A dedication
I've been thinking about my last post of 2011 for some time now.
Should I break it down by month, covering every minute detail of every season? No, that takes too long. Maybe I could just theme it with the event that affected me the most, like my move to San Francisco! Except, well, I moved back out in November so that's not really fun. Next in line: the brief but treacherous return of my favorite ex-boyfriend and our steamy, misguided make-out session! Yes! Lots to discuss there! Except no, oh no, because that topic is seven years old and letting it outlive the Harry Potter saga is unacceptable. (See also: Pathetic; Dumb; Lame)
I could talk firsts-- lots of people do that. I got a tattoo, spent the holidays without my brother (he moved to Colorado), went home with a stranger I met at a bar, finally paid off my emergency room bill. Or perhaps leading in with something happier would be better, like turning 27, and how my beautiful friends came out on two separate occasions to celebrate. Or how I'm starting a new job next month because the marketing sector of my future employer contacted me and more or less said they think I rock and want me on their team.
I could also write an entire novel about friendships. How they never cease to surprise, confuse, and elevate me. How they are sometimes the causers of heartache. I could tell you about how I bonded with an awesome trio of people, and that it was like finally finding the table in a high school cafeteria that accepts you because they're your same brand of crazy, not because they're particularly accepting. Or I could Just sum up that spiel with a popular Irish toast: There are good ships, and there are wood ships, the ships that sail the sea. But the best ships are friendships, and may they always be.
I'm currently in my childhood room in the East Bay. It's 15 minutes until midnight in New York City, my mother ship, and I'm watching a live broadcast of Times Square. I think instead of making a final decision on this post, I'm going to switch my brain over to Eastern time, watch the ball drop, and then fall asleep thankful for my health, my amazing friends and family, and every little thing that happened in 2011. There was loss and tragedy and tears, but no regret. And absolutely no dwelling.
In fact, I just realized that 2011 was the first raging bitch of a year that I can honestly say I straight manhandled. What a feeling, you guys!
The things that matter
When Spike Jonze took the stage at last year’s International Advertising Festival in Cannes, I was really excited to hear some advice from a creative superhero. But when he started talking, it was immediately obvious that he was uncomfortable. The confident man I'd imagined looked like a deer in headlights, all wide-eyed and frozen, and every question from the audience was received as though he was being interrogated. Lots of stuttering, lots of throat clearing, lots of umms and errs.
Instead of giving us a secret recipe, Spike admitted to never knowing nor caring whether or not his projects reach anyone. It turns out his process is simply about reflecting what he loves and doing it for himself. That there are others who like the end result is just lucky. A lot of people were disappointed to leave the auditorium without a shortcut to fame and fortune, but I remember walking out with a light in my belly.
I feel the same warmth each time I read a Steve Jobs eulogy. Most people highlight the same qualities: He was a tyrant in the work place, he didn’t take no for an answer, and he absolutely loved what he did. In her own version of his life, Steve’s sister Mona called love his supreme virtue. His god of gods. “He tried. He always, always tried, and always with love at the core of that effort,” she wrote.
These are two men from opposite ends of several spectra, but I see a very clear pattern that connects them. Passion is like a personal language. The individual chooses the sounds, the structure, the inflections, and attempts to communicate. There’s no method outside of having the courage to tell the world who you are, knowing that nobody will ever fully understand.
I love the word ‘courage’. It comes from the root ‘cor’ (the Latin word for ‘heart’) and its original meaning was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. Speaking from experience I can tell you that the process is scary, doesn't usually make you famous, and the cost can be high and heart-wrenching-- especially when it's a friend. But I also know that the vulnerability it brings to your life will make you a better person.
I like to remind myself of this (permanently!) because I am passionate about telling the story of who I am: a tyrant, a deer in headlights, intensely emotional and painfully nervous. And this isn’t just when I’m writing or practicing some other creative outlet-- I am one or all of these things (plus more) every second of every day because I believe living is about having the courage to be alive.
