Stones in Antimony

A year and a half ago, all the hands in the air and the music and lights were electrifying. I was so fortunate to meet a group of such good, earnest people full of strength, vigor, and an athletic sort of care. But recently, I've realized how confused I've been. Nothing hits me quite the same, like I had built up a tolerance for understanding others, for understanding life. The thoughts and ideas of beauty, of truth that ordinarily moved me toward people without agenda were suddenly marked by my singular desire to change them. My love and my trust in fate, in God lost its spirit, its color. Instead, I was scintillated by everyone but wanted no one. I chased false desires, false despair and false hope-- into raising my hands and raising my voice, striving for the habit of it. This has led to a season of selfishness and waste. 

I am now compelled to rebuild, to commit to writing those good pieces of these past eighteen months that time will burn away if I don't. It is the first of this practice to remember what of this past season was beautiful and true in an effort to forgive and submit to God what is and always was His good will. Effort being the operative word. My dear Christ, help my unbelief.

. . . 

I closed my eyes and saw an image through the static— my Brixton attic, a stone’s throw away from Her Majesty’s Prison. My friend rustled in her room downstairs, ending the evening under covers with On Beauty by Zadie Smith. Zadie. I sighed. She whispered, 

"It's easy to confuse a woman for a philosophy."

I had been in my own bed, watching the lights flicker out from the prison. They turned out one by one. I saw them: a figure sat on his bed, hunched with a letter in hand; another lay limp and hot with denial, another depressed, hopeful, listless, serene, seething, praying. I turned on my back and decided to pray. I often tried to pray, though there never seemed to be a reply. And today seemed no different, at the outset anyway. There was sleet on my skylight and no heat indoors because we were poor, but I prayed facing upward with my eyes wide open, my white breath like a shadow under a bleary moon. The words fell out as they did since I was a child - as when I held my father's hands as he taught me how to pray. I fumbled the words a little less now, but they felt more desperate and tonight, obscenely emotional almost in song, a dirge-- when all at once, warmth fissured inside my chest imbuing all that was deep. It was a sacred thing. Speaking of it seems to mar its purity, its security. Love had pierced my soul and opened it to the face of all humanity. My body suddenly radiated light and held immeasurable sorrow, held infinite joy and peace. 

I rose from my bed, throwing off the white duvet that had covered my cold shoulders. Brixton and the prison were dark through my window. It was midnight. Tears of desire and astonishment, of conversation seeped through the cracks. These were tears of having waited for something for a lifetime and having come to an end of unrest and doubt of ever finding. I stood up, taking care not to bang my head on the low brick roof, and slipped into the bathroom. In the mirror, I saw my face.

I opened my eyes and saw David washed with the same sensation, his green eyes on fire from a few chairs down. He stood there in a daze, contemplating completeness, his jaw still loose, his soul satisfied. He held himself in all fragility, wondering whether he should tell another soul, and he did, albeit hesitantly— he answered when I asked. Light fell from his lips. I recognized it immediately. This is what they should've meant by exchanging the peace. He embraced me, and as I pulled away, he pulled me closer—quickly, not at all tenderly, but as a brother does to touch the realness of family, of pure kinship. I was awestruck that I understood— that he understood.

For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you. O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires... All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children. 

Since that day above, David has expressed his dreams on how he plans to love marginalized people groups in this world through farming. Compassion. Mercy. Peace. Flowing from the gaze of God.

Oh, and Wikipedia recently told me that HM Prison Brixton had been converted to a training facility for prisoners a few years after I moved out of my attic room. The programme was meant to reduce recidivism, especially since so many had tried to commit suicide there. That and the drugs. Brixton was known for its drugs. How many hours, days, weeks, months had I prayed for that place. Nothing I prayed made any difference, or could it have?

a roman sunday

the getty villa
malibu, california
june 2015

Doodles: Spring to a New Yorker

My favorite time in a city with real seasons. I must be nostalgic or something.

The Thirst Series

from the archives...

Living Stones - Exiles and Aliens

One morning in October, I witnessed a blind man crossing a busy street in Port-au-Prince. Truck beds carting dozens of men and women approached and passed him with alarming speed. His walking stick was held out in front of him. It was warm out. The palm trees swayed. There was burning in the air. I watched from my car up the road. The man took a couple steps forward, and then another couple back, and repeated himself-- when suddenly, he plunged forward. My heart skipped two beats, but he had crossed the street safely as we passed him by. It struck me, how much I saw myself through the eyes of his blindness: I hadn't a clue what tomorrow would look like, but had gathered enough indication or evidence (and courage) to make a run for it. At the close of this chapter, I was moving back home to California.

