Yes, Invest!

It’s why I climbed this mountain. It’s why I baked those muffins gluten free. It’s why I started going vegan. It’s why I kissed that handsome older man. Writing’s all about collecting the experience, after all.

When he walked into the kitchen, I was doing nothing short of minding my own business. I sat at the end of the table toying with the idea, and making eyes, since I figured it couldn’t hurt. I was just practicing the skills that manifested in my feminine wiles. But there was nothing to act on. I was just practicing. That’s not to say that he wasn’t an attractive older gentleman, and that things didn’t seem to flow seamlessly. But I had a deadline, you see, and I had things to do the next day. He was charming enough to take a break from glowing box. I was trying to work, but I think he said he said he was a pilot. I can’t remember what caused my ear to perk up. Perhaps he mentioned that he new how to become a federal air marshal. It had something to do with flying.

The hours rushed over me that night. I’ve never been so intimidated than by someone who has had the luxury of more time and experience. A life lived in the mountains, with so much more time on this planet. Time spent reading more books, exploring more locations. It’s not that I think I don’t have anything to offer by way of experience. It’s just that I don’t want to be compared to the insurmountable amount of moments that he has piled in his favor. I don’t want to have to wonder about all of the different people that he’s been before I was even my first person.

A man who has given his life to the skies and to recklessness, but to development, consciousness and awareness as well. I couldn’t help but be intrigued. I played at the edge of my fears and I let him in a tiny bit. Then I escaped.

I’ve been taking everything in. Saying yes, when I would normally say no, and then only letting it get so far. I play this game as most writers do, to gain the experiences that you can write about. If you did what everyone else did, they’d really have no reason to read about the things that you do. So you collect. You set yourself apart. You write. You experience to write. And you write for experience.

“Damn hippies will let anything slide. They’ll call it art, or expression, or whatever. But it’s ridiculous. It’s just a bunch of f*cking graffiti,” Marley said as he slammed his coffee down. Jenny crumpled her forehead, looked around the coffee shop, and then shot him a disapproving glance.

“You don’t have to get so angry about it,” she said.

” I didn’t mean to set it down that hard,” he said as he reached across the table grabbing the hand of the slight woman sitting opposite  him. “It’s just annoying. This city could have been utopia, you know. It’s right by the mountains. It was ripe for growth and expansion in the nineties. Now it’s just a bunch of pot loving hippies everywhere. And now those hippies are costing us money, Jenny.”

“I doubt that’s the case, but even if it were, we have enough… dearest,” she said.

“Oh god. That just proves it. We’ve been here too long. Are you going to start with that whole ‘money isn’t everything‘ song and dance?” Marley threw up his fingers and gestured with air quotes wildly.

“Did you learn that from your ‘enlightened‘ yoga teacher? You know, that yoga isn’t cheap… dearest. That ‘guru‘ of yours probably makes a fortune” he said.

“I hate it when you use ‘air quotes’. It makes you look like an ‘asshole’,” she said, gesturing mockingly.

“I am an asshole.”

“You don’t have to be so proud of it.”

“I am proud. Just like those damn ‘artists’ are proud to paint garbage all over the side of our building.”

“I don’t know. I think we should keep it there. It makes the place look more hip. I actually kind of like it. You know they give kids scholarships for stuff like this these days. Maybe it is art.”

“Oh my god, Jenny. That’s crazy. What happened to good old athletic scholarships? That doesn’t involve property damage. You really want to let them think they can do anything, anywhere, like they’re free to just… whatever.” At this he flung his arms open and knocked his coffee clear off the table.

“Lovely, dear. Are you going to blame that on the hippies as well?”

“Well if it weren’t for all this damn graffiti, this never would have happened in the first place.”

In all of this time, I don’t think I’ve ever been happy without ever exaggerating or reaching for the feeling. I’m not sure that I’ve ever been truly happy until this moment. I’d like to take this opportunity to attempt to describe something beyond the limitations of words.

