daily dose like sunshine, and if you listen you will understand why this month might be my favorite of them all.
Darwin Deez
I hear it’s supposed to snow tomorrow.
I am choosing to ignore this “April Fools!” of a weather forecast and celebrate. I’m celebrating spring, and great music, and the fact that after an embarrassingly long hiatus (during which I have been, quite literally, all over the map) I’m BACK TO BEING DOCTOR DERBY!
So sit back, turn up the volume, and check out this video for the song “DNA” by Darwin Deez. I’ll be cavorting around my apartment, dancing and singing like spring has finally sprung.
127 Hours
You’ve probably heard the story of Aron Ralston, the mountain climber who had to amputate his own arm after his hand became trapped between a rock and a remote canyon wall in Canyonlands National Park, Utah. The film 127 Hours chronicles his story.
A year ago, I didn’t know who Aron Ralston was. I was in the process of booking a flight to a bachelorette party in Vegas. Filled with ennui, the dark and cold of Jersey midwinter, I decided to expand my trip. I rented a car to drive explore the Utah desert parks of Utah. , had been told Canyonlands was amazing, especially the Island in the Sky area. I opted for Zion National Park—closer to Vegas, more manageable in my timeframe—but I couldn’t help thinking it was the baby step of the West, a seismic split of mountains and rivers whose beauty only hinted at county to come, the vast and sweeping emptiness beyond the horizon.
I swore I would go back one day.
Several months later, I heard Ralston’s story, the jaw-clenching tale of this climber who survived. I didn’t know it happened in Utah, in my longed-for Canyonlands. I didn’t realize his heart was called there, too, that his spirit preceded my own.
Last weekend, I went to see 127 Hours. In many ways, the film is just what you expect: a story of the indefatigable will to live. But as the camera swung across rock towers and sheer cliffs, switchbacks and endless sky, it became more than that. Because here’s what the elevator summary won’t tell you: the desert is loneliness. Those broad expanses of red sand and stone trigger something visceral in us, like tragedy, the parting of two bodies, like birth and death.
At one point in the film, Ralston commented, “This rock has been waiting for me all my life.” As my heart leapt into his wild landscape, I knew exactly what he meant.
127 Hours is, rightly, nominated for a suite of awards this year. “If I Rise” is an Oscar nominee for Best Original Song. Shut your door, turn up the volume, and remember that in some distance, in hours or miles, the desert waits for you too.
Ranier Maria Rilke
Ranier Maria Rilke reminds us to dwell in sunlight.
From Sonnets to Orpheus, this poem is an invitation. Savor it like a summer wind, whispering soft against your cheek.
Wait…, this taste…Already it’s escaping.
…A bit of music, feet tapping, a hum—:
You girls, with your silences, your warmth,
dance the knowledge of the tasted fruit.
Dance the orange. Who can forget it,
the way it fights, drowning in itself,
against its sweetness. You’ve possessed it.
Its deliciousness has entered you.
Dance the orange. Fling the warmer landscape
out from you, so the ripe fruit may glow,
in its native breezes! Aglow yourselves, peel
perfume from perfume! Create a kinship
with the pure, reluctant rind,
with the juice that fills the happy fruit!
Nowhere Magazine
When a blizzard whistles past and I begin entertaining visions of shoveling three feet of snow in the morning, I like to employ a little escapism.
I recently discovered Hulu, and combined with potency of Netflix and Redbox, the attraction is fatal. I can drown myself in fantasy plotlines, fantasy relationships and bodies and crises, ‘til the cows come home. Or just until June, when the summer is ready to embrace me once again.
But the other day I came across a site that embraces my need to flee this frigid, ice-caked place. It’s a digital rag called Nowhere, and it features a new style of travel writing: one told from a writer’s point of view, one in which the author does not seek to disappear into the variegated foliage and colloquial passersby but rather invites you disappear inside the chamber of memory, melt into a world conjured in past or present tense by the footfalls of another.
Escape, of course, is nothing but a bit of magic, a flip of the wrist to change flowers into doves. Jetplanes and bronzed supermodels are all polish and allure. The seduction of travel exists not in the tang of sea salt or language that rings like strange bells in our ears. It is the story woven by our minds, the thrill of the senses discovering I am unknown, I am elsewhere, I am gone.
Tonight, perhaps, if you care to join me, we can walk among these rambling tales, we can let the magic take us somewhere else, nowhere and anywhere at once.
