Here I am in the writing incubator created via dark Peet's organic hand pressed coffee, rice milk, double creme brie and heritage crackers, Matt Costa Pandora radio and no other name drops. Feeling scattered and unmotivated, I re-read the first 10 pages of Dave Eggers' 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius' and was left with the energy I was looking for-oh yes, this is the written word that is worth its weight in page. Honest, microscopic, humble, unassuming, raw, real.
And with this energy I begin to write and see how the music carries the words as I begin to bob my head and tap my toe and match the tap of the keyboard to the drums and piano. Even the space space and then I don't want to stop, not for a contraction or a....................song's over.
Next. Jack Johnson, skip. The Shins...yes-never trite. Too mellow, depressive? No, calming, requiring focus. Good for zeroing on in. My mind wanders enough to trace my body's aches and pains and wonder why the hell I hurt so much and only remember the past days spent constantly in a hot tub being massaged by jets and the alpine strong sun of Tahoe. Of a long lovely snowy Donner Lake walk with Jennaji and the many years we have traversed with one another and how we have watched each other grow in our Geminian wanderlust and quest for all things truthful and gay. Of choices that we did not recognize as such at the time and of which I largely still do not recognize as such and appreciate the awesomeness of being present and the beautiful lives it sews. Like Irish lace.
Like the finest Varanasi silk of the type we hand-picked as we sipped chai in tiny cups and smoked bi-dis and drew embarrassingly simple drawings of the Hindu peasant prayer dresses we wanted. And the look on my face when I was presented with the alfi, which I thought was a bharfi, and kept referring it to as such to the insanely naturally amped up master sewers and spinners in the hole in the wall shop down that endless alley in the fantastical back alleys of Varanasi. The disbelief I felt when the dress I had designed resembled a potato sack of raw rose pink silk to be worn over Indian pants of whose name I cannot remember. And of how it hugged me in all the wrong places and the pockets that were so low but how almost instantly I fell in love with it, loaded my roodrock malas over it and a sadhu I did make.
I decided I would wear it every day and thought I would throw the rest of my clothes away in renouncement and because the alfi was all I needed. Somehow some of the other clothes lasted the rest of the trip but the bharfi was the second skin. It made it back to the states, I married some friends in it, participated in numerous women's gatherings in it, maintained the feeling of connected grace I felt in India in it. I may have given it away a few years ago in one of my particularly dis-attached moods, in an attempt to let go of all religious, spiritual, non-existential thought....the very thoughts that had led me to the alfi making. I just decided that I am going to start arranging paragraphs by subject rather than some format standards I don't believe in. Stop.
That was the last drop of the mud of the coffee mug. One of four of a set I bought at Peet's when I worked down the street at Midpeninsula Citizens for Fair Housing on Emerson Street in that historic mansion that housed all things good and non-profit. The grief group, the peace and justice center, the anxious church-landlords next door. In the end on our wing, myself and one volunteer/unpaid full time employee from Stanford whom I recruited and trained after all the other employees were fired and I inherited a non-profit of one and taught her everything she needed to know to run the ship in a minute's notice. Of which she did. Of how when I started out there I worked in an office the size of a small walk in closet and spent most of my time rearranging it for the optimization of space when I wasn't sending testers out to pose as potential renters at properties I had received housing discrimination complaints against and calling attorneys we worked with begging them to take these poor folks' cases.
That was when I was not conciliating myself which I prided myself on and then, everyone else was gone and after this intern and I single-handedly cleaned out the basement of this creepy mansion where achieves of cases were stored since the organization, the first of its type in California, was founded, for the purpose of giving space back. All we were left with was old letters from MLK and the moth-ball encrusted responsibility of keeping this organization and its legacy alive. The Stanford intern/protegee and I and we did it with pastries from the French bakery down the street, a lot of coffee and the Peet's yellow and blue-flowered coffee mugs who were joined by the creamer, sugar jar, pitcher, tea pot, and cookie jar at this point. Now, how the cookie jar that was filled with hand-made macaroons years later was accidentally stolen by the county mental health worker when it was brought to a clinical supervision weekly dreaded meeting as a peace-keeping function and assumed to be hers, therefore bereft of its collection, is another story altogether.
One that will be saved for another day as I am reaching that expiration point where the desire to walk outside and take in some of this brilliant sun that begs me to continue with the memory-making that never stops, even in its reminiscence. Not a therapy to be guided but a basic human function that allows each of us to enjoy how we have spent our time while inspiring us to create more new memories that it does not matter if we-we will-forget one day because the importance of enjoying our time here is so very pressing.
'Love It All' by The Kooks comes on and its the isn't it crazy how these songs match my mood feeling but I know I have created this station and I am not surprised but more grateful for the choice of that which feels good and supports the betterment of a mood, a time, a place, an attitude, a desire and a courage to reach for something else. Back to the tap tapping of this snappy song as my words trace the mood of these songs. Up and down, all over the place, organized by the beat and the refrain. The chaos is organized and it is beautiful. Thanks for reading and listening to the ponderings of my mind.