This moment: It’s so full without grasping, so vibrant without coaxing, and it’s not because of anything.  It’s brought tears to my eyes as I stare at the mountains, tuck my tailbone under, lengthen my spine, elongate my neck, and let my words spill out onto the page. It struck me hard enough to pull up this page and document it.  I wanted to pull the words from my heart as the breeze swirled my hair in front of  my shaded eyes and the sun brought a brightness back that I had been seeking, but had never found. It struck me hard enough to pull out the camera and try to shoot it. But it’s truly not something that I can capture. It’s not the mountains, or the sun in the cloudless sky. It’s the lack of need, the lack of desire, and the awakening of understanding that is making this moment so profound. In this moment, this mundane, obscure moment, I have it all. I’ve never felt so full and joyful in my entire life, because I’m not looking or wanting or waiting. I’m not trying to find the pleasure in pleasing others and making them laugh so I can feel good about myself. I’m not living in the collapsed way that I’m used to. My breath is powerful and clear, and my body feels the same. My eyes are relaxed and open. I occupy this space that is my body, and in that, I am free.

Every time I try to hold onto this moment as I document it and feel it, a twinge of anxiety comes back up telling me that I have something else that I need to do and that I should soak it all in and get it over with. It tells me that I’m not saying it right, that I should make a joke, and that people will read this and just think I’m some stupid stoned hippie doing yoga in the mountains. It pulls down at my heart, and tries to sink me into the folded person that I normally would be around this time. Smiling, but sagging. Laughing, but in a confused way. Constantly for a way to be and a way to live. Constantly reaching for a way to capture the illusive.

Since I’ve already spend most of my life living that way, I just catch the voice, thank myself for catching it and breathe in a little more of the mystery of what makes this moment so brilliant without it being tangible. I don’t try to cage it in words. I revel in it and let it wash over me. I let the words come from this beautiful moment, but I don’t chain it to this description. I let it come into my breath and my heart and it’s an indescribable perfect form of energy that I’ve never experienced before.

“Hey. You looking for some company tonight?”

His voice was nice. Perhaps he was handsome. She slyly looked over her shoulder. No one was there. She twirled around on her stool in a full circle and saw no one. She glanced around to make sure that no one had seen her acting so ridiculous. Apparently, no one noticed. Thank goodness. She laughed to herself as she looked down at her drink, and thought that it was too early in the evening to be having delusions about a good looking man picking her up at this little dive bar tonight.

“What’s so funny?”

“Holy sh*t!” she yelled as tumbled off her stool.

Hanging onto the bar, she frantically looked around. She saw the bartender drying a glass down the bar, and looked at him for an explanation. He looked up at her and just shook his head disapprovingly. That’s it. She was finally cracking up. She settled herself back on her seat, took a big drink, and shook her head.

“Maybe you should slow down there, lady. There’s no reason to get all sloppy.”

She looked around and stood up, no longer frightened, but angry that someone was playing a trick on her and succeeding. She called the bartender over.

“Okay, so what’s the game? Do you have some kind of speaker system? Is this a trick you play on people who are new to the area? Whatever it is, it’s ridiculous and I demand that you stop… and bring me more gin… please… too.”

“Gigs up Jerry. I told you to stop doing this to new customers. If you would just let us introduce you and explain, I wouldn’t have to worry about you scaring off business,” said the bartender as he poured her another gin. “This one’s on the house. Sorry, darlin.”

“Wait. What?”

“Name’s Jerry,” a glove floated up and took her hand up. “It’s good to meet you. Sorry about that. Just having a bit of fun. Don’t get too much of it ’round here.”

She pulled her hand away and looked at the bartender who appeared to be both calm and sane, “What the? Is that a ghost? What is it? Is this a trick?”

“Sorry lady. Jerry takes some getting used to. He can be a little, well, you know… rude. Well… that, and he’s invisible. There was some kind of accident or something. I don’t know. He doesn’t like to talk about it. He just wants to be treated like a normal guy. That is, unless he’s trying to entertain himself and scare off my customers.”

“Quit talking about me like I’m not here. Just cause you can’t see me doesn’t mean I don’t exist.”

“What? How does nobody know about… Are you a CIA agent? Is this a-”

“Shhhhhh,” he said as he brought his gloved finger up to her mouth, “So, you never answered me. You looking for some company tonight?”

fin.

True story about the pic: The 40′s were too cold when a group of friends tried to play Edward 40 hands last week, so we taped them to gloves. When they finished and took the gloves off, it looked like the invisible man was playing the game. Twas pretty awesome.

