The Artist Is Present

I went to the MoMA this weekend to see the Marina Abramovic exhibit, "The Artist Is Present." I have to admit that I am not a big fan of performance art, but everyone seemed to be buzzing about this one so I went to see it for myself before it closed today. Basically, Marina sits in a chair, wearing a white outfit that makes her look an awful lot like Princess Leia, facing an empty chair. All day, spectators line up and wait to take their turn sitting across from her. They can sit as long as they like, and do whatever they wish, from simply sitting, to confessing their deepest secrets. There are flickr pages dedicated to the images of those who sat, and even to those who cried. I was not quite so moved by the exhibit, but I did like the concept of it, and how it was so quietly powerful for so many.

The sixth floor of the museum housed a retrospective of Abramovic's earlier work, which was expressed through a lot of self-inflicted pain (screaming until she lost her voice, brushing her hair violently, saying "Art must be beautiful" over and over until her scalp bled). It was unpleasant to watch, but her message was certainly clear.

There was one piece that I found particularly moving. Abramovic's lover and partner in performance art, Ulay Laysiepen, walked across the Great Wall of China towards each other. This is what was written on the wall placard:

During their travels in Australia, Abramovic and Ulay read that the only human constructions visible from outer space are The Great Wall of China and the Pyramids at Giza in Egypt. They originally planned to walk towards each other from opposite ends of the Great Wall, meet at the middle, and get married. Over the 8 years it took to obtain permission from the Chinese government, the relationship dissolved. In 1988 the artists performed the work, which was their final collaboration. After meeting, they went their separate ways, having walked a thousand miles to say goodbye.

I found this heartbreaking. It made me cry to write down the last sentence, and my voice cracked and faltered every time I retold this story to friends. It occured to me that "The Artist is Present" is in some way a recreation of this moment in Abramovic's life--of having to face someone and really see them before letting them go. It could be someone she knows very well, or not at all. (And sometimes, those are one in the same.) She has a very intimate moment, looks them in the eye and then inevitably has to say goodbye to this person and the experience she's had with him or her. Perhaps when you say goodbye over and over for four months, you get a little desensitized to it. (Or perhaps not...)

I read this today:

"...no human life or experience is to be wasted or forgotten, but all should be transformed into a source of wisdom and compassionate living...On the everyday level of experience, Shin Buddhists speak of this transformation as "bits of rubble turn into gold." -Taitetsu Unno, "Number One Fool" (Tricycle, Spring 2008)

I don't have a pithy ending for this entry. I'm just still mulling it over. Still moved.

Let's just say, art wins.

Mouse Medicine

I've spent the better part of this week terrorized by rodents.

On Sunday, I had my family over for brunch to celebrate my mom's birthday. Everything was great, including the Double Chocolate Orange Torte, which I will definitely bake again. After all the presents were opened, and everyone went home happy and full, I cleaned up, putting the garbage into trash bags, and vacuumed. As my family can attest, I even sprayed down all surfaces and wiped them clean while they were still here.

My one mistake was leaving the bags inside the kitchen instead of putting them outside in the trash bins. I woke up Monday morning to find a mouse tail industriously waggling from the top of one of the bags.

Now, when faced with something I really don't like, and really don't know how to handle, I know of go into this odd "This isn't happening" mode, which I'm not proud of, but it's a good coping mechanism. I tried to ignore it, but then reality set in and I took my empty trash can and swooped it over the trash bag. Looking for the closest heavy thing to put on top of it, I found my mega-bottle of Tanqueray gin, leftover from a party 3 years ago and put it on top of the can.

The gin was remarkably appropriate.

I dragged the bag, with the can on top, and the gin on top of that outside to the trash cans and managed to get the bag into the can with a modicum of freak-out. It was early in the morning and a girl's got to go to work!

