This Kind
Just like that back to normal, ye olde born optimist. Nothing like scuffed boots, good music, better books, and the open road to knock off those neurotic pretenses-- ha! I'd like to throw a hootenanny. A gin & tonic in one had, Henry Miller in the other, maybe later.
C'est Dificil, Faire Rien
Despite how it may appear by all accounts, especially here, I have an aversion to talking about myself. I mean, I talk all the time and obviously my self is the topic I know the most about-- so it seems (it person, especially) that I do not shut up about myself. At least sometimes, to some people. But in a public sense (and sure I could be writing this in a journal and not the internet, but I like the accessibility this gives me, compiled with my suspicion that no one reads it anyway) I do not like sharing. There are a lot of reasons for this, some of which might seem crazy if I share them prematurely, so I won't... but let me point out that I have eradicated all personal information from my facebook profile. It does not offer my educational background, my religious beliefs, my sexual orientation or my workplace-- it says only that I am the Brigadier of the Ridgecrest Yacht Club. I cannot say that's a lie, and neither can you, I suspect, so make of it what you will.
My reservations being what they may, however, I have spent some time today reviewing things I have written in the past. My other blogs (and for some reason the twitter account I rarely use and never take seriously) apparently offer a glimpse into my past. Surprise, surprise. It's a nice little window of various points of the past few years, which is lovely. I have one idea of myself and my personal evolution in my head, and then another, similar but not quite the same rises out of the shadows in what I wrote before. Usually I am pleasantly surprised, and against all odds my impression is generally just "I've really gone downhill, haven't I?" That's a bit of a lie, I've been really the same person forever, deep down, and acutely aware of it since I was 8. I knew what I wanted to do since I was 13, officially, and while life is change, and these things may change, so far I have known without doubt the only thing I can do.
This being said, the past few months I accidentally overworked myself for the first time, well, ever. I didn't think I'd do it, if at all (silly me), for at least many years... I love being busy! How could I burn out? Well, I did. I think it was a lot real fast with insufficient reprieve-- I was having so much fun I didn't realize I needed to breathe to maintain my pace. Worst of all, I haven't acted much. Oh how I took for granted the freedom of earliest youth (note, you, I was very conscious of how precious my childhood was-- this part just didn't occur to me), in that I spent all my childhood acting. Playing pretend, creating characters, worlds, stories, seeing everything before me for the thousand possibilities it could be in the lenses of my mind, my imagination. Growing up is not easy, but it is necessary, and given the alternative it is beautiful. I have always been afraid of losing my imagination, because when I see so many, my age and older, and now younger, around me-- they do not seem to see the magic of life. Slowly, as my life becomes more exciting, I have had less need for fantasy in my own experience. Why imagine fighting dragons when you are meeting artists and Academy Award winners, driving unknown roads, windows down, music blaring, with nothing but your best friend and a camera at your side?
My worries are still there, and likely will be, if not forever, then until I allow myself the creative free reign I am so unfairly restraining in the interests of a long-term plan. I could do it now, act now, create now, in full-- but as much as my heart and soul desire it, I am not ready. I am young (sometimes a detriment, always true) and I have things to do. I have youth to enjoy, and that is a fleeting gift-- once gone, never to return, and I am fortunate to have a youth so blessed and ready for me to savor. I have so much to learn-- always more, it's true, and I will never stop, but I am not ready to make my moves yet. Like a general on the verge of a mighty battle, I want the right troops, trained their best, with all equipment at the ready, before I jump in. Not to say I am waffling out of fear or trepidation-- to the contrary, my soul is biting at the bit to do it. Do it now! Fear has to place-- it may be foolish, it may be naive, but I have no doubts. I have my goals, and they are less destinations than my core, a path rooted in me, part of me, that I must follow, no beginning and no end. A channel like time, I must only continue to feel I have succeeded.
Certainly, I could change. I could be a different person, anything can happen. I am anxious when I do not feel acutely the passion within me. I fear of losing it when I am not paying attention, if only because I know the way change sneaks up on you and then it is too late to turn back. Of course, if I change, then I shan't be the person who'd bemoan it-- I would be a different person.
