Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
i love everything about Texas summer. i love how the sky still has light in it at 9pm. i love the expectation and dread of humidity drenching everything you own in sweat. i love the harsh sunlight that you dodge at 2pm. i love the green grass and the air conditioning blasting everywhere. i love the gelato and lemonade that everyone starts serving. i love the notoriety. i love the sound of fans blowing. i love dipping toes into the pool. i love leaving my hair wet after the shower and not being cold. i love not having to wear socks.
as i struggled through my 12th iteration of chaturanga in yoga class, the instructor passed by with her shirt proclaiming:"it never gets easier, you just get better."
--
clemente called me out. we athletes just want a workout. i do extra pushups in yoga class just to get my workout in. and he called me out. that's not what yoga is about. he talked about how military force has conquered nations, and we think we can conquer our bodies using the same force. but we can't! how many casualties do we encounter, nay, cause, along the way?
life, this is life.
dis-ease vs ease
we push our bodies thinking that's how we get ahead
and we get injured, and we push on,
and we get tired, and we push on
and we get cranky, and we push on
but what of peace?
what of respect?
what of stillness?
--
clemente called me out. we athletes just want a workout. i do extra pushups in yoga class just to get my workout in. and he called me out. that's not what yoga is about. he talked about how military force has conquered nations, and we think we can conquer our bodies using the same force. but we can't! how many casualties do we encounter, nay, cause, along the way?
life, this is life.
dis-ease vs ease
we push our bodies thinking that's how we get ahead
and we get injured, and we push on,
and we get tired, and we push on
and we get cranky, and we push on
but what of peace?
what of respect?
what of stillness?
Monday, May 28, 2012
Over the course of our almost 4-week trip, we listened to the same songs on my iPhone about 300 times each. Poor R, who makes mix tapes in his head of artists that don't even exist yet.
We lip synched to Taylor Swift while hiking and being in awe over llamas. We ate our mountain mint Oreo snacks to Counting Crows and giggled at night in our tent while jamming some Balkan Beat Box. I suffocated in the altitude while Nina Simone crooned me to life. Jay-Z kept me company while I stopped for the 234th time to coax my thighs into climbing more steep inclines to see some ancient ruins that they didn't give a shit about. The only time I beat everyone else to camp, I celebrated with some old school Lauryn Hill, and when no one was looking I may have c-walked a little to some Snoop Dogg. Kanye West forced my feet to brave the final glaciers and then we climbed our last steps to Macchu Picchu to Beirut.
We stared out train windows to Thao with the Get Down Stay Down. We survived 8 hour long bus rides to rhythmic Rodrigo y Gabriela mixes, and in the morning we watched the sun rise to K'naan.
I cried out my broken heart to anthems of Arcade Fire. I fell asleep to Regina Spektor and held one-person dance parties to Shakira.
We shot Pisco to Peruvian folk music. We karaoked with Peruvian locals to some old school Mana and danced cumbia to bad Juanes remixes.
The Canadians showed us how to polka dance to a song from Cirque du Soleil and then promptly schooled us Texans in how to two step to Tim McGraw. Who knew that Canadians two-step?
In the end, the music held me above water, but the mountains and the people saved my life.
We lip synched to Taylor Swift while hiking and being in awe over llamas. We ate our mountain mint Oreo snacks to Counting Crows and giggled at night in our tent while jamming some Balkan Beat Box. I suffocated in the altitude while Nina Simone crooned me to life. Jay-Z kept me company while I stopped for the 234th time to coax my thighs into climbing more steep inclines to see some ancient ruins that they didn't give a shit about. The only time I beat everyone else to camp, I celebrated with some old school Lauryn Hill, and when no one was looking I may have c-walked a little to some Snoop Dogg. Kanye West forced my feet to brave the final glaciers and then we climbed our last steps to Macchu Picchu to Beirut.
We stared out train windows to Thao with the Get Down Stay Down. We survived 8 hour long bus rides to rhythmic Rodrigo y Gabriela mixes, and in the morning we watched the sun rise to K'naan.
I cried out my broken heart to anthems of Arcade Fire. I fell asleep to Regina Spektor and held one-person dance parties to Shakira.
We shot Pisco to Peruvian folk music. We karaoked with Peruvian locals to some old school Mana and danced cumbia to bad Juanes remixes.
The Canadians showed us how to polka dance to a song from Cirque du Soleil and then promptly schooled us Texans in how to two step to Tim McGraw. Who knew that Canadians two-step?
In the end, the music held me above water, but the mountains and the people saved my life.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
how quiet must our mouths be in order for our hearts to feel the stillness of light?
how often do we need to speak loudly about it until this happens?
if we blindfold ourselves, can we see more clearly than if we just close our eyes? does the temptation to look outweigh the possibility for growth?
--
Pina Bausch explains that keeping her eyes down behind closed lids, or centering them, made a great difference in how she performed. Something this small can make a difference. Yesterday after our walk, I marveled at this. I thought about how in the movie Garden State, Andrew Largemen points out: "It's amazing how much of [his] life has been determined by a quarter inch piece of plastic."
--
During our walk we came across a large empty space right in front of the water. I tried to slide the balls of my feet across the floor and you commented, "it'd be lovely for a milonga, wouldn't it?" and I almost collapsed to the floor with incredulity that you could tell what I was thinking just from the slight movement in my feet- and you have never even stepped foot at a milonga. You laughed and I realized just how amazing it is to have known someone for more than a decade and still have the kind of friendship we have.
--
I met Paritosh only twice, but the second time he made me give him my address. Gibran's The Prophet arrived in a neatly wrapped package. It's been 4 years and I haven't returned it yet.
I saw this on a chalkboard on the street today:
(Gibran writes):
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Last night in the wee hours of the morning, a friend sent me Neruda's Ode to Sadness. He called out the lines:
A poet lives here.
No sadness may
cross this threshold.
I give to you the middle of the poem:
No entry here.
Don't come in.
Go away.
Go back
south with your umbrella,
go back
north with your serpent's teeth.
A poet lives here.
No sadness may
cross this threshold.
Through these windows
comes the breath of the world,
fresh red roses,
flags embroidered with
the victories of the people.
No.
No entry.
Flap
your bat's wings,
I will trample the feathers
that fall from your mantle,
I will sweep the bits and pieces
of your carcass to
the four corners of the wind,
A poet lives here.
No sadness may
cross this threshold.
I give to you the middle of the poem:
No entry here.
Don't come in.
Go away.
Go back
south with your umbrella,
go back
north with your serpent's teeth.
A poet lives here.
No sadness may
cross this threshold.
Through these windows
comes the breath of the world,
fresh red roses,
flags embroidered with
the victories of the people.
No.
No entry.
Flap
your bat's wings,
I will trample the feathers
that fall from your mantle,
I will sweep the bits and pieces
of your carcass to
the four corners of the wind,
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