The World on a String

Inspiration is ubiquitous. It takes on many forms. It camouflages itself among the mundane and conceals itself behind obstacles. However, it surrounds us, and those of us who access it can find the drive to achieve even the impossible.

Meet Philippe Petit. Occupation: Tight rope walker. If you've watched Man On Wire or read any literature related to it, his name might sound familiar. On August 7, 1974, he stepped onto a steel cable anchored on either side of the Twin Towers in Manhattan. He and a team of others had disguised themselves as businessmen and janitorial staff to enter the building the night before in order to set up the cables. As Philippe walked across, the sidewalks below were teeming with people who were awestruck by the sight of a man crossing the wire 1,368 feet above ground (the Twin Towers were the highest in the world at the time). Months of planning, a handful of broken laws, and some teeth-clenching close calls led to one definitive artistic moment shared by the lucky sum of people watching from below, around, and above. Those who witnessed it were humbled by the notion that they may never see anything quite like this in their lives ever again.

What struck me most about this story was not the death-defying feat that Philippe performed but rather Philippe himself. From the moment he came upon the article about the Twin Towers' construction, he forged an immediate commitment to his dream to walk between them. With a proclivity for innovation and a deep-seated passion for his craft, he was able to share his vision with a team of others who helped him see it through. Now that's salesmanship.

I recently read in The Disney Way that Walt Disney cashed in on his life insurance in order to invest in the development of Disneyland in Orange County, California. His financially conservative brother and business partner Roy Disney clenched his jaw as Walt pushed forward. Regardless, Walt remained riveted to his dream. Today, as we know, Disney is the largest corporate empire in the world.

What is it about prodigies like Disney and Petit that caused them to hold fast to a dream that at one point must have seemed desperate? A dream that must have appeared outright insane? What was it about them that drew in others for the ride and, in the process, convinced them to attempt the untried?

We're raised, for the most part, to differentiate what is tangible from what is inconceivable. Under the influence of reason, we filter the feasible from the futile. But why? Isn't it up to us to define what is achievable and what is not? The spirit of adventure that is so alive in us as children predictably fizzles out by the time we've become full-fledged adults. There is no greater loss than that of this spirit. Both Philippe and Walt took risks that may not have seemed to be worth the cost at the moment, but their persistence and inner motivation pushed them onward.

When our creativity is hampered and our worries overrule our instincts, we automatically scale down our dreams. Not only is this dangerous, but it also a betrayal of the best of ourselves.

On a tour of the Magical Kingdom, one guest commented to a senior tour guide, "Too bad Walt Disney never lived to see his dreams come to actualization."

The tour guide, well-versed in company history and hallmarks, responded, "But he did see it! That's why it's here in the first place."

Upon his descent from the Twin Towers (and after his arrest), the question people wanted to ask Philippe Petit most was, "Why?" Why did he do it? Why did he tight rope walk across the towers and risk his life in the process? His only answer was that there is no why. He simply wanted to.

The French like to say, "L'art pour l'art." Art for art's sake. Do whatever you desire because you desire it. But most importantly, desire it! Hone your passions. Cultivate them. Do not be stymied by "what if's" or "why's." If you want to, you will. Let's not let life get the best of us. Instead, let us project the best of ourselves. You might not need to lay the groundwork for a corporate empire or balance your life on a tightrope miles above, but you can start with not giving up on what you love and want, and most especially not giving up on yourself.

Soundtrack of the day:

Eric Satie - Gnossienne No. 1

Eric Satie - Gymnopodie No. 1

There's No Place Like Home

If there's any word in the English language that tugs at my heartstrings immediately, it's "home." So says Dorothy, there's no place like it.

Ever since I left the nest for the first time, I've been sensitive to what this word actually means. Maybe it's silly to give it so much thought. Home is where the heart is, isn't it? For me, it's been a struggle to define this because my heart, saturated with wanderlust, habitually attaches itself to different places.