My current crisis troubles me. But really, I have never been burnt out before. I have never needed to stop. It is not an easy thing to do. I know I have been doing too much, that while satisfying to my intellect it is not sufficient fuel for my soul. It's had enough-- I must replenish, I must experience nothingness. C'est dificil, faire rien. I suspect the lesson is best learned now, when I have the fortune of time (no school for now, the liberty of nothing-- a far more precious gift to my mind than any internship or temporary summer task, at least for one in my position). It is not easy to slow a speeding wheel, especially one that knows a hill is coming and a gain in speed is soon needed. Letting go of that momentum is stressful-- but I suspect the fear of losing it is silly. In order to continue at full speed, I need to refuel a little now. If it is truly right, I will not lose my will-- and I do not think I can, or at least I never have doubted it. I do not doubt it now-- it is merely that knowing what I want and not bulldozing my way to it is terribly hard. However, I suspect my power lies in strategy, in stealth and grace, rather than force. Strength is vital to perseverance, which I may well need, but there is more in life than instant gratification, and experience is not merely valuable, it is in many ways all that life is about. Experience is dependent upon change, and change is the essence of life, the ultimate oppressor of death.
I write these things for a future self, older though I'll not say wiser-- that is a determination I could not dare to make. Can anyone? I have known many things, and am generally successful in my fights for what I do, what I want-- but stillness, a break, a step back and a lie down, I do not think is a thing to fear. To stop growing, that is the frightful thing. But even in stillness we may change, even in silence and peace may we grow. Am I too young for this conversation? I don't know. Maybe I am wrong, but I am going to find out. I need to learn not merely the value of (which I have long been aware of, flaming hypocrite that I am), but the lessons of lying still and truly, profoundly, relaxing.
My reservations being what they may, however, I have spent some time today reviewing things I have written in the past. My other blogs (and for some reason the twitter account I rarely use and never take seriously) apparently offer a glimpse into my past. Surprise, surprise. It's a nice little window of various points of the past few years, which is lovely. I have one idea of myself and my personal evolution in my head, and then another, similar but not quite the same rises out of the shadows in what I wrote before. Usually I am pleasantly surprised, and against all odds my impression is generally just "I've really gone downhill, haven't I?" That's a bit of a lie, I've been really the same person forever, deep down, and acutely aware of it since I was 8. I knew what I wanted to do since I was 13, officially, and while life is change, and these things may change, so far I have known without doubt the only thing I can do.
This being said, the past few months I accidentally overworked myself for the first time, well, ever. I didn't think I'd do it, if at all (silly me), for at least many years... I love being busy! How could I burn out? Well, I did. I think it was a lot real fast with insufficient reprieve-- I was having so much fun I didn't realize I needed to breathe to maintain my pace. Worst of all, I haven't acted much. Oh how I took for granted the freedom of earliest youth (note, you, I was very conscious of how precious my childhood was-- this part just didn't occur to me), in that I spent all my childhood acting. Playing pretend, creating characters, worlds, stories, seeing everything before me for the thousand possibilities it could be in the lenses of my mind, my imagination. Growing up is not easy, but it is necessary, and given the alternative it is beautiful. I have always been afraid of losing my imagination, because when I see so many, my age and older, and now younger, around me-- they do not seem to see the magic of life. Slowly, as my life becomes more exciting, I have had less need for fantasy in my own experience. Why imagine fighting dragons when you are meeting artists and Academy Award winners, driving unknown roads, windows down, music blaring, with nothing but your best friend and a camera at your side?
My worries are still there, and likely will be, if not forever, then until I allow myself the creative free reign I am so unfairly restraining in the interests of a long-term plan. I could do it now, act now, create now, in full-- but as much as my heart and soul desire it, I am not ready. I am young (sometimes a detriment, always true) and I have things to do. I have youth to enjoy, and that is a fleeting gift-- once gone, never to return, and I am fortunate to have a youth so blessed and ready for me to savor. I have so much to learn-- always more, it's true, and I will never stop, but I am not ready to make my moves yet. Like a general on the verge of a mighty battle, I want the right troops, trained their best, with all equipment at the ready, before I jump in. Not to say I am waffling out of fear or trepidation-- to the contrary, my soul is biting at the bit to do it. Do it now! Fear has to place-- it may be foolish, it may be naive, but I have no doubts. I have my goals, and they are less destinations than my core, a path rooted in me, part of me, that I must follow, no beginning and no end. A channel like time, I must only continue to feel I have succeeded.
Certainly, I could change. I could be a different person, anything can happen. I am anxious when I do not feel acutely the passion within me. I fear of losing it when I am not paying attention, if only because I know the way change sneaks up on you and then it is too late to turn back. Of course, if I change, then I shan't be the person who'd bemoan it-- I would be a different person.