That same morning in a small church in a sleepy town just across the Hudson River, Delimar rose to read a text and passed the mic to a minister. It was 1 Peter 2:4-10. I had lived in the net of their love for almost two years. A few days later, I was sitting with the verses on the tarmac at JFK asking myself, "Physically, practically, what does this spiritual house look like?" Last week, the same text resurfaced at the church I am currently attending, and I think I have seen a glimpse of what it means.

On one of the last Sunday mornings before I came back to California, I walked to the communion table to discover that there was no bread left in the basket. Everyone laughed (subdued in that peculiarly Baptist form of gentility) because for a young church plant this was an unexpected, tangible indication of growth. A quiet joy covered the congregation and new pieces of bread came from the kitchen. Elaine and I were the last ones to partake, and I remember taking that bread with her and thinking that this was probably the last time I would be sharing this meal with her. Elaine (and her husband, Phil) had given me a place to live, had fed me and even clothed me that year. We talked until the wee hours of the morning. We hiked to the tops of mountains and watched mindless TV shows and went out on the town. We bought groceries together. Phil advised me on men (as I was hopeless in that regard) and took me under his wing when I was at the end of my weariness. He salted the stairs of the front porch, pulled all the weeds from the garden, and killed all the spiders. I thought, "Though I know I'll visit, I know we won't have this life together again. Until we see You face to face, Lord. Maranatha." We took of the bread and the wine.

There came a good break in the Haiti project to pass it on, and I found myself in a car with all of my belongings at the airport. I embraced three ladies that had changed my life. A couple of weeks later, I was sitting in a prayer meeting surrounded by complete strangers. The pastor was talking about Myanmar, and looking straight into my soul. I left knowing that this was it, the next stomping ground. In high spirits, three days later, I received a devastating call. It shook my confidence in my ability to make decisions, to know right from wrong.

Had I made a mistake? Why had I left the home that I loved, the people that I loved? Because I was so convinced in obeying some intangible feeling? Had I moved in the wrong direction? I had never known so much doubt.

I sat in service on Sunday, feeling detached from my body. Thousands of miles away, I saw a hundred living stones laid in a far-away tower. They were going about in their apartments and with their families, sharing meals and laughing and crying together. Rob, one of my greatest mentors, once explained to me his native sense of saudades, and I can't say that my friends were lost to me-- but that grave aching was ever present as I sat there weeping.

The girl sitting in front of me turned around and saw me in my helpless state. It was Kira, a girl I had prayed with at the prayer meeting the week before. She asked if we could take communion together. I sat next to her, just as I had with Elaine those weeks prior. I saw Elaine smiling from the other end, seated those thousands of miles away. Hadn't her prayers been answered? Kira and I took of the bread and the wine.

The next couple of months progressed with some discomfort but ultimate wonder as I traveled further down the road with my new life. I was glad to be with my parents again, and glad to remember all the things that I had once loved as a child. Life was progressing. I was fashioned into a new part of the greater spiritual house, and was enjoying the process overall. Until last week, when through the pulpit came the voice of my old ministers. Hundreds of living souls shone from all the corners of the globe. I missed them all, all at once.

Gloria was feeding her son in a hippie high chair in Seattle. Kelicia was learning French in Bretagne. How long ago had we wandered the streets of 이태원 with her now husband? David bought a house in London! Rachel was already six-months old? Sarah was rocking her new job in Manhattan. Mihye was laying on her bed, contemplating the meaning of suffering. Little Yasmin in Mexico, was she still alive? Jenny! A living, answered prayer. Njeri. Wilton was macking on girls, Cindy's bun was growing, Joanna was dating, John was dating! Daniel was mourning and in wonder, Bobby was fighting through, Grace was fighting through, Marabishi was treating a psych patient, Samuél was feeding the children at his school. And here.... in Orange County, the souls around me glowed-- I was amazed, and so, so weary. I pled, "If eventually you want me to leave this place too, after all that You will build, after all that You have taught me to carry, to lay at Your feet-- I can't do it again. My heart lives in hundreds of different hearts and in a year, or two with these new, wonderful souls-- I will break if you tell me to leave them too."