In this economic climate, a lot of my friends have participated in the Great Migration Home, with home being our parents' place. With an impotent job market at our generation's fingers, finding solace in our old rooms and familiar settings is both a source of comfort and slight embarrassment. Look at it this way, though. Instead of becoming strangers to our families in the process of "growing up," this migration presents a unique opportunity to reconnect with the people who have loved us, provided for us, and funded us unconditionally through the years.

As you may know, I moved to Maryland/Washington, D.C. after graduating college. I jumped right into a Congressional internship, then took on a year's commitment at a legal non-profit organization as an AmeriCorps outreach coordinator. Music swept me up from underneath my feet like a knight in shining armor, and it has carried me back west for now. I'm very fortunate to be employed in the meantime by both my music and by a writer who I truly respect. So my move back home was not out of financial deprivation. It was a voluntary choice, but it does bring with it some sacrifices. The last time I lived in my parents' house for an extended period of time was at age 17, before moving out for college. Now, at 23, I'm finding myself being told to go to bed, reminded to do the dishes, and scolded not to stay out "too late." Things I left in one place end up finding their way into cupboards or closets at my mom's doing. And once in a while, my mom is overcome with the compulsion to go through my baby pictures with me. I greet these things with a sigh and chuckle. Even though I've spent five years proving to them and myself that I am self-sufficient, my parents will always be parents, no matter what.

I had an emotional parting with Maryland. I have to admit and come to terms with that. Although I'm back in the Golden State, I still miss the Old Line. I know that I didn't grow up in Maryland, but everyone I met through music made me feel right at home. I'm a product of its people, all of whom I hold near and dear to my heart. A dear friend of mine told me that everyone I met there served as mirrors to help me see who I am, which I agreed with wholeheartedly. It was something very special that I will never forget. Maryland is another home for me, and I hope to come back to it soon if only just to visit.

I'm slowly learning that I will experience many senses of home in this lifetime. Having moved around so much, you'd think that I would have learned that already, but I've never been one to take goodbyes well.

I'll let you in on a secret. Home comprises of the people you surround yourself with and has little to do with place. That's why partings are of such sweet sorrow. And that's why you feel attached to locations in the first place - it's the people. It always has been and always will be the people who have touched your life, changed the way you viewed certain things, made you laugh, and shared your hardships that make you feel comfortable being where you are. Home doesn't have to be something you leave or come back to. It's not a fixed entity. Home is something you can build along the way. And you don't have to go over the rainbow to find it.


Soundtrack of the day:

Thelonious Monk - Blue Monk
She & Him - Brand New Shoes
Bon Iver - Flume

Orange Revolution

The Orange Revolution was a massive protest that followed the 2004 presidential election in Ukraine.

Incidentally, the protests made its mark in history in two ways. Other than the aforementioned, it also inspired the name of the color of my new car.

Yes, my new car! It's completely adorable, gas efficient, and did I mention ORANGE? Not that I'm trying to sell it to you. (It's all mine!!!)

The most poignant observation I made was that there is enough storage space in the back to fit tons of musical equipment. All the seats fold down, and the interior of the car is incredibly tall. We'll be mini-touring in no time!

I <3 my Honda Fit.

In repair

I woke up today with the inexplicable, incessant desire to fix something. My cupboard door eventually became the object of this desire, and it now swings open and closed free of squeak. It is said that sometimes people manifest their emotions into habitual acts and actions. Maybe my desire to fix something projects my own need for self-repair.

For reasons beyond what I care to delve into right now, I drove alone to another city last night because I needed a change of scene. I went through every mix CD I burned in the last year and relived the past through songs that once bore significance to me at certain moments in time. So much has changed since I first moved east last summer, for better or for worse. With the move back west happening so soon, I needed some distance from my empty walls and cardboard boxes, even some distance from the people I feel I've grown closest to while living here. Maybe it's a defense mechanism, detaching myself now as to lessen the blow later. Maybe I just needed some perspective, and the only way to get it was to be in a different place so I can look at it all from a different point of view.