My current crisis troubles me. But really, I have never been burnt out before. I have never needed to stop. It is not an easy thing to do. I know I have been doing too much, that while satisfying to my intellect it is not sufficient fuel for my soul. It's had enough-- I must replenish, I must experience nothingness. C'est dificil, faire rien. I suspect the lesson is best learned now, when I have the fortune of time (no school for now, the liberty of nothing-- a far more precious gift to my mind than any internship or temporary summer task, at least for one in my position). It is not easy to slow a speeding wheel, especially one that knows a hill is coming and a gain in speed is soon needed. Letting go of that momentum is stressful-- but I suspect the fear of losing it is silly. In order to continue at full speed, I need to refuel a little now. If it is truly right, I will not lose my will-- and I do not think I can, or at least I never have doubted it. I do not doubt it now-- it is merely that knowing what I want and not bulldozing my way to it is terribly hard. However, I suspect my power lies in strategy, in stealth and grace, rather than force. Strength is vital to perseverance, which I may well need, but there is more in life than instant gratification, and experience is not merely valuable, it is in many ways all that life is about. Experience is dependent upon change, and change is the essence of life, the ultimate oppressor of death.
I write these things for a future self, older though I'll not say wiser-- that is a determination I could not dare to make. Can anyone? I have known many things, and am generally successful in my fights for what I do, what I want-- but stillness, a break, a step back and a lie down, I do not think is a thing to fear. To stop growing, that is the frightful thing. But even in stillness we may change, even in silence and peace may we grow. Am I too young for this conversation? I don't know. Maybe I am wrong, but I am going to find out. I need to learn not merely the value of (which I have long been aware of, flaming hypocrite that I am), but the lessons of lying still and truly, profoundly, relaxing.
Back to An Education
**I thought I posted this on here recently, but I cannot find it. If this is a repeat, I humbly apologize. This is one my favorite things I have ever written, which ought not sound boastful-- rather it is my recollection on one of the most beautiful moments I have written down (there have been others comparable but I have not yet recorded those in printed word). A good thing to remind oneself of, I think. The following is from a post on my English travel blog, dated December 6, 2009.**
My feet have not been this cold since my birthday last year, when I swam in the ocean at midnight. A February ocean, that left my feet numb as nails for the half hour it took with my own searing knowledge to feel the life come back into them. I do not need the ocean to make my feet feel this cold, and I do not need it to feel others things either. I love the ocean because it makes me feel closer to life, to God if it's best to put it that way, than anything else as consistently. Many things have the same power to varying degrees... films for one, a smile in someone's eye, feel of the Earth's heartbeat through a granite face. The stars and moon are perhaps the next best indicators however, and they offer the additional quandary that the same moon I sat before tonight has been admired and feared and questioned by every other being before me to behold the night sky.
Tonight I felt the reason I came here, felt enough to validate my entire three months. In fact, it rather validates the past two years since the last time I felt this way... I suppose you could say it is personal, but I hold nothing of my life sacred wholly unto myself: I have always felt that when the moment comes that I face the final bar we all do, who cares? I am lucky to have no secrets to hold, I suppose, but this isn't personal in that way. It is mercurial though and difficult to define, if not impossible, as feelings are.
I saw the Lone Scherfig film An Education tonight. I have heard a great deal about it. Shia LaBeouf is reportedly dating the newcomer star Carey Mulligan who is reportedly in line for some critical awards in the next few months for her performance. Mulligan plays a bright schoolgirl in 1962 upper middle class Britain-- her life is dull, boring, and jammed full of studying in hopes of going to Oxford. Enter an older man, who shows her wonderful worlds of adventure, art, culture, jazz, Paris, and lies. I won't tell you how it ends, since I rather recommend you see it yourselves, but it is exquisite. I think films are magical, but when the right one catches you at just the right time... something much more profound occurs. It is why the opening shot of Across the Universe makes me almost want to cry (a lot of reasons for that, I mean, it's Jim Sturgess). Or perhaps why I saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2 something like six times in the theatres despite mediocre reviews...
The film tonight sparked in me so many ideas, so much existential philosophy, so much self-reflection... so much passion. I could barely gather my thoughts and I didn't want to because it felt right, like a necessary luxury, to be carried along on the waves of my rapture. I stepped outside the theatre (past two chaps who looked quite fit, but it was dark) and began my walk home, the usual path past the library to my hall. Before I even rounded the corner of the theatre building, however, I looked up and met the luminescent face of a half moon, grinning in eternal divinity. I literally stopped, just in front of some people, spun on my heel to the side, and took another path, slighter longer, to get back, so I could stay a bit longer with the moon. There is a giant pine on campus there in that open space which has been garlanded with strands of bright white Christmas lights. It looks like the stars fell onto the tree to sit among the branches. So many people walked by without noticing... but one woman with very long light blonde hair was taking a picture. I'm glad.