I cried for a night, on the edge of loss and convinced that I knew the way God moved. Or maybe other people knew the way God moved. "More will come?" That's what some old man had said to me a couple of weeks ago. "More will come." I couldn't deal. I was drowning in the lives I had left behind. Two more had already come. I hadn't asked them to. Doesn't it always begin like this? I needed the presence of God, like heroin to a drug addict. This was ridiculous: desperate, deep and cavernous. I returned to what I knew. Test everything. Hold fast what is good. I was tired, and like the regular idiot I am, I fell fast asleep.

Then this morning, I woke up. Sometime later, Rachael and Brent from church texted. I had left a group chat the night before, but didn't realize it would announce my departure. When it did, Rachael and Brent had thought something was wrong. "I'm just messed up," I told Rachael. "Community is important," was the obvious response from them both. So, I turned my face upward in the only way that I knew how and was reminded:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated at the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new."

He is building us into a house that is more beautiful than we ever imagined. I thought of Babel, and our limited scope of sight. How He must have looked down and pitied the small vision of man. How He has transmuted it for His glory. He has and will continue to give us more than we need until that day when we can sit and live together again, all together, face-to-face with our living, gracious, and loving God. There is a completeness in the interconnected symphony of our individual souls. He has laid us as singular sounds to join in with a chorus that loves cities and nations, constantly being perfected by our dear Jesus Christ, despite our broken generations and corporate history. I cannot wait. I miss every soul I have left. I am moved to tears every time I think of each of them. I long for the day when I will sit at that table with all of you living souls. As glorious as these earthly experiences are, we are not home yet.

"As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

The Perseids

I met Jake several years ago today on the L train. He was reading The Concept of Anxiety, and I'd been interested myself so I asked him about it. The maple leaves fell gently around us as we walked home together. Turns out he'd been my neighbor all these years down in 29B. It was fate, or so we had thought.

The first Saturday following, we ran into each other again in an outdoor garden and chatted over a couple of beers. It was late afternoon and the light in the city was turning pink. I don't know if it was our age or the sweet nothings of New York, but we decided to come back to the same place the following week. And then it was a routine. I found him by the string of white Christmas lights, or next to a line of Polaroids hung from clothes pins. Over time, different friends had joined our Saturday afternoons. I guess it was just a product of still being in this city, in our thirties and becoming those age old creatures of habit we solemnly swore we would never become. We were such a trope, but I didn't care. It was Brooklyn. We defined trope. At least there was that.

Jake and I headed north last night to celebrate my birthday by watching for meteors in a shower called The Perseids. It was gorgeous out-- the air was thick and wet, smelling sweeter than ever. A few hours out, we found an empty clearing that seemed flat for miles. So we sat there, silently at first as our souls expanded beyond the confines of Manhattan's thinning streets and steel skyscrapers. I had closed my eyes, and opened them to the sound of Jake's voice explaining the story of Medusa. Perseus. He killed her or so the legend went as he poured us a couple miniature dixie cups of bourbon. I reached my hands out towards the sky and nearly touched another galaxy.

Though we saw nothing, or rather I saw nothing-- Jake says he did but I think he was lying or fooling himself-- the night was blissful anyway. I was growing tired of the city speed of things. The endless rooftop parties, large dinner parties, large gatherings in general were wearing thinner on my shoulders by the day. There was something about being able to hear someone that I missed. Thirty-one seemed like a quieter year. Jake had his bike. I wanted to get out of the city. It wasn't a thing. It was exactly what I had wanted.

The light was low and just breaking through when we found our way out of the woods. Jake lit a joint and finished it before we hit Queensboro, the new, more popular edges. We drove through a large Jewish cemetery. Rosenbaum. Rosenthal. Rosen-- it boggled my mind that they had all died in alphabetical order. Jake hugged the curves a bit too wildly, too obviously. A cop pulled us over.

'Dammit.'

He never cursed. He quit smoking years ago. Except for the tattoo that sprawled across his left ribcage, all remnants of rebellion had vanished. Anne told me a couple of weeks ago that Jake's mom had passed. He hadn't told me yet. I had known she had cancer, and I had known it was bad. I figured he would tell me when he was ready. I didn't know how anyone dealt with that sort of thing, or that he did. It made him such a contradiction. I could give him that, so long as it didn't become a habit.

Jake was a grad student at a small, conservative seminary-- the kind that was proud of piety and authority. He was a rising star and a darling of professors, if those exist in Bible school. It seems counterintuitive. And though I never understood what or to whom, he was always trying to prove himself. Maybe that was why we were friends. I didn't care for any of that posturing or what box he was trying to fit in.

