Sometimes I do. Randomly I’ll remember some way of being or positive light I had inside me about certain things when I was a kid… I wonder how these things seem to get lost or fade away on the road to adulthood. And then I miss it.

Do you think we could reincorporate those removed parts of ourselves, if we wanted to? Do we lose them completely, or are they hiding somewhere deep within our beings- just waiting- after having been pushed down for so long? Why do we lose these these bright parts of our childhood selves?

Maybe we lose them so we can find them through some unanticipated means, to recover them later after lessons learned, to start shining brighter again.

My original idea was to approach December with fresh eyes, the kind of eyes that would each day of the month behold one of life’s amazing little wonders. You know, like when you find $5 in some errant pocket or someone holds the door for you, or you hold the door for someone…maybe even give away that long-lost $5 to someone who could use it more than you could, and then they unexpectedly enjoy a warm meal or now have enough cash to score a room somewhere for the night.

I wanted to turn up my sense of childlike wonder. To stir up the kind of appreciation that arises when you tune in to the majestic side of life and your heart just SINGS because you cannot contain your amazement. All it looks like from the outside is your lips curling into a smile, but on the inside- full blown flash mob. !!!

This endeavor would also make for a convenient excuse to resume blogging more often.

It hasn’t really happened that way though. I breezed through Thanksgiving, which I can definitely count as a blessing. I received some good news about two weeks ago, and this provided some form of relief. Then right at the start of the month I got sick. And if I was lucky during those first few days, I wasn’t seeing much of anything except for extra time dreaming in bed while my body was all ninja-fighting germs inside.

And the days just keep flying by…

[Enter scene] Then grinch who avoided Christmas. Who? Oh, that would be me.

I am not among the masses singing joy to the world, giddily skipping down the street carrying bag fulls of Christmas gifts. No. I am the chick who is trying to dodge people amidst the shopping throngs, desperately fighting the urge to throw ‘bows.

I am the person who sees each person holding a sign, begging for money or food or at least acknowledgement on my way home from work while everyone just goes about their day, never breaking stride. Never looking down or to the side, never noticing anyone else. Then suddenly my heart sinks, because I find myself a part of the problem too, busy and unable to change all these situations. Or worse, because sometimes I don’t help even one of the situations.

Sometimes I can’t. But sometimes I can. And I can’t help but wonder, do any of these strangers I see feel loved? Not just the brokenhearted homeless, but also the brokenhearted apathetic.

With those thoughts and the like, I have a hard time understanding or discovering joy. I understand pain, instead. Because that makes more sense to me in the face of so much heaviness.

And for tonight, my thoughts seem to stop here as well. To be continued….

from Frida's diary

I’ve always considered it to be one of the bravest things, to truly embrace being yourself. The good, the bad, the pretty and the ugly- all of your experiences, heartaches, struggles and accomplishments.

OK, maybe not always. In the last few-several years, definitely.

A very real acknowledgement of this occurred when I was introduced to Frida Kahlo. I remember it was winter and I was taking Humanities for the Visual Artist at Columbia, a class I really looked forward to each week. My teacher was passionate and kooky, she endeared herself to me with her enthusiasm and openness.

One day, she popped in a video. It was a biography of the artist Frida Kahlo, a woman who’s iconic eyebrows I recognized (and unnerved me as a child). Yet I  never knew much about her story. What happened throughout this first Frida experience, was that I was captivated. Moved. Because here was this woman-nature and chance maimed her, the man she loved cruelly betrayed her, her body betrayed her— yet she went on to continually find and create beauty from all of it.

She painted her fears, her betrayals, her joys, her questions and her heart. And I was so struck by it, because I couldn’t understand who would ever have the courage to paint such personal, painful things. For all the world  to see, to feel. That it could be done in a way that was natural, that allowed the viewer to observe, as if they were being confided in. So grotesque to be a real witness to the wounds bore by this woman, but also clutch your chest with the resonance of this emotion. Intense color, filled with light in spite of its darkness.

also from the diary; post leg amputation

Here I developed true admiration for this uncanny display of authenticity. Never, I thought, never could I paint about my miscarriage or the affair that infiltrated the deep love that burned through my veins for Diego. But she did.

And how could she do it? I was baffled, awe-struck and inspired. A new appreciation for and understanding of transparency was unveiled to me. I thought for days about how beautiful I thought her bleeding heart was. I thought for days about all the years of my life that I felt a fierce determination to keep my bleeding heart contained, protected in an unpenetrable vault. But there was a woman who painted all of it….who owned all of it. It was hers.

This idea changed my life.

There wasn’t any drastic, outward change. However, my ideas about what is important and how we use our stories changed. The way I value an individual’s reality changed. Because if Frida had never painted her pain and her dreams, how would I have come to value such a unique form of transparency? What happens that forces each of us to realize that whether we embrace or understand or accept our stories or not, we do have a story- and that story can be used to reach someone else on some level, for good? It can benefit others in some way, if we let it. But it can never make such impacts if it is never told, if some parts of ourselves- even and especially the painful- are not revealed.

And ever since the acceptance of that idea, I’ve seen the world in a very different light. A more bearable, colorful one.