To all the people who have stuck with me over the years, thank you. Thank you for listening to my story for better or for worse. Though you've never fully understood it, you've somehow managed to recognize that at the core of it there is only love. For that, I am more than lucky to have you. I am blessed. And to all the people who have left or ever will leave, I never lock my door
References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot
Moon: That was a dream about soul mates.
Gabriela: Who never agree? Who misinterpret?
Moon: You two go deep
So the wounds go deep
You give a person so much,
You rearrange them.
He's your creation.
You're his.
~Jose Rivera
February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011
Excerpts from Steve Jobs' commencement address, Stanford, 2005
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
...
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
...
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
CAN’T YOU SEE?!
Today's vague blog is brought to you by Memoirs of a Geisha:
"Can't you see? Every step I have taken, since I was that child on the bridge, has been to bring myself closer to you."
It’s Kubrickian!
Playboy: If life is so purposeless, do you feel it's worth living?
Kubrick: Yes, for those who manage somehow to cope with our mortality. The very meaninglessness of life forces a man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism - and their assumption of immortality.
As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But if he’s reasonably strong - and lucky - he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s élan.
Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining.
The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death - however mutable man may be able to make them - our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfilment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.
— Stanley Kubrick in interview for Playboy, Stanley Kubrick Interviews, University Press of Mississippi, 2001, p.73
Well that sucked/GPOYF
This site has been down for the last couple of weeks because my bandwidth was exceeded. I want to say it's because everyone suddenly likes (or "pluses") the things have to I say, and GAS has become so popular it can't handle the traffic, but the culprit is probably Jojo's response to Marvin's room. I've re-linked it as a YouTube video instead of a download.
The rest of July went just as shittily as the first half anyway, ending with two more funerals, the death of three pets and a minor car accident. Everything seemed so out of whack and ridiculous that a couple of my friends and I played the lottery just to see what would happen.
Before checking our numbers my roommate and I went to brunch at a little spot in the city called Serpentine. "Hey, when we get home there's like a .0000000001% chance we're going to be millionaires," I said. She looked at me, burst into laughterso loud that the people at the table next to us turned to see what was going on, and before I knew it we were both in unexpected hysterics, tears welling up in the corners of our eyes, hands clutching at our stomachs.
We didn't win, but that moment sure was worth the three dollars.
Little voice
I didn't speak at the funeral, so I wanted to put what I would have said out into the virtual ether:
Thank you for making sure I was always full. Painfully full.
Thank you for being so welcoming. And not in the hospitable way, but in the way where the first time I came over the dynamic was already so familiar I thought you might ask me to do the dishes or take out the trash. I wish more people were as accepting without question. (And now that you're gone, I can admit I totally would have done the dishes and taken out the trash.)
Thank you for giving me endless grief about how much I spoiled your son.
Thank you for thinking it was funny that your vicious dog had it out for me. The stories of teeth holes in the legs of my jeans and bladder infections from being too terrified to leave the safety of the bedroom have provided my friends with laughs for almost 7 years now.
Thank you for the time I visited you at the hospital. For making light of the situation by complaining about your stupid bed pan, your stupid nurse, and for making fun of the flowers I brought for being smaller than everyone else's. For the hug at the end that was surprisingly warm and kind, and the hand squeeze that said everything you didn't want to say out loud.
Thank you for the last time I saw you. We ran into each other at a Japanese restaurant, both alone, and you made me sit down and have dinner with you. Thank you for grilling me on what I was doing with my life and where I was going as if I was your own kid (and you better believe I broke a sweat). Thank you for smiling and being satisfied with my answers.
And finally, thank you for your sons. Rest easy and proud knowing they've turned into good people, and that they will undoubtedly go on affecting the lives of others in the same stubborn, frustrating, and absolutely endearing way. Especially your eldest, who has changed my life -- as much as I hate to admit it -- tremendously for the better.