I answered for him as he blubbered around for his license and registration.

'Morning, Officer.'
'You know, you were going fifteen miles over the speed limit?'
'I'm so sorry, Officer, it's just my dad's birthday and we need to make it back in time for his party, and we were supposed to be there for breakfast. We'll be so careful. We won't do it again.'

The officer looked at us quizzically, first at my obvious lie and then at Jake's sincere penitence. He must have been having a good morning, because he only said,

'You two look like a nice couple, so I'll let you off this time.'
'But we're not--'

Jake's honesty made me smile. We rode on through an alleyway, and it took us a longer time than usual to get back to Bushwick. He was making full stops and looking both ways.

'I probably shouldn't have driven you.'
'Why?'
'Never mind. Sometimes I don't know why I bother.'

Innocence beguiled and irritated him all at once. It felt as if we'd just spent the last fifty years together-- a bad sign for a Saturday.

'You want breakfast?'

It was more of a statement than a question. I was used to it by now. Caffeine made Jake a better man, so I only nodded and we were seated. We were suddenly in better spirits. The city around us was stirring and readying itself for pancakes and eggs benedict. He said grace.

The conversation took an optimistic turn. Our dreams ran out in front of us and skipped over our breakfast into morning as if they were school children linking and swinging arms. I think it was Jake's way of dealing with all that was going on in his life these days. He was relieved to talk about the things ahead; where he would be, what he would be doing, who he would be doing it with. Dreams. Possibilities. It was the kind of happy care you gave to your early twenties. He was a whole decade late, but so earnest. He started whistling a hymn.

'I wanted to become a professor,' he said.
'So then become one.'
'It doesn't just happen like that. I've got to be home for now. And you need money to do these kinds of things anyway.'
'Even for Bible school...' I laughed at him and he didn't look so amused. I sighed and leaned back. There was a family across the way. They were speaking in German, but the lady's stern admonishment was clear in any language. The child was wearing a sailor's hat. He had just shoved half a croissant in his mouth, and looked ready to cry. The boy's father had turned the slightest shade of blush.

'I'm sure you'd be great at it. What would you teach?'
'Theology.'
'Isn't that what seminary is?'
'Kind of, actually, it doesn't matter. What about you? I can't believe I've never asked,' he suddenly looked at me with a twinkle in his eye,
'What did you want to be when you grew up?'
'Oh, I always knew I'd be traveling the world, but I never thought I'd be doing it alone. I used to have these dreams when I was a kid, of being in Belize or Tel Aviv with some guitar-strapped sojourner. But now that I'm doing it alone, I kind of miss him and he's not even real. It's silly.'
'Just pick one up from off these street corners-- they're a dime a dozen.'

To be honest, I forgot what he said after that. There was a lot he said in those days that I just couldn't listen to-- mainly because they were reactionary or weren't true. We stopped by Goorin's afterwards to try on hats. The bell on the door tinkled as it opened and we were met by the musty scent of a very old store. It was cool inside and dim. I discovered a green bowler hat, put it on, and browsed further down the narrow aisle. When I turned, he was looking out the window-- shoulders low, back turned against me. I heard him murmur,

'Ma's gone.'
'I know. I heard from Annie.'
'But I don't really want to talk about it. I just wanted you to know.'
'You always say that but you do anyway.'

He turned around and the ghost evaporated. His eyes looked altogether differently at me, nakedly at first and then they were the only part of his face left to me. Hiding was how he coped, as most of us must. I watched as the old, familiar mask enveloped his soul and returned his face to the one he showed the world. Hat in hand, he smiled imploringly and said,

'How about this one?'

They say that the heart of a woman is pity. I smiled back, 'Decent.'

'Come on, let's get out of here.'

We walked through the store and down a couple of more warm blocks to the back of an empty restaurant. Lush forest-green ivy crawled high over the old brick facades. I took a seat at one of the wrought iron tables. The seat was rusting. Jake emerged with our drinks and suddenly launched into his thoughts without hesitation. It was our way, his way with me-- there was never any warning.

