Best 09 #11 and #13

Home….

…and the many best changes I made to it.

Best of 2009 #8

Today’s prompt is:

December 8–Moment of peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude. What was the quality of your breath? The state of your mind? How did you get there?

A year ago now’ish I was reviewing 2008 with my eyes closed tightly. Full of anxiety, fear and a “just move forward” attitude, 2008 had held a family crisis, my wedding and graduation, none of which were independently responsible for the crash of my parasympathetic nervous system, but the corresponding timing of it all left me wanting to wash my hands of nearly everything that 2008 had been.

But Pilot washed his hands and he’s still in that bloody story.

So instead of washing my hands, closing my eyes and continuing to live at break neck speed just to pass the time, I opened my eyes, took a deep breath, unclenched my fists and stepped tremulously into 2009. I found a new yoga studio, caught up on some sleep and planned a vacation to a little-known corner of the world. I planted a garden, went through a detox, rearranged the house,  made a few loaves of bread and practiced a lot of yoga in and out of the studio. My caffeine cut back only lasted a couple of months, but hey, life works in seasons.

My trip to Costa Rica in March epitomized this prolonged moment of peace. My deepest breaths happened after the morning yoga practices, when the boundaries of yogic breath and ocean breeze blurred together in a seamless and natural rhythm. It took a lot of breathing to loosen the anxiety in my chest and un-knot the fear in my belly. So this has been my year of solitude.

The next step to engage this year of solitude, this moment of peace, was to make a more permanent change of scenery, a cleansing change of context. So, we hit the road in August and we’ve been there ever since: Arizona, Nova Scotia, New York, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Toronto, Indianapolis and eventually a return to Costa Rica.We stuffed the things we did not need into garages and the stuff we wanted with us fit in the back of our Honda CRV. 8,000 miles later I have experienced the fulfilling company of the self that solitude uncovers in the soul, and the longing loneliness it creates out of appreciation for community.

So I am still in the middle of my deepest breath, taking that last sip at the top of the inhale that began deep in my belly, moved up in between my ribs, filled my lungs, opened my heart and squeezed past my throat. Inhaling peace, restoration, energy, cleanliness, warmth and suppleness. The exhale might see its way into 2010, might even ring it in with a controlled gust. With some health inside me it will soon be time to exhale some of those toxins, the staleness and the tightness.

2009 has been my moment of peace. And while that hasn’t consistently been peace and quiet, or peace and ease, it has  been peace and breath. Shanti.

Best of 2009

After a month (and more) of some severe blog-neglect I have decided that now would be perfect time to return. Actually, yesterday was the perfect moment, but discovering Gwen Bell’s 31-day challenge around midnight last night, I figured there would be no harm in beginning a day late. So, here I am, back at the blog after my sweeping affair with online-article-”revenue”-writing (which has for the moment left me high and dry) for a good old fashion writing challenge to get me back into something a little more, hm, fun!

Best Trip 2009 (with subtitles)

Intra-national: My hike through the Paria Canyon in May with one lover, four friends and a brother was a life highlight I hope to revisit though will never repeat. Five days in the womb of the earth will leave anyone feeling nurtured and refreshed.

International: Punto Banco, Costa Rica. A lucky google search and a very long (bumpy, cramped, hot) bus ride spit us out at  end of the last road in Costa Rica before the Panamanian border (no, really). An ass-burning hike up a hill and there we were–The Yoga Farm. Fresh mango in the morning, hammocks in the afternoon and sunsets in the evening. The open-air dormitory is tiled in mosaic blue hues that mirror the ocean view from the yoga deck. Solar power, organic gardens, horse transportation and fresh springs make it off the grid not only geographically but environmentally as well. It is also the place where I will be returning in March to teach yoga. If a four mile walk is the only thing that will keep you away from Twitter, this is the place for you.

Best Restaurant Moment 2009

And there we were on the morning of my birthday at Bonjour Brioche on East Queen Street in Toronto. The corner table with the the blue gingham cloth was situated in the nook by the side window. I ordered my mango sunrise and Angie ordered her pomegranate mimosa. Next thing I know, the charming waitress from behind the counter is walking over with a wine bottle watering a bursting yellow rose and a gift wrapped box. “Happy Birthday,” she said as she placed it in the center of the table. Angie was beaming. I shed a tear. Involving strangers in birthday surprises=best friend points forever. Oh, and the lemon custard brioche with raspberry cream was finger-licking decadence.

Electric Literature

Short stories online bring fiction up to speed. Check out this article I wrote on the new fiction publication, Electric Literature. Should fiction be free? What is the aesthetic value of a book and how does it contribute to the experience of reading?