So imagine my surprise when that evening, after midnight, I was awoken out of a sound sleep to some sort of rustling of conclave of rodents, which SCARED THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF ME. I've never had a problem with mice, or rats before and as a good New Yorker, I always keep any open container in the refrigerator, whether it needs to be refrigerated or not. (I still have friends who make fun of me for putting cereal in there. Hey, there's a reason I've never had a problem with roaches or rodents!)

So there I was at 12:30 am faced with cold, hard fear, running all the way down from my throat into my belly, and I had no idea what to do except lay there, terrified. It's very rare that I can't tap into my inner Mafiosi Vinny, who you met in an earlier post, but he was nowhere to be found. So, not only was I scared out of my skin, but I was feeling mad at myself to boot because I should be able to handle this sort of thing. After a half an hour of deliberating with myself (and adrenaline rushing like a junky in heat) I finally called my landlord, who was reassuring, so kind, and well, awake. He said he would take care of it the next day, which he did, in the form of traps, a sonic deterrent, and a really nice voicemail which left me feeling better.

Except for the fact that I haven't slept all week. I haven't felt quite safe in the apartment, and I'm a little mad at myself for feeling so vulnerable. I mean, the last time I felt this kind of fear in the middle of the night, was about 8 years ago when I heard what I am sure was gunshots in the middle of the night. Even in my slumber, I knew get the hell out of bed and hit the floor. (My preservation instinct is usually quite keen.)

My dear friend Diana said that animals often cross our paths to tell us something, and we should pay particular attention if its an animal that we usually don't see--case in point, the mouse. So I looked up the symbolism of the mouse, and here is what www.zimbio.com had to say:

Humans have long had a love-hate relationship with tiny Mouse. On the love side, we have Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Stuart Little, etc. On the hate side, we have traps, science experiments, carrying disease, and eating holes in walls and bags of food.

Why does mouse affect us so? Why do we see pictures of people standing on chairs trying to get away from Mouse? More than anything, people that are scared of Mouse are really scared of Mouse's power. This tiny animal is a great example of "small package contains big power".

I also read this on www.linsdomain.com:

Mouse medicine is both a great power and a great weakness.

It is good to pay attention to all details, but bad to over-analyze every little thing.

They will make the simplest task fraught with difficulty.

Everything must be in order in a Mouse's house.

Often, Mouse people are fearful of life. You should try to see the larger picture

Even if you live in a small house in Los Angeles,

you are also part of the Earth, galaxy and universe.

If a Mouse totem has recently entered your life,

ask yourself Have you become too focused on one or two activities

and neglecting opportunities around you?

Or are you trying to do too many things at the same time?

Mouse medicine can show how to focus

and how to attain the big things by working on the little things.

l have to admit, I found this all very useful. One could say I've been a bit too focused on my teeth, and all of the heavy connotations that they have had for me in the last nine months. (And all the things that I have convinced myself that are off limits because of them.) But maybe the beliefs that I hold on to so tightly aren't quite true, and slowly I'm starting to see that. More and more I've been smiling as an act of defiance, daring anyone to react to these braces, and as I've begun to forget about then, I've also noticed that less and less people are paying attention to them. Quite frankly, the braces are such a small part of what I could be paying attention to--and perhaps should be paying attention to. As I said in my last post, I'm feeling more and more of a need to make goals, and attain them, and though I'm not entirely sure how to go about that, at least I'm tilting my head in a different direction. Maybe this little mouse came around to quite literally shake me out of my slumber and start making things happen, even if it happens slowly but surely.

Thanks, Mouse, for the wisdom. Much appreciated. Now get the hell out of my kitchen so I can get some sleep!

Lessons From A Vampire

I have spoken before about feeling somewhat akin to a vampire with these braces. It's an oddly empowering sensation of late. I can run my tongue along my fangs and the thickness that I feel on my teeth makes me believe that this is evidence of some sort of preternatural power--and when I smile, the look I often get from the mere mortals is a mixture of awe, fear or surprise. I have started telling myself that this reaction is due to this preternatural power, this other-worldliness. And lately, I kinda like it.