'Do you know what's the worst part of this whole thing? My dad. He got it the worst. He doesn't have anything anymore.'
'What do you mean? He's got you, he's got lots of people.'
'I mean his life's work. It's gone. All the things that he put his family through, her, us-- it all burned to the ground.'
'You think that's why your mom got sick? Because of him?'
'He loved her. He loved her more than he loved any of us. And she gave her life for his-- and the family we had built. Every day. We got up early and cleaned the pews, we stayed late and straightened up house. We went to soup kitchens on Christmas and shelters on Thanksgiving. We prayed, for hours and hours. And for what? It doesn't exist anymore. It's dead.'
'That's unfair. You don't know how your parents affected your community, and what the church did for the people that were there when it existed. You don't know any of the final things.'
'Yeah, I know, you're right. It just feels like he hasn't got anything now.'

Jake wasn't one for crying, but it looked like he'd cracked in half. His body slid lopsidedly as he pulled himself together. It was growing dark out and the neon red lights behind him had flickered on just a few minutes ago. He looked at his watch.

'Oh, I told Jane I'd be at her concert. We'll just stop by for a minute. It's outdoors. It'll be nice.'

We rushed out of the restaurant. The exhaust had dirtied my white silk blouse over the course of the night and day. We crossed bridges and roads, and soon were on the other side of the river. The river was an undulating, darkened mass that reflected hidden glimmers of city light. As we veered inward towards the heart of the island, the park came to view. We were in Chelsea. The band had already started and its sweet notes strained to reach our ears. Jake pulled back around to look for parking, slowing suddenly at the intersection on a small tree lined street. I recognized the old building to my right. de Kooning had lived in that complex. A lot had happened to him on this block. Rent had been $35 a month, he had gotten engaged here, and been evicted.

'Did you see that?' Jake yelled over the din of his bike.
'See what?'
'In the sky, it was a falling star. I swear I saw it. The Perseids.'
'No. It's too bright here anyway. It'd be almost impossible.'
'But I'm sure I saw something.'

A shot from an old trip to Italy, way back before Instagram filters.
If my memory serves me correctly, this Perseus is one commissioned by the Medici family.

*Music from Sufjan Steven's Carrie & Lowell, "Should Have Known Better"

Ljósið

A girl walked in this morning looking like spring. I looked down at my own knotted wool sweater about four lifetimes past its wearability and smiled. The juxtaposition launched a thousand images. I thought about what my mother would say. She teased, "You'll never get married if you keep that sweater." I thought about my unkempt hair. Very Highbrow was shaking her own neatly kept locks all the way from Japan. The computer screen said something about security interests. My End of the Bargain laughed from Samoa. I knew she'd say, "Friction, there's too much friction between the annals of property and human rights law."

And then quiet among the voices was a breath. "Be rooted."

I have wandered through a dozen cities and an entire decade en route to this gallery, into a chair I last sat in as a child; and today, though I had long been afraid of it-- of domesticating my rebellion and flight-- I have found an odd freedom in sitting still. Ask me again tomorrow and I might feel differently, but for now there is a light in doing the thing I had not wanted to do because I had been afraid of becoming tethered; but I am afraid no longer.


Light, by Ólafur Arnalds

It tolls for thee

Have I ever shared with you my favorite poem in all of literature? It's quite famous and old, but it never rings less true and never fails to inspire:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 
It tolls for thee. 

John Donne
Meditation 17
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

Expiation

She felt a dark thread leave her body and it traveled high towards the stars above her on a path marked by a prayer that had descended upon her soul in the night. Please cleanse me of the sins that have been committed against me-- against my life and body and soul, she had asked. She had never asked such a deed be done, but immediately there was a newness, a lightness, a joy that overcame-- and she understood a new definition of an old word, a new forgiveness and liberty.

For anyone who knows what it means to chase knowledge...

So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,

Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,

The eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;

But, those attained, we tremble to survey

The growing labors of the lengthened way,

The increasing prospect tires our wand'ring eyes,

Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

- Essay on Criticism (c. 1711), Alexander Pope 
via a letter from a soul sister, My End of the Bargain

A New York Night

I was crouched low to the ground flipping frenetically through out-of-print editions. Vsevolod Garshin found me the day before at the Metropolitan with Grace, and I went home to read all of his work. Yes, all. Muses don't come by as often as they used to. Inspiration had been buried under a quieter life and the polar vortex-- the embers had pressed themselves inward. Inspiration was no less existent, but overlooked... that is, until Four Days detonated within me. Vsevolod's interior monologue captures a wounded soldier left immobilized and face-to-face for days with the corpse of a young soldier he had killed. I needed to get my hands on a physical copy. 