Twenty-three is around the corner. These past few weeks have warranted multiple mental meltdowns because of everything piling up. The CD is being reproduced. I'm moving out. My parents are visiting. There are still gigs to be played. Bills to be paid. Lawns to be mowed. Not to mention all the cleaning. On top of all this, I am a chronic (and professional) people-pleaser. Not only does everything need to be done, but it also needs to be done well, and people have to be happy with the results. Otherwise the world will end. Not really, but that's just how my brain functions. It is my worst and most persistent habit.

I read about panic attacks today in a mental health article:

"Panic sufferers often describe themselves as "people pleasers," who find it extremely painful to risk others' dislike or disapproval. They may agree to others' requests, suppress their own opinions, and put the needs of others before their own - sometimes to the point that they almost lose touch with their own wishes and feelings."

This hit too close to home - and, well, it shed some light on my own recent meltdowns. I've made such a habit of putting a lot of heart into my work and relationships with others that it's no wonder I've driven myself slightly mad from trying to keep everything in order and everyone happy. If there is someone in need, I can't help but drop everything and be there for them. Never mind the extensive "To-Do" list.

In Hinduism, it is believed that the universe is cyclically created, then destroyed, then created again. Ever since I read this, I've been fixated on the concept. It came to me with great portent. I am very much the same way. I've never been one of those seemingly consistent people on whom you can always rely to bring the same kind of energy, at least not how I perceive it. As much as I'd like to remain positive and lighthearted all the time, I too subscribe to the human condition. Ever since I can remember, I've had spurts of productivity, energy, and enthusiasm for everything around me. Whatever project I can channel all of this into flourishes. Then, there comes a time when I start to feel like I've exhausted all of my capacities, my creativity, and my mind. All I feel like doing at that point is retracting and disappearing for a while until I recharge. So, keeping with the analogy of the Hindu universe, I create, am destroyed, then re-create perpetually.

One of my old roommates was the executive director for a local non-profit by day but still managed to take weekend trips to the southwest to go horseback riding. I asked her how she stays sane. She responded with, "No matter how many hours you work overtime and how much you bend over backwards for your constituency, they will still be there in need." No matter what, there will ALWAYS be more work to be done. So there is no use trying to get everything done at once. Giving time to yourself is important too.

Having a healthy mind is just as important as having a healthy body and spirit. It's time to fine tune my mentality before it wears out.

Yours in repair,
L

On Mortality

These days, my mom's voice repeatedly trumpets in my head, "Make sure you take care of yourself." Every since I moved to the east coast, my mom has iterated this phrase to me at the end of every phone call. What I once interpreted as relentless nagging has recently begun to take on new meaning. It has become a mantra that I repeat in order to remind myself to breathe and slow down because after all, life is sweet but it's also temporary.

Because my mom's ever-omniscient voice has been ringing in my head more often than not lately, I was immediately attracted to a novel I happened upon at the bookstore. In her novel Traveling With Pomegranates, Sue Monk Kidd contemplates aging through the lens of her relationship with her daughter, Ann. At age fifty, Sue prepares to, as she sees it, exit her womanhood while she observes her twenty-two-year-old daughter take root in it. The author explores the sense of nostalgia for youth and also the acceptance of the inevitable. After reading a few chapters of this book, my mom's reminders and concerns suddenly made sense to me. As someone who is now looking back on her own life, my mother's regrets and past mistakes have translated themselves into concern for me. I now understand the schizophrenic struggle that my mother endures, trying to give me the private world that I have harvested for myself while simultaneously wanting to be an intimate part of it. In a way, I see how she is passing on her duties to me so I can mother myself, so I can take care of myself and be okay if for some one reason or another she can't be around.

This might come as a heavy thought, but I've been meditating on my own mortality. At the spry age of twenty-two, I have been told redundantly by those older than I am that I have "sooo much time." While these comments continuously infuse confidence and keep my morale high, I have to stop to ask, "Do I really have that much time?" Two decades (and a couple years) have lapsed in what now seems like the blink of an eye. Who is to say the next two decades won't follow suit? As my bucket list grows longer, I have slowly come to realize and accept that there may not be enough time for everything that I want to do. I can only do the most with what I have here and now.

