It's All About the "Little" Things..(Take II)

As a human, what truly feeds, sustains, and nourishes me is the amount of time that I spend engaging, interacting, and being with others (as well as other creatures/things).

I am extremely fortunate to engage with a community of dancers weekly, some of whom have been consistently meeting together for the past twenty years. In this milieu, and in this environment where a platform of non-verbal communication is agreed upon, I am provided the space to work through the crises and neuroses of my own everyday life. Sometimes, I even find dance partners who are willing to negotiate with me. My time spent here, twisting, twirling, and talking, ripples out in concentric circles into the other facets, compartments, and arenas, of my meager existence.

More and more, I have been enjoying stopping by Mario's coffee shop for my refill of daily java. Ever the keen entrepreneur, Mario's shop is staffed by a bevy of beautiful babes, a gaggle of gorgeous girls. This little fact does not always delight me. It isn't the girls, or the understanding that there is something about this dynamic that Mario really likes, in so much as it is about some of the customers. Usually men, more specifically, who ride on through with eyes sparkling of objectification. This drinking in of womanhood and distilling it down to simply sex and symmetry really gets my guard up. Why is this, - especially when I can so easily object myself? Hell, if I objected myself more often, then maybe I'd be more "successful" than I am today. It isn't it this, though.

What it is, is this: as woman, it is easy to believe that your power is situated in the amount of attention you accrue from members of the opposite sex (specifically, white men). It is so easy to forget the small things that feed you and to, instead, focus on the superficial, - on the hair cuts, on the cute shoes, and on the shopping at Target. On the glances that come your way, and on the men who want more, - a name, a number, a date, an opportunity for sex.

Sex is great, don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating for celibacy here. I'm just saying that my sex is only skin deep. And, when I forget this...

Case in point: One of Mario's employees, and friends, is super cute. At only twenty-five years of age, she has spent a short lifetime attracting the not-always- desired attention of males. With dark, olive skin and exotic features, her petite frame is fawned over. Men and boys, literally, froth at the mouth in their wanting of her, of her sex, of whatever fantasy her visual image conjures up in their small brains.

For the past few years, I have witnessed her sense of self wither amidst this unasked for, and even undeserved (after all, she really has nothing to do with the genes she was given at birth), absorption. She has spent too many days, weeks, and months, not eating, purging what little amount of food she did partake of, and then drinking excessively (given her weight and size). Desperately, she sought to retain control of this self-perceived "power." Naturally, she would always fall short of maintaining it. For, it was always just an illusion.

In her 'Reading Lolita in Tehran,' Azar Nafisi writes: “Dreams are perfect ideals, complete in themselves. How can you impose them on a constantly changing, imperfect, incomplete reality? You would become a Humbert, destroying the object of your dream; or a Gatsby, destroying yourself.” (page 144) Today, however, when I pulled my sputtering Volvo into the black paved parking lot of the coffee shop, I looked out of my windshield with glee as my eyes fell upon this same, young woman.

Today, she has filled in her hard edges with soft curves. Her angular body no longer has a strained, taut appearance. She looks comfortable, vibrant, and happy. She is in love, and she is actively working through the day-to-day of taking care, - of caring for both herself and another.

In Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love" (which I also highly recommend right along with Nafisi's book), Gilbert writes of her travels through Italy:

"I came to Italy pinched and thin. I did not know yet what I deserved. I still maybe don't fully know what I deserve. But I do know that I have collected myself of late - through the enjoyment of harmless pleasures - into somebody much more intact. The easiest, most fundamental human way to say it is that I have put on weight. I exist now more than I did four months ago. I will leave Italy noticeably bigger than when I arrived here. And I will leave with the hope that the expansion of one person - the magnification of one life - is indeed an act of worth in this world. Even if that life, just this one time, happens to be nobody's but my own." (page 115)

It's All About the "Little" Things..

I've been fighting a bug, - for weeks now. No, I have not been healthy. It could be that my over-indulgence of fresh whipped cream, a privilege I partake of every morning down at Mario's drive-thru coffee shop (below Clairemont Dr., on Morena Blvd.), has something to do with the phlegm stuck in my lungs. It could also be the fact that I've been quite stationary, of late.

For the past two months, I've had to dig down deep, and birth a damn baby (known as my portfolio), which has required that I remain in a cramped repose, behind a computer screen, for hours on end. Sitting, typing, processing, editing, & deleting. The 150-paged creature was born on April 21st, 2009, (the spring equinox, of course!) and right along with it came the realization, "Shit! I've only just begun!" .....

So, I've been sick. It also doesn't help that I have been stressed out about money ("i ain't got no money, baby!") and the impending bills that my graduation from graduate school this summer will bring along with it. (Insert big breath here.) Ummm, yeah.

Nonetheless, life persists and the show must go on. Last night, it was an opening reception for a visual art exhibition, entitled "Facing East," at the Art Expressions Gallery just down the hill from where I live. (Off of Jutland, and at 2645 Commercial Court.) Benzs, Beamers, and SUVs were parked around the circumference of the tight col de' sac. As my mother and I ambled up the hilly driveway and approached the flat, glass paneled building's doors, we saw people spilling out and onto the cement walkway.