I find that more and more I simply want to sink my teeth into something. Perhaps not a neck (yet!) but a sandwich, a burger, something that will make me feel my front teeth as useful and significant once again. Perhaps this need is arising now because the unhappiness I have felt for the last nine months is beginning to abate. Or perhaps it's because I am sinking the rest of me into running. I ran a full half mile on Saturday and walked six and half more. If I can't sink my teeth into something substantive, then I sure as hell want to sink my body into something constructive. I'm compensating, I realize, but I'll take it. For so long, I had thought that bringing things light and airy and sweet (like pie) would make me feel airy and sweet, but it has just made me softer and distracted. Now I want to be focused, strong, and create goals for myself. This is a new desire for me--I've always been contented to simply learn whatever lessons circumstance has created for me. (Case in point: jacked-up teeth.) But now, that desire, has shifted, along with my molars, and I am finding something incredibly appealing about feeling powerful, brave and quite frankly, fierce. I want to be like a vampire, who is singular in purpose, and irresistibly alluring in the realization of that purpose. Perhaps I won't be sucking blood, but sucking the marrow of life sounds like a pretty good goal right about now.

Ready, Set...

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” - Marie Curie

There is so much going on around me that I don't understand. Bombs in Times Square. Oil bleeding into the Gulf of Mexico. More corporate restructuring at work. The situation in Greece. It all seems so unreal, amorphous, so large and important that it cannot be properly seen with one pair of naked eyes. It keeps me awake at night, worried, uneasy, pained.

In a previous post, The Purpose Driven Thought, I mentioned that I ached to take up running, and though I haven't quite turned myself into Jackie Joyner-Kersee, I have started a form of training. Six and a half miles last week. Seven this week! (Ok, ok, it's more walking than running, but still. Baby steps!) It seems that only when I am moving do I feel attached to the world in a way that is authentic and meaningful. Maybe it's because my mind and the body are in tune with each other at the same pace, and that pace is in accordance with New York City's earth, wind and fire.

I am thinking about training for a half marathon. I've been a bit skittish about making lofty goals in the past, but instead of being afraid of a seemingly impossible goal, I'm truly excited by it. Perhaps it's the braces that have taught me the hard won lesson that things really do ameliorate when given careful and consistent nurturing and attention. I have been subconsciously viewing time as an enemy. If a goal looked like it was going to take too long, then my NYC impatience has always derailed me and defeated me before I even began. But now, I realize that though things may take a long time, they don't take forever, and whatever you want, simply because the desire has arisen, is worth the process.

I might not run this half marathon any time soon, but I'm not afraid that I can't. Understanding that I can only took 37 years. Better late than never!

Nine Months

Today marks nine months with the braces.

Nine. Months.

My orthodontist is still a source of great comfort and his happiness with my progress is so gratifying. Today he stretched an elastic chain across half my top teeth and half my bottom teeth as well. This, I can assure you, is painful. I sucked in my breath when he first put them on, surprised that the sensation was so visceral and immediate. In nine months, I have not felt anything like this. I've had individual teeth hurt before, but I've never had a chord of teeth hurt before--a dissonant, sharp chord, that's for sure. But I think since I've identified the pattern of pain in the past, it will ebb in about three days. It's a small consolation, but a consolation all the same.

There is a yearly event that I plan at work, and I saw some folks that I haven't seen since last May. One woman came up to me to say hello and the first words out of her mouth after "hello" were "Oh my god, when did you get those?" After I told her she said, "how much longer to you have to wear them? Are they utterly horrible?" I think she meant to be kind, and offer empathy, though in the retelling of this, I see how really unfortunate this conversation was.