*Beware: Not all photnograf hours are my best hours. Sometimes, only crud comes out. This is a hilarious and ridiculous example of that. I would have written something palatable, but I wanted to be true to the experimental nature of this blog and stick to it… So, read at your own risk…

Her phone rings and she runs to it, thinking that it could be anyone. She’d probably ignore it no matter who it was. But it was him, and the part of her that lies in every woman, the part that wants to have a fight in an alley with someone she used to know, picks up the phone. After exchanging some forced pleasantries, they begin to talk about the present and the future.

Her: It’s odd living in a place that isn’t yours for so long.

Him: Have you looked into all of their stuff?

Her: Not really. No. But I found a Ukulele. I’m going to miss that thing and the dog.

Him: Where are you going next?

Her: My parents for a couple of weeks, and then I’m off to Denver.

Him: Why don’t you come back?

Her: I couldn’t. I’m too far…

Him: No. You’re not.

Her: You didn’t let me finish. I’m too far gone. So are you. You know, if you could have just waited for a couple of months before moving on with someone in my family, I would have come to the conclusion that I wanted to be with you. I would have been back to work on things. We could have created something beautiful.

Him: You wouldn’t have.

Her: Think what you want.

Him: You wouldn’t have.

Her: Why are you calling?

Him: I wanted to say goodbye. Or to see if we could be friends.

Her: God.

Him: I still have these feelings. I still care about you.

Her: I’m leaving you in this place. They may have to get an exorcist to get you out, but you’re staying here.

Fin

I’ve been in this place for a month now and it’s drawing to a close. What I wouldn’t give to trade it all in and stay here forever, build a life like this one. Alas, I have to give it back to it’s rightful owners tomorrow afternoon. That’s what inspired this crap… Where the rest of it came from, well…. blecht!

I had this dream where I lost all grace and tumbled forward, into the crowds of men, forgetting the steps that we all know, in the dance you do in the busy city streets. I had a dream that they looked at me like I was supposed to know how to do this. Their eyes said that I was missing my instincts, that I would have to find them somewhere else.

I stumbled and looked. And every where I turned, more crowds, more dancers. There was no rhythm to their steps and I couldn’t find a pace to copy. There was no hope to memorize the coreographed movement. Purely chaotic. How did everyone make it through? How did they skip the collision without noticing that that’s where they were headed? How did they decide who should switch places with whom? How did they glide between each other with their necks bent to their iPhones? I couldn’t do it. I bumped along in between an executive assistant, a street vendor, a man in a suit, and a child, as I stumbled backwards, not wanting to be a bother to anyone.  I would never make it through.

Perhaps it was time to move back to the country, where the dance was slower and the days were longer.

I was pushed back to a white rink in the city center and they all accelerated their speed and glided now, where I could only imagine trudging, collapsing. They must have been pulled around by magical strings, I sullenly thought. As soon as I thought it, it became. The strings that I could now see, were attached to every one, as they twirled around the rink. I saw mine too and noticed that it was beginning to fray. It was attached to my forehead at the center. It glowed in gold. I stood cross eyed and rubbed at the string. I rolled it in my palms and tried to repair it. The more I rubbed, the more damage I did.

I looked around again, no one seemed to notice the cords that pulled them forward. No one noticed that their strings were in various forms of disrepair. Some seemed perfect. Those who glided gracefully and danced with clear eyes and kind faces were safely connected. Some were held on by a thread. They stumbled at every turn, frustrated with the forced sport. You could see as their eyes darted that they wondered who saw their stumbles. They held tight to the edge and grinded their blades into the ice below.

I stepped onto the slick, into a group of young, fast men. I closed my eyes and felt myself being pulled forward, first by the string, then from all seven points. As I let go, it tugged me forward, into the dance, as the fray faded away.

Then, I was back in the old place, gazing out of the old window. And I understood. And I woke.

How many people make up who we are? This isn’t a post about being a schizophrenic self-photographer. It’s a post about being multi-faceted. It’s about trying to capture the moment, to express the feelings with the face, with a look.

It’s about that veil that rises and falls, that is pushed to one side and then the next when prevailing thoughts and moods change. It’s about the moments when the curtain of the ego is thin, when it’s thick, when it changes into red velvet, and when it turns to light green netting. It’s about the way we see and remember the world through the different drapes.

