There are no mediocre blog posts

Okay, so here is a little window into my process.

I started this blog post last weekend, I was inspired, and excited to write for the first time in a while. But then I didn't finish it, and then I started to avoid it, and then I felt really blocked.

My frustration with this block is actually what inspired me to start this blogging daily for a month thing, and to give myself a time limit, and to challenge myself to risk bringing more of myself here. 

This post is really what inspired the two previous posts. Tonight, I decided to share the abandoned post with you. I spent an hour waiting for the slow internet to upload my website, and then I copied and pasted my unfinished blog post here, with a only touch of editing.

[T]he speed with which an idea in your head reaches thousands of other people’s eyes has another deflating effect, this time in reverse: It ensures that you will occasionally blurt out things that are offensive, dumb, brilliant, or in tune with the way people actually think and speak in private. That means bloggers put themselves out there in far more ballsy fashion than many officially sanctioned pundits do, and they make fools of themselves more often, too. The only way to correct your mistakes or foolishness is in public, on the blog, in front of your readers. You are far more naked than when clothed in the protective garments of a media entity.

        But, somehow, you’re liberated as well as nude: blogging as a media form of streaking. I notice this when I write my blog, as opposed to when I write for the old media. I take less time, worry less about polish, and care less about the consequences on my blog. That makes for more honest writing. It may not be “serious” in the way, say, a 12-page review of 14th-century Bulgarian poetry in the New Republic is serious. But it’s serious inasmuch as it conveys real ideas and feelings in as unvarnished and honest a form as possible. I think journalism could do with more of that kind of seriousness. It’s democratic in the best sense of the word. It helps expose the wizard behind the media curtain.

Last night I was feeling down about my blogging, because of my continuing struggle to reconnect to that delicious creative flow that I had felt my first year of blogging, which was everyday.  I had written a post that felt a little rushed, and I was concerned that it was mediocre.  Whenever I struggle with these types of problems, or really, any problem, I turn to my husband who is the wisest person I know, even wiser than I’d like to think I am. He deserves a vicarious honorary degree from my every experience of learning since we've been together. (This July it will be 12 years.) His ability to know and understand and reflect me is magic. He mirrors me and reminds me what I already know, but forgot, because I can get lost within certain aspects of my personality. When I struggle with feeling whole, he helps reflect the parts of me that I have forgotten.  

“There are no mediocre blog posts.” he said. And then explained why this is true. And he was right.  He helped me remember that a blog is a log.  “A log is an official record of events during the voyage of a ship or aircraft.” (New Oxford American Dictionary).  A log is a record of life, as you experience it. Preferably daily. To me a blog is both science and art. The art is pushing oneself into new forms of expression. The science is the tracking of life.

When I brought up my feelings of disappointment about not offering more polished or thought-out writing, he reminded me this time what a blog actually is and what it's for. It's for sharing a process. For his example--he referred to one of his favorite internet reads: Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Dish, which disseminated, in February of this year, after over ten years of a wide readership. Sullivan has decided to leave it up as an archive to access.
 
This morning, I woke up ready to approach my blog in a new light—I checked The Dish and found the quote above--which Andrew Sullivan had written 13 years ago. I was so inspired, I immediately came here to share with you what I am starting to understand.

For me, blogging is foremost about honesty--it's about revealing the little details of the clunky, messy, exuberant process of life. It is about developing a point of view, strengthening it daily, which includes sharing my point of view even when it is uncertain or has changed.

For most of my life I have been a grand risk-taker. I have traveled far and wide. Immigrated to the desert. Lived in a tent through out most of my pregnancy. I have tried most of the things I am terrified of. I have challenged myself to take on seemingly impossible tasks. And yet, one of the risks that I have consistently stayed away from is sharing my opinion. Underneath this avoidance are three main fears:  a) offending people,  b) being called out on my ignorance or c) being seen as narcissistic or self-absorbed. This style of being has kept me apolitical, super nice and falsely modest. It has kept me quiet and safe, in the area of the mind and the world. I have stuck to subjects that I care deeply about and know: the arts, spirituality, psychology, education. I stay away from arguments, debates and certain kinds of personal truths. I am terrified to let people know how narcissistic I am, or how differently organized. I hide the truth of my metaphysical perspective. I have been afraid to share my failures and my pettiness. I have been afraid to reveal the messes in my mind and my life. I have been afraid to challenge others to think in new ways about their place in the world.