 

 

Healthy Food for the Homeless

I was recently  approved as a writer on suite101.com. This is a very cool website and co-op of writers where you can find information on just about any topic imaginable, so it’s a great resource for readers. If you are a writer, you can receive revenue on the ads on your article page and you receive feedback from editors on your articles before they are published. Very cool.

And here is my first article! Check it out.

Healthy Food for the Homeless

Prince of the Marshes

“Prince of the Marshes” chronicles Rory Stewart’s year long stint as a CPA governor in Amarah and Nasiriyah during 2003-2004. An ex-British soldier and highly educated polyglot, Stewart had previously walked from one end of Afghanistan to the other, staying in over 500 rural homes along the way, which is to say that his Arab experience was ground level, grassroots and hands on.

Throughout the book, Stewart offers a step by step account of hundreds of interactions, conversations, quarrels and emails between himself and local Iraqis, Baghdad based officials, military personnel and fellow Coalition staff. Whether he is doling out millions of dollars to local contractors or pouring tea for the local Sheiks, Stewart’s charisma and diplomacy is inspiring, intriguing and puzzling. If you have the patience to finish the book, it is likely because you are fascinated by the lengths to which Stewart’s patience is stretched and yet prevails again and again in the wasteland of politics, negotiations, compromises and mal-resourcing in which he is operating.

And yet, after 400 pages of patience, resiliance and stalwart effort, the final words are bleak. Throughout his account, Stewart bucks up against the words “occupation” and “colonialism”. And as a man educated in History, Arabism and the sheer experience of living abroad, he has a right to argue the semantics. Yet he debates them not for the sake of defending the actions of the Western allies. He objects to the terms as an individual with a sincere investment in the well being of Iraqi citizens. As for the invasion, he says,

Our very presence was a paradox. We emphasized that democracy was the only legitimate form of government, yet we were unelected foreigners. We knew that if locals ran things, they would feel a sense of ownership and responsibility, sustaining development, whereas foreigners would create parallel structures that undermined local capacity. Yet we administered the country directly…We overestimated the power of the United States and its allies…no plan survives an invasion…[and] we under estimated the power of Iraqi society…In short, I can confidently assert that Iraqis are the only people with the moral authority, understanding, and skills to rebuild their nation.

Overall I recommend this book to anyone interested in more civilian, yet still political aspects of the war in Iraq. Stewart does not exactly bow to hand holding his reader through the litany of Arab names, but he does offer an accessible and honest perspective, one that gains sympathy for (almost) everyone who is involved.

For a brief update and some good perspective on the war in Iraq, check out Rory Stewart’s appearance on Bill Moyers Journal.

obama’s wake up call

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall as Robert Gibbs woke President Obama this morning to give him the news of his winning the Nobel Peace Prize. I can imagine that his private reaction ran the gamut of the world’s reaction. Or maybe he is simply the arrogant jerk my facebook newsfeed suggests that he is.

One of the key debates regarding the award is not the integrity of Obama himself, but more so the integrity of the prize. It does seem as though the reasons for his election are hung on hopes and promises. Take the politics out of it (…just try for a second…) and it becomes an interesting debate over the notion of productivity. The question swarming around the announcement is, “…but what has he done?”

The Nobel committee’s decision contradicts the idea of measuring a man by the outcomes of his efforts and measures them instead on the intensity of his efforts. It’s a qualitative instead of quantitative outlook.This is why one person can say, “What a wonderful decision on the part of the Nobel Prize Committee, granting recognition to the outstanding, and very rare, qualities of idealistic defense of human values which Barack Obama has displayed,” and another can object that “President Obama has yet to prove that he will move seriously on the Middle East, that he will end the war in Afghanistan and many other issues.” On the one hand he is lauded for his personal investments and ideas while on the other he is held accountable for the state and position of the country he is running.

It seems to be that, good or bad, the Nobel committee chose Obama because he is iconic, in which case it might make sense why they awarded him so early in his presidency. Surely such a position in the world will only warrant disillusionment and a tarnishing of ideals and hopes as time goes on.  Has the world moved on from their love affair? Perhaps the committee’s biggest mistake is that they waited too long…

put your hands together

Chapters is the mega book store in Toronto where I sometimes spend afternoons. I walk in, scan the display tables, collect a pile of interesting book jackets, scan each table of contents for the most catching chapter title, scan the headlines of those chapters, close the books and add them to the list of “books I have looked at”. That is, after all, a legitimate category of literary intake, right?