It’s about how all of those faces are mine but none of them are me. It’s about wondering if you look the way you feel. It’s about the flooding thoughts that keep you sane and the ones that take you in the opposite direction. It’s about getting stronger every day and looking forward. It’s about losing sleep and being drawn back in time.

On those nights, your mind can turn those happy memories sour, but it can also play that other trick. It can make you look upon these old photographs and miss the clues. What seems so simple in this number nailed to the tree may not be. Do you really remember? Or do you only remember the smell of the warm Ozark air, walking away from the beaming light of the box that housed your recipes, winding down the hills, smoking cigarettes, and eating cookies in the dark. You felt alone in that silence then, too. You ran away to take this shot. Don’t forget.

Why must it seem impossible to stay completely resolute about anything? At times, some of the decisions that made the most sense to your life path come back in the night and make you wonder, “What if?” Why must the way you feel about these past events change without the events themselves ever changing. It’s just you that moves and shifts. The past is the past and it’s gone.

Dear Pointless Old Lover,

The audacity of it all. The big britches you think you’ve left to fill. You really think that there’s no way that I’d find anyone like you. You made it clear that you’d taken the bar with you when we agreed that things were over.

Sure, who will I find that could lie to me like you did? Who could I let into my life that would betray my trust in as many ways as you did? Who else would force me into roles that I didn’t want to play? Who else would start dating my nephew’s mother less than a month after we broke up? Who else would blame me for all of those things? How can you blame me for making you date my brother’s girlfriend while they were still living together? How can you even begin to make that my fault?

You’re such a winner. Oh, that was the wrong word. I think I was looking for moron. You’re such a moron.

When I think of you holding my nephew like he’s your son, I throw up a little bit. When I start to miss you, I think of the way that you look at the mother of my kin like she’s me, and I can’t help but let everything bubble up and out. Otherwise it might fester inside of me and grow like a cancer.

It threatened to do that when I was looking for a picture for this post on this blog, and I saw a picture that I took of the two of you together. It made me sick. So I decided to write a letter to you in a public forum and talk about what a giant duche you are.

It’s funny. I forgave you for everything until a few weeks ago. It was cool that you lied to me. It was fine that you picked her over me. We were all better off. But then you had the audacity to tell me that you still had the same feelings for me as you did when I was an administrative assistant. How dare you say that kind of thing to me when you’re with another woman. Then, you had the audacity to say that this was all my fault. Then you had the audacity to send me a drunken text message about how I would never do better because I’m selfish. You’re a pr*ck.

I can’t be sure that you wanted to leave me with so much baggage that no one else would want me. I’m not sure if you did it on purpose.   When the conversation veers towards talking about exes, I’ll just start to pretend that I set you two up. I mean, you say it was all because of me anyway. I might as well be able to take credit for the happy couple. I wish you nothing but the… well, I wish you nothing.

You’re right. I hope that I never find anyone like you ever again. I hope that I never find anyone with the audacity to be such a blatant jacka**, such an insignificant j*rk *ff, and such a hopeless piece of sh*t.

Love,

Corinne

Photo: Corinne Tobias

I was on a first date the other night when I started doing that lame thing that only I can fully pull off. I started talking about the types of food that I can’t/won’t eat. I prefer a gluten free, organic, mostly raw, minimally processed, vegan diet. Yes, I realize that when I type it out, it looks super lame and like I’m some kind of neurotic, anorexic freak. This is why I always have to make sure to counter that with a proclamation of my love for food.

It’s true, I have a lot of dietary restrictions based on Western standards, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love food. LOVE it? That’s really an understatement. I would die without food (so would you). If I couldn’t dream about it, think about it, and eat it, my life would be such a desolate and boring place. Okay, that’s starting to sound a little crazy in the other direction. But my favorite thing to do with food? I love taking pictures of it.

I know that people talk a lot of smack about food photography lovers. I get that you don’t care what I had for lunch. I totally understand that. But when I cook something, when I create it, and lovingly plate it, and garnish it, and find great lighting and an interesting back drop for a dish, everything begins to feel like it’s flowing together. And then when I take thirty or forty pictures and only five make the cut, I’m so proud of those five photos. If I can preserve that moment of fleeting creation, I can remember the joy of cooking it and eating it. By investing myself in it, I become so aware of the dish. Food becomes more intimate and meaninful. I’m mindful of the way it looks, smells, and tastes more than I would have been if I just whipped it up and ate it.