But I think it shows how long I've come that these comments honestly didn't bother me that much. I think I'd rather have someone be up front with me and ask about the braces point blank, than the strange, subconscious hands that seem to wander up to the lips of people I've just met. This has happened so often, that people inadvertently cover their mouths when they look at my teeth. It hurts my feelings more than someone saying, "Dear God, another year and three months? I'm so sorry!" possibly could.

Shashi Deshpande said, "self-revelation is a cruel process. The real picture, the real you never emerges. Looking for it is as bewildering as trying to know how you really look. Ten different mirrors show you ten different faces." It's amazing to me that I have a different face to each person who newly meets me, and each of his or her reactions is its own biosphere, taking on a life of it's own and setting off an equal and opposite reaction in me. I know I am not the person I was nine months ago when I got the braces, and I know I'm not even the person I was a month ago, making my slow peace with it. I am painting my own picture of idealistic self-revelation, and though as Shashi says, the process might be cruel, the revelation is anything but. This is akin to what many parents say--that the process of being a parent is the hardest thing they've ever done, but they wouldn't trade it for a world.

Maybe there's a reason that this experience happened at the nine month mark after all...

Indra's Net

Purpose has been on my mind now for the last few weeks. I was reading an article by Stephen Cope, director of Kripalu's Institute for Extraordinary Living, as well as an author on many books about yoga. In the article, he explains the concept of Indra's Net, which at its very basic interpretation asserts that all things, all people are interconnected. It is our soul's duty to find our singular purpose, and manifest that purpose, our gift to the world. In doing so, we hold together our part of Indra's Net, and as Cope puts it, "the whole universe holds together as one great interlocking field. But it only hangs together if each of us plays our particular role."

He also says, "the gift is often paired with a wound. Strangely, our greatest strength (and greatest possibility) seems to be routinely paired with our greatest limitation--even our greatest wound. They were born together like twins. This means that many of us must discover our gift in the very heart of our suffering, our difficulty, our struggle. The Eastern contemplative traditions have a poetic way of saying this: our gift is like the lotus that is born out of the mud."

And yet, I wonder, does it have to be that heavy? Must there be a wound? Must there be such a hefty price to pay for one's calling? I'm reading My Life In France by Julia Child and in it she writes, "Those early years in France were among the best of my life. They marked a crucial period of transformation in which I found my true calling, experienced an awakening of the senses, and had such fun that I hardly stopped moving long enough to catch my breath."

Indeed! Shouldn't finding one's calling be as lovely and luscious as eating boeuf bourguignon and charlotte aux pommes? Or whipping them up amid the romance and perfume of Paris?

Maybe it's because Julia was so lighthearted that her calling came to her in such a lighthearted way. I love how she describes herself: "I was a six-foot-two-inch, thirty-six-year-old, rather loud and unserious Californian." (Has anyone ever known a serious Californian? And really, when you're a six-foot-two-inch woman, I imagine that a good sense of humor comes in handy.)

I truly believe that everything boomerangs: what you give out is what you get back. If you're giving out good humor and sunshine it comes sparkling back at you. If your mindset is one of anxiety and lack, then that's all you'll see around you is anxiety and lack.

I've been troubled by friends who seem to speak in a language of complaints when in reality, they've gotten everything they've ever wanted. Perhaps its because they are so unsatisfied with their circumstances, their jobs, their children, their homes, their health, that ironically it is their indignation that actually forces them to take the action necessary to make their dreams come true. (There is the wound that goes hand in hand with one's calling, I suppose.) But if given the choice to be unhappy and complaining all the time--and have everything I've ever wanted--or to be contented and generous with where I am in this moment--and still seeking--I am choosing the later. You all know I've spent enough time complaining on this blog, and quite frankly, the gloominess is boring. (Though I have tried to make it entertaining!) Look, we don't read novels and memoirs about folks who tediously grumbled their way to achieving their hearts desires. We root for large, almost oafish six-foot-two women with strange falsetto voices, who despite all odds, find their most authentic expression in all that is delicate, delicious, et tres charmant.

Nope, not boring at all.