Internet reading and blogging specifically has marked interest in new reading trends in light of the way that people scan information. But the more I think of it, the more I wonder which is new–the reading methods, or the mediums to which we are applying the methods? It seems the human brain was made to absorb as much information as possible in the least amount of time given. But now instead of using our scanning methods to beat the system (ie textbooks), the system is using our methods to hook us.  Writers and other information producers are using reader’s scanning abilities to offer the most content in the least time or space.

Whereas scanning text books and novels for high school tests is counter productive for learning, scanning blogs and newspapers for pictures, fonts and keywords seems to promote information retention. This is personally benefiting  in my quest to become a cosmopolitan woman of opinions and knowledge; it takes only a few minutes of internet reading a day to fake my way through high minded conversation with the best of them…

As niches become more refined, knowledge becomes more interdisciplinary. All of us are looking for ways to stay informed, to participate and perform in the social sphere. Social media is our prop for social performance. And the most efficient means earns the loudest applause. Yay Twitter! Yay RSS feeds! Yay del.icio.us! Yay Chapters display tables!

naked.

lululemon athletica  recently posted a blog, (nearly) naked yoga, which noted the new phenomenon of yoga in the buff, specifically in certain studios in NYC. Along with the post they included some images of brave lulu reps in discreet but nude yoga poses.

New York Times recently published an article in their Home and Garden section about the controversy of children running around naked in their homes, the key opponents being those parents of visiting play mates.

I just finished “Bonk: the curious coupleing of science and sex”, by Mary Roach. The book is an investigation into sex research–the perils and faux pas that it has experienced and encouraged over the centuries. Even before the Human Research Boards and funding quibbles, researches have to find volunteers for their studies, a hard obstacle when the first directive in the lab room is ‘drop your pants’.

What we are really talking about here is exposure, nudity being one of many methods–and a very stigmatized method at that. We live in an era of exposure. On the negative side, we have been exposed to the corruption of our economic systems. On the positive side, many of us are taking part in exposing the greater interests and methods of companies we support and/or boycott. We are examining the practices of corporate bullies and rewarding the reform of corporate social responsibility.

Some of us are afraid of this exposure. Others of us relish in it. All of us, clothed or naked, criticising or lauding, can do so with a sense of dignity to the other and ourselves.

ecology of stories

Yesterday afternoon I ran into a friend at a coffee shop, a past professor of mine who is also a writer. He shared a bit about his current writing process, about the stage of life he is in right now and about a current discontent and lostness he is feeling. We talked about finding ones path, following ones destiny and the feeling of being abondoned at times by your path and your destiny. He is a couple of generations ahead of me and as we talked about expressing times of darkness, whether through meditation, or various vices, he noted some generational differences in dealing with darkness and despair.

A black man who grew up in New York in the sixties, he possesses a rich experience of culture, art, conflict, freedom and expression. He frequently speaks of his grandmother’s potent dreams, his cousin’s band who almost went to Motown, the jazz musicians he saw in basement bars, being a starving artist in Greenwhich Village, the riots that broke out in the cities, meeting Gertrude Stein in her apartment, seeing Nina Simone on stage. His enthusiasm for darkness and beauty is a contagion. As we sat talking yesterday he said, I’m lonley. Maybe it is your youth, but your generation seems always to be in the light.

I suggested to him that in my generation, our wars have been far away, our parent’s past has been buried and transformed into prosperity, and scandal, instead of being human, has become celebrity. We have grown up in a culture of light, with the expectation that our lives reflect the sun. Darkness was for the generations of the Great Depression, The Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam. And, I noted, that while his generation has gone through their midlife crises on anti-depressants, my generation went through adolescence on anti-depressants. Even our teenage angst has been privatized and medicated. There is a lot of light, but so much of it is artificial.

There is nothing better or worse, right or wong in these generalized comparisons, but generationally speaking, I believe there’s something true in it. Reflecting on this brief conversation I have been thinking about a book I recently read by Miriam Greenspan, who diagnosed “us” with a low affect tolerance, an inability to live with intense emotions. I see the way my professor friend has befriended the darkness he has lived through, personally and culturally. In many ways it is what enables him to be a writer–befriending the intensity, naming the darkness, allowing the catharsis of tears that turn from private despair to nurturing stories.

I see the way in which he has graciously inherited the stories and the histories of his family, his race and his generation and I hope that in assessing my own past–from childhood to anscestors–I too am able to integrate the truth of those stories into my life, become a vessel of their transformation and not allow them to clog the natural evolution of my self and my generation. And none of this in avoidance of the dark, but in search of a more genuine light.