I realize that it is not my duty to reveal my thoughts and insecurities. Especially not on the internet. No one is asking me to be more honest or vulnerable or risky.  And yet, it feels as if there is some force pushing me towards sharing more of myself with the world. If I think about it, there has always been this force daring me to do things I am afraid to. It’s an inner voice of challenge, it feels almost spiritual in nature, as if I am being pushed into my destiny.  

When I hide my point of view, I feel like I am letting myself down. I feel a magnetic pull towards revealing myself.  Not revealing myself in the ways I used to: through emotional vulnerability, sexuality, or insecurity, but now it is about sharing my truth, my point of view. This is about taking myself seriously enough to think I have something to say that is worth listening to. This is the hardest thing for me, and I know I am not alone in this. This is hard, most especially for women—to value our voice and our message enough to unapologetically offer it to the public. The unapologetic part is the hardest part for me. I have been trained by our culture to apologize for myself so much, that it becomes the feeling of apologizing for my very existence. This is not just about narcissism, about being seen, this is about engaging in conversation. This is about making use of my mind for good in the world. The potential good that I see is in sharing my mind are my insights into The Culture and how it it is eating away at our humanity. Sharing my opinion feels terrifying, because it means acknowledging to others that I value my own thoughts, ideas and beliefs. My life long dream has been to be a voice to & for others. This is what I wrote about in my college essay, which was, itself, quoted from a journal entry, which was written in response to watching Christian Slater nakedly & anonymously announce his truth on the radio in Pump Up the Volume. Here is a little piece of the Christian Slater-inspired journal entry/college essay:

    "And now I know everyone needs a voice, each person has her own but she needs another to feed on. Another to accept hers and expand its possibilities, to go beyond what is expected. I know that no one at high school is that voice. Alexander [my older brother] is that voice. And even though I have discovered his voice is not always perfect, not always consistent, it is alive. It is there. Not everyone has, or knows they have, or knows they need a voice. A voice of love, of understanding, of influence. I know my own voice follows love; love of the abstract, the personal, the unique… I need a reason to be voice. It has to be person, someone to speak to me… a voice that speaks to mine… My dream is to be a voice. Maybe it is a voice that quivers or that is shy, sensitive, or silly, but it is a voice that communicates."

I am remembering now that what I had with zoelab 365, which I have been grieving over for the past few years, is that openness of mind. It was the first time in my life where I shared my point of view. The risk and thrill of it were palpable. It was like an extra source of high-energy food that I was living off of. Perhaps the kind of breathlessness that blogging every day (often writing designing or editing for up to four hours every night) required is unsustainable, and the year had to come to an end. But I am ready now to take on a new journey with this new blog. I am ready to challenge myself, yet again, to reveal more truth. To push my own boundaries to discover my own opinions. I want to invite readers to challenge me as well. To respectfully educate me when I am ignorant. To cry with me when I am sad. To laugh with me at my own narcissism or pettiness. To recognize your own narcissism and pettiness in mine. After all, the point of the blog is the connection between the blogger and the reader. This is the thrill of it. I am looking for conversations. I am looking to impact the world through challenging all of us to be more compassionate, creative, connected and honest. I am looking to risk my ego to share the larger truth of my humanity, including my flaws, vulnerability and criticism.

I am done with apologizing for the collective shadow

“There is nothing gutsier to me than a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told, especially if that person happens to be a woman.”

- Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham is the creator, director, writer, & star of the comedy/drama Girls and author of a book of personal essays entitled Not That Kind of Girl. She is one of my art heroines because she dares to tell her truth with no apologies--she is funny, smart, feminist and she shows up with her full, wacky, imperfect self. I also happen to have a lot in common with her: she has the art career of my dreams, and we share the same double alma mater. One of my (formerly secret until now) dreams is for one of my songs to be on her show. (One of my other dreams is to have a comedy show of my own, which I have been developing for years. More on that later...)

For 41.5 years, I have been far too apologetic. This is a female habit that I am ready to let go of. I am done apologizing for myself and for feeling shame about the parts of me that are simply just human.