I had been meaning to visit all the dying, forgotten bookstores of the city before I left. But when Tuesday rolled around, I was late from work and had gotten lost somewhere around Union Square. I settled accordingly on visiting The Strand, a home I love and hate all at once. Sarah browsed patiently as I searched high and low for my new lover, who was not to be found in the entire establishment.

Disappointed, we settled on a more traditional night out and found ourselves walking towards SoHo, through another wonderful bookstore and into the tiny, European comforts of YN, the best girl-date bar in New York City (in my and Very Highbrow's humble opinion). We talked, at first tentatively, as it is with most humans, until we couldn't.

- You've never seen the face of a man you love deeply, you've never mutilated that face to a thing you hardly recognize... Parting ways with him was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. And the fact that in all my legalistic torture-- I put him there? What the hell is an unequal yolk? Some people endure suffering as victim, as the persecuted. Their hands are clean. Amy's mom died, David's mom died, Franz-Pol's mom died, Daniel's mom died. And their stories came to me like burning coal on my soul. There are so many aspects of their protracted suffering that make me angry, that make me humble, that drive me to the end of all my questioning. But there's another kind of suffering when you are the harbinger of pain, when you bring the destruction-- that's altogether different. When you look that squarely in the face, you'll never think of yourself in the same way.

She looked at me as if she was looking inside of herself. I couldn't tell what she was thinking, so laughed saying,

- Sarah, I mean, I was so distraught that-- you know that virus that plagues only the frail and elderly? Yeah, I gave myself shingles. Anyway, it was a million years ago.

She almost snorted. We went on to talk about God and life, and about the real strength of women.

We parted ways at the top of the island. I stood waiting for a tardy bus, and arrived at home at an obscene hour. But in this very small hour of morning, I found a small red book at the bottom of my bookshelf. Johanna had bought me a collection of Great Russian Short Stories when she had visited some time last year. I had read through them all in a day. Voraciously. And then had forgotten: Vsevolod was with me all this time.

Instead at The Strand, I had purchased my favorite. Keats. I bought this monetarily worthless copy because I found a cutout quotation from a playbill within. Fitzgerald has haunted me in NYC, in ways I can't yet understand. I always thought I outgrew him sometime between ages 15 and 16, but his ghost seems to have sought me out. Maybe I will always be that fanciful. I always say I ought to have been born in a different century. Sometimes, I find myself in old paintings and poems. Like here,

... Already with thee! tender is the night

And then I found Shirley, littered with Chenier. Chenier, who understands-- the desire to finish a year and see the harvest. Who knows why I'm always listening to the rules. Who knows why I am going where I am going. I am ever a slow, plodding wanderer, and not for want. In the words of a dear friend, desire is a function of will. Perhaps one day more of my emotions will align.

I have not seen even the fire of morning,

I want to complete my day!

Malala, Martin and Martin

I have nothing original to say on the topic except to reiterate and braid some disparate threads. 

Malala Yousafzai finally wins the Nobel Peace Prize, and she shares it with Kailash Satyarthi, Indian children's rights activist. Malala is universally recognized for her activism, especially regarding education for girls. Her story is one of peace in the face of interminable violence. It also illuminates that the Taliban and other unrecognized, militant, terrorist entities are not sustained by their own breath. Hate begets hate. We in the States don't think carefully on this fact, because we don't see who suffers for our deeds.

In undergrad, I asked myself incessantly, so what is our part? What should we do in the face of violence and suffering? I was obsessed with the writings and speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence, you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that."

How do we love here? We can act: we can go, we can pray, we can advocate-- we can speak. 

The following is a poem Malala's father kept in his pocket. The page is an excerpt from her eyewitness account and memoir, I am Malala. She was just sixteen when the book was published.

Pakistani Teen Malala Yousafzai Shares Nobel Peace Prize

At 17, Malala becomes the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner in history

A Seattle Minute

It’s been over a year since I’d been back in this town, yet so much has changed. Things feel different here; or maybe it’s that I’ve been given a new space and the old one’s gone, but I walked to this café like a ghost thinking— “I loved that park once, that café, that restaurant, that view, this crosswalk…” Life is fast— just as much as I have changed and checked my demons, so have the people that surround. This morning I met with G and her baby buckled to an eco-friendly carseat in the back of her Prius. The fact that her life had changed forever dawned on me. Baby. E. I touched his little hands and his little feet. He blew me kisses and held my fingers. Skype did none of this justice. We visited the house she and her husband are building at the top of one of Seattle’s seven hills. She pulled out the blueprints on her laptop. It was as if our life together had gotten up, grown legs, and walked off without me.