Fin.

I really could go on about food photography forever, but alas, we’re out of time this week.

Do you have any food photos or photographic stories that you’d like to share?

It’s the kind of trouble that we all get ourselves into when we think that we completely understand the game. When we’ve got the rules down pat and they seem to change, or we seem to forget them, or we begin only to play by the ones that we like.

It’s the kind of trouble that we get into when we think we’re the best at the game, when we start feeling like we can’t lose. When the odds are so stacked in our favor that we become reckless and lose sight of our opponents. It’s the kind that starts out with us thinking that we’re so far ahead that no one could possibly catch up.

It’s the kind of trouble that we all get ourselves into when we think we’re so terrible at the game that there’s no point in playing it. When we’ve lost so many times in the past that we believe that it’s just not our game. It’s the kind that makes us bow out gracefully.

It’s the kind of trouble we get into when the game changes completely, and everything is foreign, and everything seems unfair. The kind that makes us fear the game we’re playing and long for the one that we played last week with the people we knew back then. The kind that makes us wish for the moment when we know what we’re doing, when we’re winning.

It’s a new game, Sally. Learn the rules or free the chair.

Fin.

Man, sometimes I love these hour long photo stories and sometimes they’re super painful. This one was pretty fun. I love when they go in an odd direction that I don’t mean for them to. It’s like being a criminal investigator trying to figure out where the words are leading you. Sometimes they really suck, but I’m okay with that too.

I really wanted to tell the true tale of this picture for this post, but one of my rules is that I can’t premeditate the post. I have to let it go where it wants to go. On Christmas, my cousins and I made up new rules for Trouble and added a special “Rock, Paper, Scissor” match every time your peg hit another player’s peg. Then we had to play it on speed mode because Christmas dinner was on in five minutes. So we’re all popping the button, hitting each other, and having lightning RPS matches, giggling all the while. It was purdy cute.

Anywho, you got any photo stories you’d like to share? Bring it!

This journey was only weeks ago and it already seems like a vapor in my mind. I remember that it was when contentment and happiness began filling my every step. I recall that giant rock. The one that I stared at for hours. It was more than meditating to me. It was focusing, realizing that the gaps didn’t always need to be filled in.

It was peanut butter and papaya sandwiches and basil tea.  It was the monkeys leaping from the trees for the fences, for the bananas that the children eagerly put there. It was they wanted to show me that the monkeys come when you put out bananas. No big deal. It was the way they looked at my overwhelming joy with curiosity. For me, they were the first ones I had ever seen that weren’t in captivity. For them, they were as common as squirrels. They asked me if I wanted to see those too.

It was the black boys with machetes. The puppies with mange. The garbage. The black sand mixed with the white sand. The long walks onto the shelf of the dead reef. Watching the sea birds pick from the holes underneath the water. Being amazed that they didn’t move when I was close. Feeling like a Caribbean Snow White as I inched closer. The vultures who were more daring. Who would take a step in my direction without faltering when I stepped forward too.

The way the days smelled like warm wet pine and palm and marijuana. The jungle where the road ends. It was Linda and her 19 year old cat. It was her flustered merriment, her flustered anger, her rightfulness, her vulnerability.

It was seeing it and thinking it over and again. Pomeranians on a hot tin roof. Pomeranians on a hot tin roof. Pomeranians on a hot tin roof. So I wouldn’t forget.

There was nothing special about her. There was nothing at all that set her apart from the other girls in the seaside hovel that glowed blue from the outside. Inside, they all thought too loudly to hear the warm rain pounding down on the corrugated metal roof.

There was nothing that set her apart from the other girls, all away from home for the first time, drinking the national beer. She was nothing special. All of the new girls felt the same way. They let the welcome stranger crawl into their skin for the evening as the beer started to fill their mouths with bitter drought and their minds with warm fog.  The men looked on, sweaty. Their eyes played the trick that most men’s eyes do, that made all of the girls the same.

As she leaned up against the cement wall, she cocked out her left leg and propped herself up using her bare right foot. She had light skin and dark eyes. She was so light because she never really had a real reason to leave the kitchen when she was at home. It’s where everything happened where she came from. But she wasn’t at home right now, and there was a slow bubbling beginning in her stomach making its way to her prickly chest.