Inside the white-walled gallery, a uniformed catering staff, dressed in a grayish-blue, long-sleeved button up, walked around, balancing trays of silver platters on their palms. "Would you care for a sweet pork bun, dumpling, or other tasty, Asian tidbit?" they would casually inquire. Meanwhile, a jovial bartender served wine and beer in a western facing corner. (Have I mentioned that this was all "free," yet?)

Hanging throughout the parallel exhibition spaces, as well as in the small, five rooms found in the back and middle of the gallery, were mixed media paintings, of wood, paper, steel, and even book bindings, by local artists Dionne Haroutunian, Viviana Lombrozo, and Wade Harb. Sculptural pieces, handcrafted by San Diego designer Joey Vaiasuso, included a Balsam wood chair with soft, curving edges and angles, while voluptuous ceramic pieces, by Blaine Shirk, were also on display.

I was present last night because I grew up next door to the painter Wade Harb. Although he and his siblings were a good ten-plus-years my senior, I harbor countless memories of holiday meals spent together, of the scent of fresh baked pita bread permeating his house, and of his parent's delicious, home baked pies (which they still serve at their restaurant, The Allen's Alley Cafe, in Vista). Since 1981, his and my parents have been friends and neighbors on Ridge Road.

Last night, I meandered around Art Expressions, while nibbling on some light fare, getting hit on by a 60-year old, silver bearded man, and expressing my philosophic tendencies to Joey, the sculptor. However, this morning, I walked around Fiesta Island in a blissful state of reverie because, more than anything, I reconnected with not just Wade, but his wife Ellie, his sister Nina, her daughter Cameron, and his brother Charlie, who was present along with his wife Maha and their daughters Sabrina and Douna.

I had not seen Charlie in years. Recently, he had been diagnosed with fourth stage cancer. The prognosis was dim for this middle-aged man with a young family. Over the course of the past year, Charlie has walked through the harrowing hell of chemotherapy, cancer, and chronic pain. Today, he is in remission and looking great!

Last night, his cheeks were ruddy and filled in. He shared with me that his sister has him sticking to a daily regimen of Bikram's Yoga and a vegan diet. His daughters were sweet and quietly affectionate, while his wife was verbose and friendly. Spring had truly sprung for this family, - a life renewed. Seeing him, hugging him, feeling the weight, bones, and mass of his humanity, was reaffirming. Last night, I felt giddy with a lightness of being. I wanted to just look out at him, smile, and beam. I wanted to... reflect.

To be quite blunt, I am not interested in the primacy of objects.
I want to know about the spontaneity of improvisation and about the existentialism of process. I want to know the breath, - your breath. How it began, where it started, and where it is headed to?

Like the crap in my chest, "art" and, thus, art viewing can be so rigidly stuck in a place of surreal fantasy. Trapped within mythic falsehoods that
one breath/
one artwork/
one life has more intrinsic worth than another. (Need an example? Compare the lives of "Mona Lisa" to that of an Ugandan adult woman today).

No, life isn't stagnant, it doesn't remain unchanged.
Life withers with time.
So, too then, must the art that we celebrate and use to record the process of this existence, this great mystery.
For me, Charlie was the art last night.
And he was the only piece that was allowed to walk out of that gallery and back into the everyday chaos of being.

A beginning...

It all begins with one little book, - the Bible.
Okay, no. I am just kidding. But it does begin with a story.
It's the tale of a gorilla desperately seeking pupil, -
an avid student to share the biggest myth of all with.
"Guess what?" the giant ape asks, as she sits in a pretzel-like posture behind thick, metal bars.
"On planet earth, and in the course of evolution, human beings caused no more of a stir that that of a jelly fish."
"That's right," her honey brown eyes sparkle,
"you aren't special."
"And, not only are you not special, but your way is not the way.
There is no one right way."
"Did you hear that?"
"THERE IS NO ONE RIGHT WAY."
The grown adult sits there, on the other side of the enclosed cell, perplexed and with a crease in his forehead.
With four fingertips, he scratches his head.

So, what happens when the notion you were raised on, when the narrative you've heard since birth, is proven to be exactly that, - a story? A simple tale? A fabrication to maintain reality as you and I both know it?
What happens when you begin questioning every aspect of that story? When you know, deep down inside your guts, when your cells tell you, that something isn't right. When your body fights, tooth and nail, against performing the same repetitive sequences, day in and day out. Yet the story remains, unchanged.

"I get up, the sun rises. I go to work, the sun sets. I go to bed,the pattern continues. And I do it again tomorrow because I have to pay for the shelter over my head, and for the food in my belly." The primacy of money and materials has become godly. Force ensues, and a people succumb to believing that there is only one right way.

Ask yourself, "is this the right way?"
Close your eyes. Take a few breaths. In through the nose, out through the nose. In through the nose, - feel your belly rise and your chest expand. Out through your nose, - feel your ribcage drop and your belly contract. Sense how your weight is sitting over your pelvis and how your shoulders are hanging above your ribcage. Feel what your body tells you.

"What does your body tell you?"


"Welcome home."


You have landed.


Now, let me introduce to my friend, - embodiment.