feels >wild(

Pictured: My Grandma pushing my sis after first plane ride at 87 years old in Las Vegas

GET YOUR PANS OUT:

My grandma died at the age of 97 in early March.  In the words of my sister "the world might have died with her." This is not her obituary, this is her proclamation. 

As my grandma once advised me late in her life, "Emi if God forbid you have to fight, fight, and if you can't sit back and enjoy it" which made no sense and its logic was followed by us both breaking into hysterical laughter, but it stuck with me..  maybe now there is something to the idea of both fighting and sitting back (actively), simultaneously.  

In the words of artist Anna Deavere Smith, in regards to the current crisis this idea of readiness is interesting, "what does it mean to put your mind in the framework of readiness?"  To be ready, get ready. Presence, extraordinary presence.

The funny thing is as my grandma aged she sat with this presence… she was there, with a soft smile that said I have known, I do know, I will know. It was an active inspiring sort of sit back, she was ready for what life had to offer.. I feel like you see this with wild animals, they are still ready even when they rest.  

Somewhere, while we are banging our pans, wolves are howling at the moon.

This quarantine has been difficult, whatever your circumstance, the impulse of the grass looks greener on the other side is palpable.  The plot twist though, is there is no other side but we are learning very powerful lessons from that. There isn't an escape from this, it is requiring extraordinary presence, and perhaps we all need to give a broken hallelujah for that. Maybe, Greta Thunberg message has new meaning now.. 
My grandma grew up working the land born on a farm April 30, 1922 in rural Illinois.  Her father was a farmer and religious clerk. She lost her mother when she was 15 and her sister before "her time." She passed on the wisdom about losing them as "time.. the truth is some things don't get easier with time. I still think about them...."  she loved deeply throughout her life, and her greatest accomplishment was "her family."
My grandma was sharp, read multiple papers daily, and had the ability to play the piano by ear... Despite never getting the chance to go to college, she worked as a bookkeeper and instilled in all that education was the foundation of progress. She survived the Great Depression which was apparent by her never ending supply of Spam and ice cream Drumsticks, the Industrial Revolution, and at the age of 97 belongs on the Facebook wall of fame for always keeping up with the latest and hippest trends.  She fought for civil rights and the right to vote. She was politically opinionated and livid at the current system.  She had deep brown eyes, the kind that lock you in, and thick hair she kept short and pruned as the roses and rhododendrons in her yard.  She was a master at washing hair in the sink. She had an affinity for Cinnamon Altoids, Mullens salad dressing, Skittles, and the color blue.  Her house consisted of all things blue, always clean, unless it was the holidays in which case it turned into the Rite Aid holiday isle. She would make elaborate family meals, chicken and noodles, and always had dinner rolls with butter. She would cut up my watermelon after school while my sister and I watched Oprah and Bob Ross, or my cousins and grandpa watched basketball. She was a mother to my cousins, who inherited her "tall genes," one eventually towering over her at 6'7".. she was always there steady, and the only time I remember her yelling was at my grandpa to "pull your pants up Bob!" or later in his life it was "put your teeth in!" which was inevitably the only fight they ever had and led to my grandpa yelling "dammit ma!" and shake his head but oblige.. 
She married my grandpa when she was 20. Their love was as pure as the love they gave my sister and I and my three cousins every summer day.  She worked during World War 2 while my grandpa served in New Guinea.  She and my grandpa, working as a cow inseminator (that is a job), after having my mom and uncle moved to Streator, Illinois. She worked long hours but still had a garden, tomato plants, any stray animal that needed a home, and two children, my mom and uncle.  They were the first to go to college, as did her 5 grandchildren, and soon enough her 9 great grandchildren. 
She is the root of a tree. 
She didn't want an obituary so we compromised on this proclamation, (and her service won't be held at a later date it is now. Get your pans out).  
Love your family fully, in the broadest and most open sense, education is a privilege and should be a right, with it all else flourishes… may all of her goodness of life and the lives being lost by so many by this virus remind us to pull up our pants, fight for life, while sitting back and being fully present to cherish our lives and loves. 

For Jerimiah:

They looked at me with wide eyes

Why she asked

Because he said

It was the beginning of conditioning 

She said I know an artist he is 

What's the word?

Innocent 

May I 

Can I 

Should I

Looking to me 

Wide eyes

Three, two, one... don't laugh

That was the game 

Between laugher

Looking at me to say 

You may

You can 

And you should

Three, two, one...

Love letter to climate change:
“You’re in a serious predicament right now” - Trevor Noah to Edward Snowden to or in the words a couples therapist said “a lack of trust chips away at a relationship.”  

I heard today that you are supposed to hide from the wind and run from water.  And with fire the advice is to stop drop and roll.  In my life, at this moment, I’m there.  I’m hiding, I’m running, I’m stop, dropping, and rolling all at once. 

Simultaneously, a hurricane hits the gulf coast, the Amazon is burning.

To say I’m feeling lost is an understatement and there is no thesis at the moment.  And, I don’t think I’m alone in this struggle.  Searching for answers in books, in others, no rock is left unturned. 

There is an anx right now.  I don’t think people know what to do, at times its waves of apathy and indifference, or depression, or denial.  

But I do think there is a realization that the foundation of the castle is questionable, whatever matter made me exist in the first place however, the atoms, and leaves, the tarrot, and the birds and bees, agree.  