Where is your cookie jar? Is it filled? What are the treats you will find today? Build them in, please, for the sake of fun and frivolity and the power of enjoying your life and loveliness.
May it be everlasting!,
Tara
And with this energy I begin to write and see how the music carries the words as I begin to bob my head and tap my toe and match the tap of the keyboard to the drums and piano. Even the space space and then I don't want to stop, not for a contraction or a....................song's over.
Next. Jack Johnson, skip. The Shins...yes-never trite. Too mellow, depressive? No, calming, requiring focus. Good for zeroing on in. My mind wanders enough to trace my body's aches and pains and wonder why the hell I hurt so much and only remember the past days spent constantly in a hot tub being massaged by jets and the alpine strong sun of Tahoe. Of a long lovely snowy Donner Lake walk with Jennaji and the many years we have traversed with one another and how we have watched each other grow in our Geminian wanderlust and quest for all things truthful and gay. Of choices that we did not recognize as such at the time and of which I largely still do not recognize as such and appreciate the awesomeness of being present and the beautiful lives it sews. Like Irish lace.
Like the finest Varanasi silk of the type we hand-picked as we sipped chai in tiny cups and smoked bi-dis and drew embarrassingly simple drawings of the Hindu peasant prayer dresses we wanted. And the look on my face when I was presented with the alfi, which I thought was a bharfi, and kept referring it to as such to the insanely naturally amped up master sewers and spinners in the hole in the wall shop down that endless alley in the fantastical back alleys of Varanasi. The disbelief I felt when the dress I had designed resembled a potato sack of raw rose pink silk to be worn over Indian pants of whose name I cannot remember. And of how it hugged me in all the wrong places and the pockets that were so low but how almost instantly I fell in love with it, loaded my roodrock malas over it and a sadhu I did make.
I decided I would wear it every day and thought I would throw the rest of my clothes away in renouncement and because the alfi was all I needed. Somehow some of the other clothes lasted the rest of the trip but the bharfi was the second skin. It made it back to the states, I married some friends in it, participated in numerous women's gatherings in it, maintained the feeling of connected grace I felt in India in it. I may have given it away a few years ago in one of my particularly dis-attached moods, in an attempt to let go of all religious, spiritual, non-existential thought....the very thoughts that had led me to the alfi making. I just decided that I am going to start arranging paragraphs by subject rather than some format standards I don't believe in. Stop.
That was the last drop of the mud of the coffee mug. One of four of a set I bought at Peet's when I worked down the street at Midpeninsula Citizens for Fair Housing on Emerson Street in that historic mansion that housed all things good and non-profit. The grief group, the peace and justice center, the anxious church-landlords next door. In the end on our wing, myself and one volunteer/unpaid full time employee from Stanford whom I recruited and trained after all the other employees were fired and I inherited a non-profit of one and taught her everything she needed to know to run the ship in a minute's notice. Of which she did. Of how when I started out there I worked in an office the size of a small walk in closet and spent most of my time rearranging it for the optimization of space when I wasn't sending testers out to pose as potential renters at properties I had received housing discrimination complaints against and calling attorneys we worked with begging them to take these poor folks' cases.
That was when I was not conciliating myself which I prided myself on and then, everyone else was gone and after this intern and I single-handedly cleaned out the basement of this creepy mansion where achieves of cases were stored since the organization, the first of its type in California, was founded, for the purpose of giving space back. All we were left with was old letters from MLK and the moth-ball encrusted responsibility of keeping this organization and its legacy alive. The Stanford intern/protegee and I and we did it with pastries from the French bakery down the street, a lot of coffee and the Peet's yellow and blue-flowered coffee mugs who were joined by the creamer, sugar jar, pitcher, tea pot, and cookie jar at this point. Now, how the cookie jar that was filled with hand-made macaroons years later was accidentally stolen by the county mental health worker when it was brought to a clinical supervision weekly dreaded meeting as a peace-keeping function and assumed to be hers, therefore bereft of its collection, is another story altogether.
One that will be saved for another day as I am reaching that expiration point where the desire to walk outside and take in some of this brilliant sun that begs me to continue with the memory-making that never stops, even in its reminiscence. Not a therapy to be guided but a basic human function that allows each of us to enjoy how we have spent our time while inspiring us to create more new memories that it does not matter if we-we will-forget one day because the importance of enjoying our time here is so very pressing.
'Love It All' by The Kooks comes on and its the isn't it crazy how these songs match my mood feeling but I know I have created this station and I am not surprised but more grateful for the choice of that which feels good and supports the betterment of a mood, a time, a place, an attitude, a desire and a courage to reach for something else. Back to the tap tapping of this snappy song as my words trace the mood of these songs. Up and down, all over the place, organized by the beat and the refrain. The chaos is organized and it is beautiful. Thanks for reading and listening to the ponderings of my mind.
Where is your cookie jar? Is it filled? What are the treats you will find today? Build them in, please, for the sake of fun and frivolity and the power of enjoying your life and loveliness.
May it be everlasting!,
Tara