It was this reminder I was seeking those months ago when I delved into the published visual diary of Frida Kahlo for some inspiration. I had spent an uncharacteristic season prior feeling ungrounded in my own identity. I have always been a fairly self-assured person, but I went through some things that caused me to really question and distrust myself. I don’t know that I had ever not trusted at least myself before then.

Regardless of what I’ve been through, I needed to be reminded that my story is mine. I cannot let anyone else write it for me. Nor do I want to. It is up to me to dispel the muck I waded through all those days. Even if I did make mistakes, even if I didn’t understand myself, even I wanted so much more than what I have had thus far: it is mine. All of it. And anything that happens next or after, that is mine too. So what was it going to be?

It was time to take the brush back into my hand, and gripping it tightly, paint new colors on to the canvas of my life.  I think I’ve begun to.

Somehow I feel lighter

An unsuspecting wish granted

I bet in time people will notice

That something is better

Is healing inside of me

This glimmer of hope

I’ll be growing this glow

Of all that could and will someday be

Something feels safe again

To dream and look up to the sky

Safe to breathe and feel alive

For the clouds hovered over me

They persisted for days

Stuck in some unlit valley of pain

It could amount to a monsoon

Those endless days of rain

But something has happened

I’m not sure how it could be

But there were these rainbows

Emanating magic to me

ae/ 10.2

Someone sent me this today. And oh, how my stomach sank! Or my heart, I’m not sure which one. Is there a difference in this context? Anyway, I had this internal reaction to these beautiful words, because I feel guilty.

I feel guilty, because I am not sure that I’m living my life yet. I mean, sure, there are aspects…there are always aspects. But the whole thing? I am not even sure how far away I am right now. Sometimes, I am not sure what it is supposed to look like anymore— what I envision.

Still, I know I feel guilty.

I want to dream awake. I am aware that time is limited. I hate wasting time, that’s why I am such a direct person. Any other way seems inefficient to me. However, I must not despise it enough…because here I am, looking through foggy lenses. I’ve been quiet, but I haven’t been listening. And I certainly haven’t had an admirable amount of courage…

Not yet. I will though. The time is coming.

So I guess, the question I am faced with right now is: how do I reconnect? How do I listen, really listen, like I yearn to? Why has my rhythm been drowned out by such a noisy quiet?

The answers to those questions don’t really matter, you know. What matters are my next steps. What I will do. What I am doing in the meantime. And how I will find it. Get there.

How I will dream awake, as much as possible, with every breath.

I want to be the one who does

And if we’re searching for some grand masterpiece

I want to create it just because

And we are all down here together just trying to find our way

And if we seek it out together, we’re going to find a brighter day

Because the sun’s not far off, I see it

Let’s mold our feelings into clay

Let’s find another way of expressing these words, just too difficult to say

We’re all just trying to figure it out down here

Trying to make sense of what we cannot yet comprehend

We have to know that we’re part of all this together

We all need the love of a friend

So let’s build it out and up from here on out

Let’s architect a future brimming with hope

Let’s seize the moment like we’re really alive

We have one chance at this enigma, life

[May 2011]

Underneath it all, I have always possessed this deeply rooted desire for love to win. True love. And yes, I am one of those schmucks who has always believed there is such a thing. How you go about defining such a mysterious concept, I could only begin to imagine. I do believe it exists though. (Conversely, that theory gets re-evaluated periodically as well.)

I heard the term the other day: “an incurable romantic.” And I thought, “Yes! Exactly, that’s incredible.” How many people are courageous enough to stand behind such an idea? I adored the sound of it.

I have two lines of thinking. One of them revolves around us being a jaded population of people. I mean, really- why shouldn’t we be skeptical with the level of chaos and dysfunction so prevalent of our environment? How many of our relationships or plans fall apart before they’ve ever even taken flight?

The other line of thinking is that I don’t feel confident that a majority of people know how to define romance for what it truly is. Or what it could be. Should be. I mean, it is a term so casually tossed around and associated with very superficial meanings. When it is a thing that can man a whole lot. It’s the thing. [which was a conversation recently held that led me to bring the debate public in order to incorporate additional perspectives]

If Valentine’s Day and the way people plan for and celebrate it is to be used as a visible, commonly accepted depiction of “romance”- what does that reflect about society’s perspective on the matter? Granted, I am making a very obvious example of a cause that is very cliche. It makes sense though, doesn’t it?

How do you define romance? What does it mean to you?

It means a lot to me…so much so that in latter years, I avoid using the phrase almost entirely because I don’t think it adequately expresses my connection to the matter.

There’s the rub. When I consulted Merriam-Webster’s definition of romantic, I found:

In the words on the pages

I see you just like me

Other places through the ages

I see you as my tears

As they flow across different faces

I see you in the laughter

Through the jokes as it all changes

I see you through sad eyes

Remembering my heart and how it races

I see you from disappointment

The empty words carrying thoughts baseless

I see you in some distant place

Though I keep going through all the phases

And I see you drift from my scattered dreams

While we are headed in different places

I see you in that little wish tucked away behind my heart-

Unable to erase it

ae/9.2.07

Me

7.7.11