Soon after I arrived in town, an onslaught of friends and colleagues ignited my phone. I love seeing every one of them. I am who I am because of them. But amid the clanking of silverware, between bites of autumn squash frittata, boon, or salted cod, above the din of old conversations finding new— I remember I also love Seattle for moments like this: moments alone.

There is a man in his early thirties sitting across from me, tall and bearded, donned in a proper nylon rain jacket, dirty jeans, and noise-canceling headphones that seal him off from the world. He is drinking a beer before noon and reading a thin novel with no title on its cover. His chalice says, “La Fin Du Monde.” I remember sitting with E on a bus as the sun was setting deep in South London where she remarked,

- I've been seeing that everywhere recently.

- Seeing what?

She pointed to the pub sign, “La Fin Du Monde,”

- That phrase, “the end of the world.”

She mused on about Stephen Fry, or was it Zadie? I hadn’t thought about that memory until today (six years later!) when I saw this man drinking from a cup with the same insignia, that single, empty chalice on the worn, wooden table across from mine. He caught my eye as I read him, and it’s as if he said,

“This is the end of the world. Where we are today. We are born to die. We live on the edge of life at all times— it’s a terrifying but reassuring idea. It frees us from the ideas that constrain us—the fears; of the unknown, the future, and humanity— it makes us bare to our desires.”

His expression is one of complete arrest, far more intense than the generally gentle gypsies of this town. It reminds me of a professor I once knew. Actually, the professor had said all of those thoughts. In reality, this man sitting here is probably only bothered by my shamelessness. Rudeness is the worst offense here, just the way laziness is in New York. We are upstairs in my used-to-be usual corner. There is a couple downstairs: two elderly women talking a bit too loudly about a special they saw on PBS. Nazi life post World War II. The man on his laptop behind them looks slightly perturbed. He’s got a weathered murse to match his weathered face. I glance at his screen from above. He is coding. Only in Seattle would you find a man in his 50s, coding.

I worked for a judge once that told me a story of one of the first computers built in Seattle. His clerk was on maternity leave, and his secretary was at lunch. Sitting there in chambers, surrounded by windows, ancient wood and paraphernalia from his clients from around the world, I had tiptoed in to set a motion on his desk. When I asked him about his family portrait, he got talking about his family and then his wife, and then her fixation with a machine. “This machine,” she had told him as a late teen, “is going to change the life of every human on this planet.” I told him that I could see why he married her. He sunk in his leather cloud from behind the giant oak desk, robes off before his next case. His aging face lit up the dark, gray sky.

I came to town for a wedding, a cosmopolitan love affair that traipses all kinds of continents, years and life circumstances. The wedding was beautiful, mainly because the couple was so beautiful—radiating life and happiness. The bride was clothed in her constant joyous composure, the groom in his ever flippant anti-cajolery, and they were surrounded by proud family, friends and a magnanimous view of the Sound (the eighth wonder of the world). Someday, I hope when they are old and gray, they will let me write their story of young love. But for now I am off again to lunch with dear C. She is back from a year in India with her own stories of travel, love and new chapters. 

Augustine: Confessions Book 10, Chapter 27

Winter 2010. It was the worst winter in Seattle for many years. The city shut down. No one went to work. The hills were blanketed with that foreign white substance. I was indoors reading my damned civ pro outline; Luke was on the couch watching television. Friends stopped by when they could. I'd hand them a glass of wine. We drank more than we should have.

I was editing a research paper that some friends and I had written in the fall. The policy objectives were simple. I.e. forced sterilization is unsafe and torturous. Your numbers are out of control. Education and awareness. Access. Condoms? Birth control pills? Safe. Effective. Cheap.

The snow was falling, and I flipped through stories of women being mutilated-- I flirted with words. "Free of coercion?" "Violence?" "Forced?" "Involuntary?" "Eugenics?" Disgusted, I'd wander back to my school work. Interminably restless, I'd come back to the research report. This happened in cycles until I threw my hands in the air and thought of the best solution, "Wine!" 

I remember one winter day, when the snow had melted into weeks of freezing rain, I heard a song called Late Have I Loved You. I couldn't stop listening to it. These words were so different from the others. I must have played it at least a thousand times over the next three years.

"You called and you shouted, you broke through my deafness; You flashed and you shone, dispelled all my blindness; You breathed your fragrance on me."

