On Being Your Authentic Self (guest post and film for The Listening)
Read my words on The Listening's blog
Short promo film I created to showcase the general experience of The Listening.
As my life has been in a fairly consistent state of flux since ... forever, the concept of "being authentic" (and no, in case you are worried, I never use the #liveauthentic hashtag).
For me, being authentic has less to do with searching and finding but more so with simply being still and realizing what and where you actually are.
Nick George, founder of The Listening, asked me to create a guest blog post in honor of tomorrow's session. If you attend, you'll likely see me doing a bit of photojournalism for Riverviews Artspace.
You may also see me perform a song and poem. No promises. But it's likely.
In the meantime, you can read my guest post on The Listening's website.
Family Film: (in honor of Sibling Day 2016)
My Girls
By far my favorite set of siblings (no offense to my much-loved brothers and sister!).
Recent fun with a Nikon L35AF and a Pentax MX (40mm f/2.8 pancake).
FIN.
Poem: The Anatomy of Daughters
The Anatomy of Daughters
Breath too human to the smell.
Complaints too momentary to consider.
Alternating cereal scoops: hand and spoon.
Inconsistent dress; ill-suited for all weather;
Bright, happy, and free.
Roundness in the face brings pause ...
The mystery and masque of living.
Golden starshine through a hundred thousand strands
Growing longer from the source,
Prone to the tangle, the break, the fall.
Strength in each vulnerability.
Being in every new death.
Hope in all disaster.
###
Unstuck in space and time
It has become obvious that I'm unstuck. I'm in a perpetual state of leaving and going to all at the same time. Even while I'm sitting here writing this, I'm thinking about where these words could possibly go, and how I have to leave this job and go to another within a matter of hours.
I'm always going and leaving, which leads me to wonder which places am I leaving from and which am I coming back to. In short, there is no place that I go to where I finally "am" and that when I leave it I will eventually come back to it. I'm going off to somewhere else where I will eventually leave and then return to. All of it.
I'm realizing that the idea of coming and going is nearly irrelevant. I simply "am" wherever I am -- in one constant and permanent stream of nowness, and it's infinite, because when I inevitably die and decompose, the matter that formerly made up my skin, teeth, blood, flesh and these days mostly hair, will dissipate through the earth and the atmosphere, only to be recollected somewhere and become something else.
The point becomes to make sure that wherever I am in this moment, that I am making the best of it and not giving too much thought to what I have done or could be doing in the future. It's irrelevant, because neither of those timescapes exists. It's only what I'm doing in the moment that has any actual meaning, what I'm doing to build upon and enrich my forever current state of being.
It's always now. It always has been and it always will be.
It's infinite. Like an abyss staring into another abyss trying to make sense of it. Or, better yet, mirrors standing face to face. We're all doing this at all times, simply reflecting other people and everything, which is also reflecting itself. Infinity.
This is significant for creativity. At least it is to me in this moment. Knowing that whatever I do is a reflection of my environment and how I interact with it, and how that "image" is reflected again and again without end. The simple way to say it is that "everything is connected," which I believe to be true, but I believe that phrase is a misdirected oversimplification.
I believe that in the same way holy texts use the phrase "I am," that "We are." And it doesn't matter what happens tomorrow or in the future or after we die. Because it all will just be whatever it is, so it's ridiculous for anyone to do anything other than to just "be" and "do," since that's all there really is. Outside of that, it's all just distractions keeping us from being fully present and actually living.
My mind is so caught up in it's own constructs and endless loops that I fail to "do" more than I actually do. Even 90/10 would be an overly-generous ratio.
But enough of that. I'm approaching the precipice where my continuing to write this could begin to infringe upon "doing" and become more of a now waste. The only way, then, to be there, it to just jump into stream. And instead of letting it carry me along for a ride or, worse yet, sinking or trying to swim the other way, I'm charged with more than simply swimming with the tide: My task (or my life's purpose) is to create currents of my own.
Now and forever.
Anthony Pisano: Regarding the discarded
I would like to share a film with you all. It is a snapshot of Anthony Pisano, an eccentric man whose East Village apartment in Manhattan looks more like an antique store than than it does living quarters. And as is mandated by the mindset of the causal stroller, individuals are wont to walk into the apartment and past Anthony, who sits out front of the apartment day and night watching people pass by.