This June Blogging exercise is an exercise in shedding my shame. It’s an exercise in letting go of the ego-driven perfectionist in me, so that I can actually just sit down and write some truths. Sometimes (and more often than I’d like considering that I teach and write about how to work with the inner critic) I find myself imprisoned by the critic inside that just can’t tolerate anything I write that seems self-absorbed or braggy, unresearched or confessional. I find myself afraid of three things most: 1) I will write something offensive to someone 2) I will reveal myself to be self-absorbed or narcissistic 3) I will be accused of ignorance, and will be asked to back up something that I have written, and I won’t be able to.

Looking at them plainly now, I see that these fears are gendered. That these are the things we women fear because we are brought up to:

• Be nice
• Take care of others, and to deprecate ourselves
• Use facts to support what we say, even if we naturally gravitate towards our personal experience as a way of knowing about the world

As an exercise, I went through a folder in my computer titled “Writing pieces: post ideas, essays, thought seeds” and I found 60 pieces that all started with great passion and truth, and not finished.  They remain unpublished. Just like 99% of everything I have written. Withexception to the many pieces I have shared on my personal blog, (read by a handful of friends, family & therapists), the poetry that was published in my high school literary magazine (whose pages were graced years later by the writings of Lena Dunham), I have published only two pieces of writing in my life: one was when I was 11 years old. I had won a creative writing contest in New England, and they published my story and a photo of me holding my cat, Claude. And second, when I was twenty six years old. I had met an artist, whose day job was as editor of a porn magazine called Oui, who paid me $100 to write a pornographic story, which he published. I have at least three books in me, and I would like to publish articles. But for now, I am very happy to be blogging. Maybe my new style will attract more than a handful of readers. Maybe I’ll be more courageous about making my blog more visible.

I realize now that I never stopped blogging, I just stopped publishing. Reading through the unpublished folder of pieces now, I think: so many of these could be blog posts right now, with just a tiny bit of editing. As part of this 30-days-of-blogging-unapologetically thing, I will plant some of these seeds online and see what kind of plants they become. Maybe they will lead me into the voice I have longed to be for so long. The voice that upholds the shadow in all of us. The voice that was was first awakened by Christian Slater in Pump Up the Volume when I was 17. The voice that makes space for us (you AND me) to be oneself, which is to say, to be all of one’s selves. We all have male & female & child in us. We all have shame and heartbreak and yes, we all have to take a shit. We all need to belong. We all need to feel free. We all need to be seen and heard.

I have lost my tolerance for The Culture that disconnects us from our nature. It is time to re-invent culture. It is time for me to take a stand, in my own way. My own way is not in the political arena, it is not about fighting “the good fight.” My own way is not about pretending to be something I am not. My own way is to be myself, unapologetically, and to be a champion for creativity, the feminine, and that which we feel we should hide. My way is creating supportive contexts (creative classroom laboratories) where people experience their own true selves emerge. My way is to celebrate our longings, letting them lead us into human aliveness. My way is to use my rock-n-roll-poet-prophet-mystic-explorer-of-garbage-and-all-things-beautiful-and-true voice. My way is to be balls-out and heart-out. I want to give you all a heart-on.

Who is ready to join me on this crazy scary exhilarating path to self-actualization?

Comments?

A list of things I would blog about if I wasn't so scared of what people would think

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Here is a list of things I would blog about if I wasn't so scared of what people think:

1) Shit

2) Shame

3) Narcissism

4) My relationship to messiness, Dirt & Disorganization

5) My music

6) How much I love my husband

7) The thing I most want to help people with, and the thing I most struggle with myself, which is: being oneself.

8) Confessions of Parental Hypocrisy

9) How proud I am of my music and how much I want to share it with the world

10) Cultural criticism

11) The benefits of marijuana for anxiety, disassociation & insomnia

12) How watching Pump Up the Volume with Christian Slater when I was 17 helped me see my future self

13) Full descriptions of my grandiose ambitions and dreams

14) How my experience of Facebook is anti-creative & anti-social & anti-authenticity

15) I would use a lot more fucking curses

16) I am giving myself full permission to add more to this list as it occurs to me...

Why Creating An Arts Practice is Good For You

For the past three years, I have taught a class called Art Journal Lab in Todos Santos. The goal of the class is to create a safe space for people to write and draw in their journal, and to offer coaching exercises & expressive arts therapy techniques. I try to keep the class open--so that students can explore what is relevant to them, but I also provide structure by bringing in a new theme every week. For the past 20 consecutive weeks, I have brought in a new theme and technique for every class. This certainly has challenged my creativity--always looking for something new and inspiring that could be helpful to my students.