Still, I haven't reconciled the feeling of loss I sometimes feel when I think about leaving certain phases of my life behind. Like being a student, for example. My unquenchable thirst for knowledge had a grounds in which to flourish - within lecture halls, through term papers that I begrudgingly wrote with secret relish, tucked into conversations with fellow consorts. I miss it all, and I almost feel that when I graduated, the time for beginnings had passed. I remind myself, though, that as a member of the human species, I am entitled to adaptation. Now the world can be my classroom and everyone around me my fellow students, whether they are aware of it or not.

Every once in a while, I will have a cathartic moment in which I become hyper-conscious of the fact that I have been given something precious: a life to live out how I choose. Life is temporary, meaning everything that life encompasses is also temporary. Material things, pain, even happiness. However, I reject the cult of cynicism that often exploits this observation. Some choose not to grow too attached to anything in fear that it might be lost without warning. After having tried that, I know it's not for me. I'm not happy unless I wear my heart out on my sleeve. It feels stifled otherwise.

I hope that by the close of my life, whenever it will be, whether it is tomorrow or one hundred years from now (taking into account future marvels of technology), I will have lived openly, laughed often, and loved sincerely. Until then (which will hopefully be a long time from now), I'm hoping to be better about listening to Mom's advice and taking care of myself (and others around me) in the meantime.

The Rule of Three

Some days pass by without fuss or ceremony. Others bring with them a torrent of things you could do without. Today can be placed in the latter category. I won't delve too deep into the details because they are neither interesting nor relevant in retrospect. What I learned will continue to resound into the future, so let's just focus on that at this point.

Bad things happen in threes, they say. Today was no exception, so I can say that I learned three very valuable things today:

1) Parents will always be parents no matter what, and the sooner you accept that, the happier you'll be.

2) No matter what you say or don't say, neither person walks away from an argument feeling good about anything.

3) At the end of the day, being able to deflect life's curve balls with laughter (especially when shared with a special someone) certainly makes the day's struggle worth something.

Oh, and the beach is the perfect escape from the litany. In order to ease my mind, I drove to Bolsa Chica and walked around for a little bit simply to clear my head. I snapped a few photos and wrote a few verses.

The tide's coming up
Water up to my knees
Kites flying high
And I want to be free
Sun's sinking soon
There's salt in the breeze
Foam's in retreat
And I want to be free.

Beach Bum

I officially cannot get enough of the beach. Woke up early this morning and headed to Huntington Beach to lay out and catch some sun. My skin has been deprived of its dose for too long. I could feel the melanin trickling in again!

The breaking waves provided a soundtrack to some reflection. On being home again, I love that I have been able to fill my days with people. Although a year has gone by since I moved out of California, with some people it feels like not a day has passed since we last spoke. With others I feel the rift that has formed between us since I left, forged by the distance that has separated us, but it's nothing that can't be repaired by some quality time. I feel that the desire to be there for each other surpasses any obstacles (or rifts) in between.

From purging my room of things I no longer want to own, to revisiting old friends, to indulging in delicious California food, to missing people back east, to trying to figure out what the future is going to look like, these past few days back have been mentally busy. Strangely, I feel at peace with it all. I remind myself that it's a part of life's ebb and flow, and everything that is meant to happen will eventually happen anyway, so trying to control any of it would simply be silly. In the past, I've always resisted ever so slightly to being exactly where I am. My mind has an incessant habit of wandering to places I've been before or would rather be, a habit which has hindered many an experience in the past and prevented me from being completely happy. Today when I dug my feet into the sand, I grounded myself in both Here and Now and wanted nothing more than what I had in that moment.

"Just catch the wave don't be afraid of loving me
The fundamental loneliness goes
Whenever two can dream a dream together"

Soundtrack of the day
1. Samba Da Bencao - Sergio Mendes
2. Harvest Moon - Neil Young
3. S'wonderful - Joao Gilberto
4. I Know You Know - Esperanza Spalding
5. Can't Take My Eyes Off of You - Joanna Wang