"You can satisfy you're curiosity," Pisano tells them, "but nothing's for sale."
Perplexed, they slide further into the store/apartment and find a desk, a bed and -- if they're lucky -- a cat.
"This is my home," he says.
Mark Cersosimo and Kelsey Holtaway's short film, shot on a Canon 7D for Vimeo and their company Departure Arrival Films, shows how Pisano's home is the anti-store; a place where people walk in but cannot buy, they can take something home but no money will be exchanged. These people that walk into his "shop" bring him joy, which is evident by the deep crow's feet around his eyes, created by perpetual smiling through shared experiences.
Cerosimo describes the film as "a story of a man and his home," but it's much more than that. The film is a reminder of the importance of human interaction.
"That's important. That's life," says Pisano.
-- -- -- -- --
Header image sourced from film.
The dangers of reading biographies
As we approach our mid-twenties, most of my friends are still trying to sort out what it means to be themselves, and how to best go about doing that. We live in Lynchburg, Va., a city more commonly known as the buckle on the Bible belt, and not really for the high percentage of creative people that live in its historic districts.
Many of us — writers, photographers, designers, fashionistas, painters — went to a nearby university that yea-sayers regard as the Notre Dame for evangelical Christians. We found that the lifestyle outlined in the services and lectures to be “not for us.”
So we move on. But we’re creatures of habit, and look for other sources to model our lives after. This can be a movie (how many of my generation has woken up in the morning with swollen fists and a few bruises and thought: “You are not your khakis”?), a novel, a celebrity … but all roads seem to lead to Wikipedia. And — I’m just saying — Wikipedia may not be the best place for life inspiration.
* * *
A while back, I was hanging with some friends at one of their apartments. It’s the kind of place that offers no frills, but is remarkably clean, thus attracting a crowd that may not be making a ton of money, but haven’t quite yet given up on the idea of finding a well-paying job. We had just gotten back from eating at a cheap Mexican restaurant, so we were mostly inert. The news was on the TV, broadcasting an interview with a famous serial killer.
I sat a broken overstuffed chair and extended the footrest. Not broken to the extent that it no longer functioned, but in that it made a noise like the bones of a tin man cracking and groaning with age.
Jesse, a friend I’ve had since before I could walk steadily, sat next to me and showed me a book he found on our friend’s bookshelf called Desolate Angels.
“Is this that author you like?” he asked me.
“One of my favorites.” I said.
“Didn’t he kill himself?”
“In a way, yes, but he did it over a long period of time. He considered himself a good Catholic boy, and good Catholic boys don’t commit suicide. So, he drank a lot.”
Joe was also there. I met him on my first day of college. We connected over our fondness for books, and he has been one of my closest friends (and literary sparring partner) ever since.
“Yep. I hear that,” Joe smiled at us from behind his laptop. The newscast had sent him wandering on the Internet to read about other mass-murderers.
“Who was that other guy who killed himself?” Jesse said.
“Hunter S. Thompson.” I made a gesture of fitting the end of a double-barreled shotgun in my mouth and pulling the trigger. With my free hand, I mimicked what I believed occurred to the back of his skull.
“Ahh, just like ole Poppa Hemmingway,” Joe said, still looking at the computer.
“Aren’t there a lot of writers who killed themselves?” Jesse said.
Joe and I tag-teamed to compose the grim list of literary giants who took their own way out. I explained how Sylvia Plath had done the job and gave my opinion as to why, and told him how Anne Sexton had complained that people would automatically accuse her of being a copycat when she decided to do the same; she was jealous of Plath’s brilliant career move.
“So did she end up doing it?”
I nodded.
Joe offered the final entry. “David Foster Wallace hung himself not too long ago.”
For a moment, the television’s noise filled the room.
“When I found that out, it really shook me up,” I said.
“I can’t say I blame him,” Joe said.
I gave him an uncomfortable smile but he didn’t look up from the computer.
“I kinda think I will too, after a while. Life just gets too damn depressing.”
I laughed, and hoped he would do the same.
“I’m serious — I’m already headed there.”
“Don’t be,” I said.
“Don’t be serious?”
“You know what I mean, ” I said.
“Well, that’s just how it is.”
* * *
Rest assured, Joe is still with us. In fact, he just texted me to see if I want to grab a beer later. Perhaps that’s a better trend among writers to follow (drinking) than putting down the pen for good.