One of the things I recommend to my students is to create their own arts practice. To create a ritualized, and regular activity that awakens their creative flow and engages them more deeply in their life. We have been working on this for the last few weeks. I have been encouraging them to take their time, to explore for a while until they come up with something that ignites their passion. Sometimes I feel uncomfortable pushing people to commit to something, as I believe that each person has their own unique style and pace, and that their commitment needs to come from them, and not necessarily from my recommendation. However, I do believe having an arts practice is a vital part of any creative person's life. I know for myself, when I committed to doing one year of daily blogging (words and image), it changed my life and my relationship to my creativity forever. It helped me to take my passion for creating more seriously, and myself less seriously. It helped me to develop my artistic voice. It helped me to believe in the work I do, and in myself. It helped lift me out of a low level, postpartum depression and into an inspired place of consistent creative flow.

I realized that if I want to encourage people to create their own arts practice that they would need to do know why it's important. Knowing the why of something is very motivating. Here is my "why":

Why do I believe in an arts practice?

Because it’s a structure built into our lives that challenges us to be creative. It helps remind us of the importance of process. It is a built in reminder that our engagement, and the way we engage, is what matters in life. So many of us are trained to overlook or rush the process so that we can get to the result—so we can get to the goodies that come from having a finished product—it can be sold or bought, shown, talked about, appreciated--it becomes proof of our value. I want to return us to valuing the experience of creating. We all could benefit from having a creative practice--it keeps us honest, fresh, child-like in nature. It invites us to keep playing, discovering, asking questions. The moment we give up on the process and instead focus on the result of what we are creating, we cease to be open and relaxed, we lose our sense of humor, our perfectionism takes over and the joy is lost. The good news is that our creativity is always there--it's a flow that can be dropped into whenever we want. We just need to build in a habit that allows us to show up for our creativity regularly--this helps us to let go of the preciousness of art-making. In those moments when we feel alive, and inspired, those are the moments that we want to hold onto. In those moments, we trust that the higher self is speaking for our greatest good--this is the moment we need to commit to an arts practice. Once it is scheduled into our life, we can also find a way to make ourselves accountable--asking a friend, making a public declaration, working with a creativity coach or a therapist.

I care about creativity because I believe that it, along with love, is the greatest human resource. It is the tool that allows us to make the best use of ourselves. Our creativity is a force that works through us. The universe is always creating itself, and we as humans, are the same. It’s just that most of the time we are so distracted by the mind, by the ego’s need to prove its existence, that we don’t always see how every moment is an opportunity to experience life. Nothing creative happens in a vacuum, our creativity is always building upon other experiences and creations. We are drawn to what we love, and what we love is a reflection of something very real in us that has its own driving force.

When we open up to our creativity, both in the personal sense—working through our stories, our conflicts, our dreams—and in the universal sense—working through our humanity, and that which connects us the universe —we engage a deeper reality that is not just of the mind, but includes the body, and soul as well. It is the engagement we are after—-not the end result—it's the experience of feeling our wholeness. The experience of love, newness, beginner’s mind, the experience of play, vulnerability, failure, risk, the experience of being in the mystery, of growth, the experience of our personal, family, or historical legend. We don’t all have to be Artists with a capital A, but we are all are artists in the sense of working with the materials we have, and moving towards that which we love, in how we solve both our daily and deepest problems. Through engaging the truth of who we are, we find art there available to us to help us through.

I recommend creating and committing to an arts practice that is weekly, or preferably daily, that is also do-able and realistic given the current parameters of your life. Try this and you will discover what it is to show up for yourself. Some days you will be inspired and it will be easy. Other days, you will feel like you are forcing yourself into your practice. The point is to keep practicing. It is good for your spirit--it will remind you that the point is not to produce something perfect, the point is to put yourself into your own creative flow and discover much more of who you are. It will humble you. It will keep you in beginner's mind. It will stretch and grow you. It will strengthen you and it will make you see that you are capable of much more than you ever imagined.

How to Sing or Do Anything

Way back when I was in college in the 1990's, I wrote a poem called "How to Masturbate." It was a racy title for a spiritual type of experience in nature. That started a new form of poetry for me, that I like to call "Instructive Poetry." Since then I have written a few more. I hope to someday publish a book of instructive poems.