It felt like the way the pot of water started for the blue crab papa brought home. She always wanted to put them in right when it started. He never let her and she never would understand why. It was bubbling, boiling. How much hotter could it get?

She let the sleeve of her light pink top slide off her round shoulder. When she looked down, she felt different, like the minority. How many of these girls have been with men before? Chunks of hair slid in front of her nose and she wiped the gathered strands of hair to the side, inadvertantly brushing her sticky face with her greasy fingers. When she looked up, his eyes said that he would make her the same.

When she woke up in the morning, she was on a patch of half-dry sand as the tide pulled in more water and garbage to the shore. She remembered everything the stranger inside of her said. She remembered saying no, and then changing her mind. He didn’t force her and the sand pressed into her back. She remembered falling asleep in the crux of his arm, wondering what the point of it all was. Why two strangers would do such a thing while they were filled with other strangers. She pushed the worry away, the one that said she would be pregnant and he would run. She watched her stranger fade away and let it go happily. She was different now.  ”Sleep, beautiful,” he said. And she did.

The office

I looked at this picture that I took just yesterday, and I had one of those moments when you think, “Is this really the life I’m living?” I’m working in a screened in cabana facing the pacific in a far off land. I’m writing. I’m smiling. I’m watching the men pass by with baskets on their backs and machetes in their hands. I’m laughing at the pack of pomeranians while they bark and scurry around the tin roof covering the building next to me. I’m drinking tea and listening to music all day. It’s truly as good as it sounds. And I’m surviving in spite of the great time I’m having, because I love what I do for a living. I love every minute of it.

I can’t help but wonder… How did all of this happen? The more I looked at this picture, the more my mind drifted into the past, into a place I’ve long let go of, a place that has little meaning, but one that still exists on some level.

A year ago today, I hated my job, which I was very good at. I had become someone in a company. I didn’t have to fulfill the duties of an administrative assistant any longer. Instead, I bullied people like the best of them. I slathered on the artificial charm and wore it like lipstick. I argued, schemed and manipulated my way almost all the way to the top. I was violently passionate about being better than the people ahead of me. I guess you could have called me a success.

I was consistantly fighting with my boyfriend, who I truly loved beyond words. He was like no one I’d ever met. But there was a friction that wouldn’t smooth out. Something just didn’t fit. But a year ago today, we were still that couple who made people sick because we cared about each other so much. I suppose you could have called me a lucky girl.

I was depressed and angry, and since it was winter, I got away with calling it seasonal depression.

I was closed off to new people. I was constantly trying to push away those who were close to me. You could have called me independent.
Those were all the things I called myself. I was a salesperson. I was in a relationship. I liked my alone time and I was sad in the winter. I thought the rare moments of sought out joy were sufficient to keep me going. I eventually broke down completely despite all of those nice labels.

And today, a year later, what has changed? In short, everything. I wish I knew what the catalyst to this transformation was. But I have no idea. A process was set in motion about eight months ago that started ridding my life of all of the crud that had built up internally and externally.

What was left? Nothing. I had absolutely nothing. I didn’t know who I was or what I was supposed to do with my life.

The strangest thing happened. Everytime I found myself not knowing what to do with any aspect of my life, something would magically appear and fill the void or at least lead me to find a way to fill it. It wasn’t always instant, but it would always happen. It happened in the form of books, emails, people, places and resources. And the thing that fell in was always more fulfilling than the thing that was there before.

Now, I love my job. I hope that I’m improving every day, but I’m not competing with anyone, not even with myself. I do my best and constantly remind myself how amazing it is to do what I do. I dreamed of doing this when I was a little girl. And I’m still just as excited for it every single day. I spend my days turning these letters into words, turning the words into sentences, turning the sentences into stories and showing them to my mom.

I’m alone and for the first time ever, I feel completely whole in that. I’m not lonely and I’m not jaded. I’m just complete. I’m sure this is one of those things that will fill itself when the time is right. I’m not worried about it.

Depression? Please. Closed off to people? Not a chance.

So what am I now in the year after? I don’t know.

And I think that’s what’s helped me here. If you know who you are, what you want, where you want to be, if you have all of those labels, then there’s really no room for possibilities. Your door is already closed. I’m going to keep the label maker in a box in the basement and the front door open for awhile and see what floods in.