I have not seen much of the stars or moon since I have been here. I always love to look up and admire them, which is a novelty I took quite for granted in California. It doesn't happen much here, which is something I was told right upon arrival. I walked back towards my college, the air the very crisp sharp cold that is unforgiving but not cruel... it makes one feel alive, like ice water, if they're willing to feel it. Crossing the bridge to the front doors of Eliot, nearing the frame of the main entry, I suddenly veered to the side, down some steps, under the bridge, and out towards the open hillside beyond Eliot. This might have confused the the boy dressed in a Santa costume and his friend who were speaking at the top of steps which made a more direct path to the walkway, as I passed them twice rather than walk past them to their steps, but I kind of prefer it that way.
As I stepped off the path where the hill slopes down to Canterbury, a wide space of lawn spotted with a few trees, a few benches, and beyond some woods, homes, and the glowing cathedral.... I took off my shoes. I wanted to feel England through the palms of my feet, straight up to the tip of my head where the moisture from the afternoon rain was wreaked havoc a la Topanga from Boy Meets World (more frizz than I think is legal). The ground was freezing cold, the grass more marshland carpet than blades of greenery. Every step squished with oozing fullness down into the mud, though the grass was clean, covered the sea of liquid dirt below. I walked to a bench not far from the path but far enough. A tree blocked the cathedral, which was disappointing until I realized it was much better to be without the weight of man's history lying before me. Behind the bench was a great sparsely built yet fully blooming pine, wide and vast and dark against the lights of Eliot Hall.
I was cold and raw, Canterbury laid before me, the moon above, and countless stars in the deep black vault above, free of grey cloud impediment save at the very edges of vision. It is difficult to say how I felt, except I felt full. Full of life, passion, knowledge, desire, energy, wisdom, fire, and ice. It sounds tacky, I know, but I am not sure words can encapsulate the feeling. I don't think they should.
It is the feeling I get from acting... almost. Or rather, acting is the only way I know to use that feeling. The last time I truly felt that much unobstructed passion for life in such a forceful single wallop was about two years ago, when someone whose opinion on the matter I deeply respected told me I was a truly good actress. When I left the dinner party that night I sat in my car and cried. I don't cry often, but I cried then, because I was too happy and too full of that passion, that life, to contain it. That is how I felt tonight... and I cried. I sat on the hill, just me and the moon and England, cold and raw and on the verge of everything, and I cried because I love it all so much. All of it. Every bit, of everything.
Eventually I walked back, squelching across the lawn, put on my little black flats, and tromped back to reality as an automatic sensor light caught me in its sudden shine. It wanted to be helpful, I think, but there are other kinds of energy much more natural and much more important.
One of the rooms with lights on was emitting the distinct notes of the Rocky theme song as I return to light and society. There was something obnoxious but admirably ironic about that.
I am back in my room, feeling full and also drained. Those feelings are always present for me, but usually for purposes of practicality and efficiency they stayed nicely under control somewhere snug in my psyche where they emit little bursts of optimism and true happiness as needed. But there are times when they are stripped bare and come forth full force... those are moments like tonight. They are rare, beautiful, and divine. England and I have had a moment. That is why I came here.
Sometimes The Hardest Thing Is to Take It Easy
Well, I'm running down the road
Tryin' to loosen my load
I've got seven women on my mind
Four that wanna own me
Two that wanna stone me
One says she's a friend of mine
Take it easy
Take it easy
Don't let the sound of your own wheels
Drive you crazy
Lighten up while you still can
Don't even try to understand
Just find a place to make your stand
And take it easy
Well, I'm a standing on a corner
In Winslow, Arizona
And such a fine sight to see
It's a girl, my lord
In a flatbed Ford
Slowin' down to take a look at me
Come on, baby
Don't say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love
Is gonna save me
We may lose and we may win
Though we will never be here again
So open up, I'm climbin' in
And take it easy
Well I'm running down the road
Tryin' to loosen my load
Got a world of trouble on my mind
Lookin' for a lover
Who won't blow my cover
She's so hard to find
Take it easy
Take it easy
Don't let the sound of your own wheels
Make you crazy
Come on baby
Don't say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love
Is gonna save me
Oh oh oh
Oh we got it easy
We oughta take it easy
Whole Foods
I was at Pitfire Pizza in downtown LA recently and had broiled radishes. I can't wait to do it again. This is me at Whole Foods recently, en route to an art gallery and a BBQ (ended up just staying at the former, but the BBQ was bacon-themed and would have been amazing, clearly, my loss). I am holding golden beets.
Salve For Many Wounds
One of my favorite bands currently out there. Swedish sisters. I think they are both younger than I am... and both excruciatingly talented. They remind me (in caliber and aura) of a female Fleet Foxes. They are that good.
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