Whether it is complete randomness or a strategically planned out plot, what I’m not lost about is that equality and beauty exist, the bees know it. Equilibrium doesn’t need to be difficult, not only that it is inherently stunning, and humanity are the ones currently suffering.  For a culture that is aesthetically obsessed we’d be better off watching the sun rise and fall.  

That connection between two seemingly disparate things can happen, it’s trying to happen all around us, or rather it is.  

“Mother Earth will be fine whether we are or not.” Maybe what we are missing is sitting back and enjoying the ride.

“Maybe the stars are further homologies to these earthly analogies.. he returns to the ice, he sees through it to the bottom of the pond, he sees in it his own face. He is the ice he is above and below the freeze, it dawns un him. He too us similar in kind to the ice only in degree. He also is  a window  to and reflection of the whole” .  

It’s the middle of summer in New York City right now, as I think about the middle of winter in Wyoming. “We are on opposite sides of the world” the earth muddled to me.

It was freezing and rugged and wonderful.  It provided me with everything that felt like was missing in my life at that point, authentic relationships, deep conversations, skills that felt more tangible, palpable. I’m cold, I’m hot, I’m hungry, basic needs, basic emotions. For whatever reason, then, and there, nothing seemed lost in translation. It just was. I haven’t spoken to any of the people I meant on that journey in years, but I know that we all still consider one another family in many respects.  It was there in the wilderness that I came to understand the life cycle. Watching the sun rise and set everyday, understanding the rhythms and getting a sense of something larger than myself. It’s something I miss today, as I find myself obsessing over complete trivial nonsense.

I remember one evening in particular outside of Red Rocks. We were camped high above a large plateau.   We had decided to climb up higher to watch the sunset before bed.  We sprinkled ourselves among the various sculptural rock formations and waited.  That sunset I will never forget, I cried.  I could see antelopes making their way across the plain which was covered in a sort of fluorescent Mojave glow.  The sunset was like every color I’d ever seen splashed into some godly abyss. I cried because it was so beautiful, but I also cried thinking about my grandmother..  I wondered had she ever seen this, will she ever get to experience this sort of beauty. The thought that people would be deprived of this, or never have access to the beauty all around us, is something that I think about daily. 

It was a sort of silence and grace that went beyond anything, there was no politics, or hate, or logic, that could begin to summarize or translate that which had just occurred.

4/2019

“Nice to meet you” he said from Myanmar at the start. “It was great meeting you, see you same time next week” I said from Brooklyn at the end.

Thanks sharedstudios what a beautiful experience.

3/2019

Being reminded to pause, unexpectedly, might be the best… when something hits you, and compels you to slow down. I didn’t have the time that morning, or I didn’t think I did… but this made me take time.

2/2019

spaces between

Love letter to the Moon

Falling asleep was always the hardest part..

Once you've slept next to someone

Consistently

There is a void 

Most of the time you can shrug it off

But when you're tired

And the only thing you want

Is too shrug it off

There it is, 

It wont shrug 

It feels like the absence of everything you've ever known 

Seconds ago comfortable 

As soon as the lights go out and you try to sleep 

There it is

Space, or sex, or absence 

The comforter 

The pillow 

And a silver glow of silence 

But what's funny

Is that it was a slow decline

I thought it would have made the physical absence easier but it didn't 

"I'm going to sleep" 

And I was left with a void, 

my echo reverberated 

So I lay there with my eyes wide open and my mind wondering 

Searching through the variations 

Of blue shadows 

For peace 

Somewhere then 

In a tone from the depths of my gut 

The moon said

Speak  

I see you 

I hear you

Tell me more, your stories, your wisdom,

And I will tell you mine 

Are you ready for bed?

We'll go together

1/2019

Walls of data

“I realized something about data.. It can mean something, but without context it can be dangerous. While, I had been sleeping 8 hours (or 14) it wasn’t restful… My data didn’t show that my mother was dying of cancer, its guess was that I was well rested.”

12/2018

I had this feeling in my gut.

The kind that sits like a deep lake not knowing where the bottom is, where there might be branches, or monsters, or magic.  

Not knowing whether the sunlight is going to hit the surface of the water and show you the heavens, or a dark ripple will toss you into an exstentsial deep blue abysss.

11/2018

PUT OUT FIRES WITH SOUND

Dear Elon Musk or anyone who has access to drones and lots of engineering funds in light of wildfires:

https://physicsworld.com/a/dousing-flames-with-low-frequency-sound-waves/

Dosing flames in low freq. sound waves? Seems important at the moment..

BOOK: Dan Lyons: Lab Rats (Audio of Book Talk Below)

“Like a lot of tech reporters I had for a long time fantasized about working at one of these companies instead of covering it.  They all seemed to be having way more fun than we do and they have these cool offices.  So I managed to do that i tried to cross over to the new economy, so I got a job at a start up where the average age was 26 by then I was 52 and umm i like to say it was a cross between a frat house, a Montessori kindergarten, and a scientology cult” 

Recommended Show: THE MOTH PRESENTS GRAND SLAM (Portland, OR)

Story Theme: Deep End

https://themoth.org/

BOOK: Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech Jamie Susskindd

“The more time you spend around people who agree with you, the more entrenched you become in those views” >how does that relate to google search?

SONG: Beyoncé Formation

10/19/2018

TV SPECIAL: Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette:

A different sort of Art History and Cubism:

“A 17 year old girl is just never ever in her prime. Ever. I am in my prime. Would you test your strength out on me?”