Here's one I wrote recently about my experience of training myself to sing. The more I learn about my journey of creativity and art, the more I see that art is a process of training ourselves to be free.

The art above is an ink drawing/painting I made last week with Emilio, my five year old.

HOW TO SING or do anything

Give up all hope, all memory.
Give up all strivings for greatness.
And find yourself
here.
Empty of that great illusion
that splits every body, action and thought into
two.

And from here,
this spaciousness,
deliver the sound
that already exists in the future. Go to meet it with
your devotion
your heartache
your infinitely unique vibrations.

Open up that channel
of body
and mind
and spirit.

and let the light shine through to all darknesses.
Straighten and flex your spine.
there are endless secrets
duplicating in there.

Release them through your heart and hands and voice.

Let them reach who they need to reach.
Paying no mind.
If the vibrations reach someone,
you will know at some future date.

Impressions of Mariposa Night & Guerrilla Gallery, March 27th

Last Friday something magical happened on a warm stage under moonlight. It was a certain something that cannot be re-created. 

But I will try, anyway.

There was a voice: a mother-tongue, Peruvian Español, rich and shadowy, evoking bittersweet one-sided self-destructive love. As words, in English, glowed white against black, beside her. An electric guitar echoing the amplified pain of longing. And another voice—emotional and raw, expressing the freedom of rock-n-roll bravado, held by the sounds of rowdy guitar and happy drums, fierce & crisp. And another voice—embodying heart and soul, awakening god in us with her sumptuous spirit-song to the warm sound of a bass walking into notes. And there were those  who seized the sticks—drumming up new sounds behind the recorded music—allowing the insides to be heard. And the one who dared to sing into the microphone—discovering the good glory mirror of amplified voice.

And then there were the faces of the children glowing on the screen. Impressions of their growing spirit, told in voice, and as paint on a wall, of a school, struggling to exist. And children also ran through the space, creating shadows of monsters and gestures over the green glowing mariposa of the night.

And then there were those who made their marks on the shared page—children and adults—inking the white with fresh love thoughts and faces and choices in color.

And there were the paintings made of palettes of silk—colors and worlds invented. And there were the paintings of color play from a family living life as art. There was the one who brought her object-friends, creations from the found world. Who was also the one who almost didn’t share her art story made of reimagined truth. The book that strung together a life of meaning and heartbreak and love. Bravely, she leapt into the unknown—baring her heart with hopes to be witnessed. She leapt and found the floor growing underfoot in the form of beautiful faces and tears of recognition. Awakening the longing we all feel through the telling of a truth story. And old friends were created—recognizing themselves in new faces. A film made in La Cuidad, traveled by internet, flickered on screen: a story of the insanity of commitment when fueled by elevated spirit. And in the end, the contagion of dance took over the steps & the floor & the stage--hearts and bodies expanded in mental abandon & perfect unison.

All of this helps me see:

When you open up to spirit, creativity is limitless. In order to manifest it, we must ignite our passion for truth, which illuminates our underground excavations. We don’t mind the digging, if we are in service of the gift giving. It’s god’s work, we happily discover, as we leap into darkness. We use our faith as a catch-all. A trampoline big enough for us all to bounce together. Every individual leap grows the collective heart. And this, like creativity, is limitless. Art grows the heart, and the heart creates art.

And this:

What if it were really true?

That we have a choice, after all, in our fate?

That we could choose how big we become. And how much we let our hearts sing. On one side of the split it can feel so hopeless.  When we are grabbing at air in the dark and all we feel is the impossibility of becoming. But then, leaping across the split—connecting at the center—we are slapped suddenly with seeing that we never did stop being who we are really are, not even for a moment. Timelessness, as art, belongs to all of us, and can be felt the moment we stop grasping at the future as if it were a thing.  As if we were a thing.  We are a process and only in timelessness can we see this. This is where the heart lives.  All we have is what we need.  And all we need is what we have.

The arts remind us of this as many times as we let our gifts be given and received.

Through sharing art, the marriage of object and source of our longing, is consummated. Let us witness each other in our collective soul creation. Letting hearts speak and be witnessed with words and worlds that are yet to be created.

