as you know, the start of every new year is accompanied by a barrage of talk about diet and fitness resolutions. the gyms become bloated with people getting back on the exercise wagon after having fallen off in February of the previous year. On Jan 1, there is complete and utter clarity about wanting to and actually making moves to finally turn our lives around. there is a renewed sense of optimism, hope and expectation that spreads like a disease to the all the people around you. when Rad suggested that we do the Whole30 diet, i immediately shot it down. i wasn’t interested in resolutions, and i like to eat purely for pleasure, not for nutrition or energy. nonetheless, he won my over by suggesting that if i spent 30 days on the diet, transforming how i eat, that i may very well see the end of the gastro and heartburn pain i experience on a daily basis. the price of course would be giving up all the things that make me feel whole, cherished and happy – my dairies (yogurt, milk, cheese) and my breads (sourdough wins). day 1 was torture. more to come.
15 minutes every day
starting today, i’m going to write for at least 15 minutes uninterrupted every day. i’m not going to worry about how clumsy i feel doing it, how good i think it is, and whether it’s something anybody would ever want to read or find interesting. these are the worries that stop me from coming back and just doing the work that feels right. the start of the new year is always a good opening (physically and psychically) but this isn’t a new years resolution or a goal – this is a dream, a whispered desire, a secret hope. just as these posts were meant to be all along.
for the last couple of months, the team i work on has been hyper focused on goal setting. we follow the basic tenets for reaching any goal personal or professional: you must be specific about what it is you want to do, how long you will give yourself to do it, how you will measure progress and how you’re going to keep yourself accountable. many keep themselves accountable by telling others about the goal and almost shaming themselves into action to avoid the consequence of admitting to someone that they haven’t improved. this is a sensible, research supported approach that if i were to be honest feels wrong; as if achieving growth and change this way were nothing more than an odd betrayal of my true nature.
maybe it’s just an automatic response i have to the suffocating notion of accountability that i must admit is essential to a life that refuses to be at the mercy of the id. maybe it’s about how i’ve gotten used to operating: never in the forefront, under-promising and over-delivering to avoid disappointment on all sides. maybe it’s that despite my recent proclivity to over-analyze and over-discuss, there are some ideas, some things i prefer to greedily keep to myself. and behind this greed is a sense that perhaps some things should not be spoken aloud at all; that to speak them out loud would mean frightening things come true and wonderful things can be stolen from my grasp by a passing wind.
spark it
marie kondo has a baby
that baby has 3 toys
they all bring her joy
thinking myself ragged
sometimes when i’m watching a movie and it turns a corner where i begin to get overwhelmed with foreboding, i can’t help but avert my eyes. i clutch the person next to me and my abdomen tightens with anxiety or i hum loudly while plugging my ears and closing my eyes so that i can skip ahead to the final outcome. does he get shot — did she turn him down — do they make it in time? remembering this thing i do, i see that perhaps i can compare it to how i’m living right now.
fingers crossed, wishing that time would fast forward so that i can get to the bits where it doesnt so often feel like teeth grinding down to the gum or clenched jaws. it stinks of shameful cowardice while also feeling absolutely necessary. how else could i bear it all?
while i may claim to be a girl who braves the uncertain and the painful with her face to the blistering wind, the person that only i know myself to be, thinks this is a lie. what might be called resilience and doggedness could just as easily be fear, denial and well-executed attempts at distraction.
and maybe laying claim to this narrative gives me something to work toward – a rope I can use to pull myself out of the muddy depths and closer to the prize. are these narratives that we spin and cast out into the world simply rationalizations of how we imagine or interpret ourselves? if that is the case, what a dangerous instrument.
right now the true story is: i am a tourist in my own life. a shitty one at that – hopping on a double decker bus tour and calling it a day so i can chill in the hotel and order room service. what i’d probably say to anyone who asks is that i’m a young, ambitious professional at a top investment bank building a future.
my multi-volume, historical fiction stupor in hong kong
i’ve been in hong kong for about 3 months now and am equal parts regretful and resoundingly content to have spent most of that time in such a haze, that im embarrassed to even try and explain it. the culprit is a delicious 5 book saga penned by sara donati (rosina lippi is apparently her real name) that chronicles the life and travails of a strong-willed spinster who travels to New York state at the end of the 18th century to make a life for herself as a school teacher and ends up falling in love and marrying a widower backwoodsman who is also the father a half-native american girl. their story and that of their children is interestingly entwined with historical events like the proliferation of the small-pox vaccination and the war of 1812 while laced with the most pulse quickening and honest of romances.
and so my mind has been half with the Bonners of Lake in the Cloud and half in the real world of emails, deliverables, and passive aggressive workplace tension with colleagues. my deep-seated need to escape coupled with the urge to know what happens next has found me sitting on toilets in bathroom stalls, swiping through pages on my kindle app as many times as i can sensibly manage throughout the work day. the writing is good; drenched in the historical milieu which donati richly details, well paced, and simply comforting. no one would call it high art but now that i’ve finished it, i’m struck by how good it has made me feel these past few months. much of it has had to do with the escape it provided -giving me respite from the pressure of “making the most” of this experience in hong kong, of forging new and meaningful relationships and have deep thoughts about the nature of traveling, solitude and all that other shit that strikes me as over engineering right now.
i guess the thing is that im often trying to get away from expectations and responsibilities whether the setting is home in new york or hong kong. while book series like this do serve their escapist purpose well, they also fill me with a pure and undeniable joy that i guess im writing about now in order to better understand since i havent succeeded in replicating it any other way. the drama, the companionship of the characters and how earnest & good they are painted, even when their flaws are what fuel the story have kept me coming back for more. my boyfriend was visiting for the month and though i missed him and felt happy to be reunited, i also felt ashamed to have preferred 30 minutes of solitude with the book in my phone to being in conversation with him. this shame was not strong enough to stop me from chasing the high which the world of the Bonners and all the twists and turns of their stories gave me.
this also makes me think about my college roommate lesley, who seemed to be so disappointed by the everyday reality of simply living that she much preferred holing herself up in our room and reading fantasy and science-fiction until she couldnt keep her eyes open. i remember being worried enough to go over to her side of the room to make sure she was alright and seeing the glassy look in her eyes when she finally looked up from her book and tried to reassure me with a lazy and perfunctory smile that all was well. maybe she was thinking the same thing then that is usually running through my head now when someone interrupts me while im in the middle of a particularly good passage.
i think about this now because i’m in an entirely new city with new sights, new people and yet oftentimes i feel hardly present. i wonder if i will go back to ny with only the faintest memories of having spent 5 months living here during what is supposed to be one of the best times in my life. i came here looking for some other kind of escape, didn’t quite find it and so have resorted to my books again. much better than real life sometimes and not in any way as demanding of me. the novel doesn’t ask me how i like this new city, and what my favorite part has been so far and have i made good use of this opportunity bestowed upon me by the corporate gods? the novel takes only my time, giving with her other hand complete bliss and oblivion.
piggilliciouss 