I found the words again today, in a poem written by the infamous Augustine. He is like a grandpa whose words I have heeded (kind of, not really) since I was a child when one of my teachers gave me his Confessions to read. All this to say, that the following words are true and recurrently so:

Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new: late have I loved you. 

And see, you were within and I was abroad, 

and I searched for you there;

deformed I plunged into those lovely things which you made. 

You were with me, but I was not with you. 

The lovely things kept me far from you, 

though if they were not in you, they were not at all. 

You called and you shouted and shattered my deafness. 

You flashed and you shone, you scattered my blindness. 

You breathed fragrance on me, 

and I drew in my breath and now I pant after you. 

I tasted, and hunger and thirst. 

You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

Oh, you dance, dance like how?

Four years ago, I met a girl in the mountains in a small, wooden cafe. She had set her aviators on the table in front of her, and a distressed leather jacket was slung over the chair behind her. Around her neck hung a very large camera, and her body was framed by a perfect gray linen dress. It showed her figure just slightly as she swayed towards the counter to pick up her tea. Elle was tall and athletic, with long wavy blond hair and gleeful, clear blue eyes. She was marked by something tragic, something I was sure she didn't bring upon herself-- an injustice that life had ordained for her. It was a symbol of her quiet strength, a posture she wore with elegance. When she smiled, it was as if the whole world was a better place.

However, what defined her was not the cafe (it smelled like wet pine and ground coffee), nor the smooth, worn table we sat at, nor the way she inclined her head when she listened. It was in the words that came out of her mouth. Her words, her mind said to you that she was like the light. She was someone that the world and circumstance couldn't mar. She was pure and artful. Elle radiated goodness. 

I'm sure you've met her too. 

I spent a good portion of my life trying to be that girl. Her blitheness is attractive-- these women are apparently never without. But somewhere on the course of the past several years, I discovered that no matter how hard I try, I will never be one of these unmarred nymphs. In fact, I am broken. Sure, there are minutes when I feel graceful and exemplary, but there are many, many more when I am falling flat on my face. In fact, all of the women that I know and find beautiful are a little misshapen by life, full of past fortunes and past regrets, gorgeous alloys of truth and aspiration.

I was in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago, having drinks with a friend (called W) and recounting a hilarious tale of my woes regarding men. Some of the dating blunders I have made are unbelievable. After laughing heartily over my failures, W paused for a moment and called me a "beautiful disaster." I graduated from law school and never took the bar. I made films I've never watched. I've written two-thirds of a novel. I have seen a thousand flowers fail to bloom. But I will always own to my actions, and try to run farther and try to do better the next time around. I wasn't sure how to take W's attribution then, but I do now: it is the truth, and so I embrace it. I am a beautiful disaster.

I have concluded that to be able to venture out, to get it wrong or right, to move to action and to give is to be brave. There is strength in our courage to be weak, to live in our pains and follies. Our broken shards point both to our humanity and something other within. So I get it wrong all the time; I'm always a mess, my "dress [is] hanging off my shoulder, barely sober." I'm always "making plans and starting over" and always always dancing through disaster; but in the bruises and scars of my aging skin, I see healing and something beautiful growing in the stead of all my mistakes. I'm growing to find a definition of beauty that is irresistible.

(And yes, I quoted a sad Drake song. I'm that girl.)

Shots, Recently

Vampire Mimes (Hopper Drawings at the Whitney)
P.C.: Betty Ho

A very highbrow burger (Betty, Shake Shack near CP)

Rush (Happy, upstate)

Hayride (M. Freire, apple picking in New Jersey)

Calendars are important here (Sarah, living room)

Guests en route to some place far, far away (Courtney & Sheikh, Alphabet)

I couldn't resist a second (it's the site of their first date!)

A yogi and a dog (Glo on Bear Mountain)

doing American Gothic (but really they're cousins)

Talking about steak tartare (Michelle and Betty in the Village)

Boozy brunch (Court and Jo at Cafe Cortadito)

People always talk about the light in Paris but... (Empire State at dusk)

One happy diva     

Hiking shenanigans (Glo, Joyce, Elaine, upstate)

High 5! (Glo)

Training Happy Mango (Elaine, on top of the world)

the Road (not a la Cormac McCarthy)

Swanky since kindergarten (Grace and Betty on top of Columbus Circle)
P.C. a patient server

Puppy burrito! (chez moi)