Come Forward with Your Art

Come forward with your art,
come share the truth of  your decay,
your ultimate humility.

come forward with your art,
with your seed gifts
    which sacrifice ego
and amplify soul.
The only real sin is
    being un-whole. Unholy.

Fragmented-like
a bird
  flying
with out a wing.

Come forward with your art,
I will bless you
  with bubbles
and manifest your heart
 into its proper dimension.

Come forward with your art,
     and feel how big you can be.
Just how much space
a soul is
when laid out
   against the world.

Come forward, my love,
with your art,
   and experience
 the rebirth of time.

Come forward with your art,
and you will learn
  (from scratch)
how to
     become one.

It is the mind that disappears
   when we awaken to our thousand
         mysterious destinies.

Come forward with your art,
           and you will look your most secret
most dangerous
   fear
 in the face
and feel your unfathomable
                                     darkness grow
into veins
     of gold.
Extending you outwards,
   tree branches
     fed by the ground and the sky.

And here, as golden tree,
   your rootedness meets its celestial mirror.

   And oneness is felt
as one tiny speck
 in the center of it all.

This speck—-
    this is your he(art).

I will meet you there.
                                

Why we need the arts

I believe in the arts because the arts have continued to give me a safe outlet to become my whole self. The arts have helped me heal and learn and grow and transform. The arts offer a safe space in which to be human—within a certain context. The context changes--whether it is a stage or a screen or the frame of a photograph, a piece of paper or canvas, or whether it is a time boundary as in performance—the length of a song or a set or the length of a story or a play. The context determines the parameters of being. We show up and we become—we reclaim the parts of ourselves that were hidden. We reveal our truths. We expand who we are through awareness and being and expression.

This work is lonely a lot of the time. There is little recognition, money, encouragement, understanding, interest from others. It is hard to hold the value of something that can so easily disappear. We all judge the arts from a place of wounding at times. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t carry some sort of art wound. Someone somewhere told you that you weren’t good enough or that you couldn’t do something that you wanted to try or that you weren’t talented enough, or that you weren’t old enough or young enough, some one told you that you weren’t strong enough, educated enough, experienced enough. Someone told you that you weren’t loud enough or quiet enough or big enough or skinny enough. Some one told you that you didn’t know what you were doing, or that you knew too much. Someone told you that you didn’t know how to stay in control. Someone told you that you didn’t look right or sound right. Someone told you that you are boring or stupid or goofy or they just didn’t get you.

How many of us don’t feel understood? How many of us hide and don’t share how we really feel? How many of us criticize and judge as a way to keep distance between us? How many of us need healing? How many of us stopped singing or dancing or drawing or playing when we went to primary school? Or middle school? Or high school? Or when we became an adult? Or when we had children? How many of us judge ourselves for being too weak, too emotional, not creative enough, not talented enough, not natural enough? How many of us judge each other for exposing ourselves? For being ourselves?

How many of us long for a greater expression of who we are? How many of us long to find compassion, self-love and acceptance? How many of us long to be seen and understood? How many of us feel like we are waiting for some future moment when we can finally be ourselves? How many of us want to reach out to others but we are afraid? How many of us reach for entertainment, drugs, alcohol or other soothers to numb out the pain of being human? How many of us feel alone in our pain? How many of us pretend we are okay when we really aren’t? How many of us long to feel more connected, more part of a community? How many of us wish to feel more alive? How many of us long to feel more authentic? How many of us long to be more creative? How many of us long to live a more meaningful and connected life?

This is why I do what I do: to help people wake up to the full truth of who they are. I use the arts—filmmaking, dance, photography, drawing, painting, writing, storytelling, drama, improvisation—as a tool for self-awakening, for compassion, for discovering one's passions, for reaching one’s potential, for truthful emotional expression, for aliveness. The arts are here for us so we can feel our aliveness. They are not just for showing off (though sometimes they can be) or for getting attention (though sometimes they can be). The arts are a mirror of the human spirit. The arts are a path of human connection. The arts make us whole. The arts show us who we are. The arts help us create meaning. The arts inspire us to both embrace and rise above the human condition. The arts help us to understand each other. The arts help us to speak and express our truth. The arts hold our emotions. The arts help us know who we are. The arts grow our imagination, our compassion, our passion, our presence, our creativity, our intuition, our integration.

The arts help us be who we are.

Jardin de Niño Diaries, Part Three

I started teaching that week. I have a book of ideas for art projects for kids, and I brought in a very fun project that involved straws, water color, tissue paper and origami paper. I realized only a half hour before that I didn’t have enough large paper, and the paper I did have was stained and ripped at the edge from a hurricane leakage. And so I cut off the corners to the pages that were damaged. It looked so good, even though it was irregular (I have always been a fan of rounded corners and now own a little puncher that does it for me) that I decided to cut off all the corners to those pages. It had a very charming effect. I was so relieved that the class went well. I had a shot of pure joy in just being with the kids.

I remembered my many years of taking care of and teaching children-- there is something quite natural for me about about being with children. I am still very much attuned to my own inner child and that part of me easily connects to children. Even if my Spanish is awkward and the room is chaotic-- just being with children is a very good thing for the soul. Each week for the rest of the year, I brought a new project to do with the kids.

At Christmas time, I offered to make a piñata with kids. They wanted a snowman even though none of them (including Emilio) had ever seen snow. I hadn't made papier maché (since I was a kid) and I had always wanted to explore it. The only method I know is the balloon method, so the plan was to create three snow balls with three balloons and then connect them. The kids loved the papier maché. It was messy and gooey and hands-on. Perfect for preschoolers. They each received a pile of newspaper strips and we shared a big bowl of the flour paste. I had forgotten how simple it is to make, and how forgiving, it’s almost impossible to fail. It’s important when doing projects with kids, or anyone, to consider the probability of success. The easier the project, the easier it is to get them intereested. But also, because messes tend to overwhelm me when teaching kids, it’s important to have a plan on how to achieve the messy project. The method of taking turns to add strips to the balloon worked, sort of, but of course most of the kids have a hard time waiting for their turn. And I had so much compassion for their enthusiasm it was hard for me to tell them not to. 

After three weeks of adding elements to the snow man, it was finally finished and then, in just a few minutes, the snow man was smashed to bits at the christmas party. His candy guts were scooped up unbelievably fast. After the Christmas party, school is often cancelled for no reason (or at least not one that is communicated to me), and so my class is not very regular. When a few weeks go by with out class, the kids start to ask me about art class again. They cheer when I tell them it's happening. I still have not even considered the mural. The school year ends and the teacher, who is no longer Vanessa, announces that we will be having a graduation ceremony. I ask her if I can do an arts presentation as part of the graduation and she says yes. I set up a little table and display all the kids' art from the year. The bossy lady is at the event--she comes up to me and shakes my hand. She is surprisingly friendly. The subdelagado of Elias Calles also shakes my hand. I was proud of myself-- all that mess and uncertainty and lack of planning added up to something official enough for me to shake the hand of a local Mexican official. It has meaning. Being a non-Mexican offering something that wasn't asked for takes me as far as a handshake. A sign of respect and acknowledgement. I am satisfied.

To be continued...

Presentation of the kids' artwork from the year.

The kids draw while they wait for the graduation ceremony to start.

Samuel, their second teacher of the year letting the kids receive the rain of candy.

Some of the parents of the kids, the Subdelgado and the "Bossy Lady"

The kids in their performance costumes with Veronica, their third teacher of the year. Butterflies and cows. Emilio (left) is wearing the cow costume. The first costume I have made by hand as a mom.

Me with all the kids (those in the fancy costumes are the graduating)

Jardin de Nino Diaries, Part Two

I have come to realize that at this point my only real chance to have a true cross cultural experience here in Baja (which is so full of gringos and so influenced by American culture) is through my involvement with the Elias Calles preschool. Even though I feel shy and intimidated, and struggle with communication, I push through it all knowing that this a great opportunity.

I want to share a little background on how I came to be involved with the school. The idea came from a combination of synchronistic events. 

In the spring of 2013, Lucas hired Martín, a local worker and the nephew-in-law to our closest neighbor, to help us finish up some house projects. At one point, he and his wife, Idanya came over and helped finish the painting of our house. We soon learned from Martín that there was a “kinder” in Elias Calles, and that his 3 year old daughter (who is one month younger than Emilio) attended it. The 17 year old teacher, Vanessa, lived in their house with them. We had known there was a primary school (which was known as the best public school in Baja) where various teachers had come to do clay and filmmaking projects with the kids. There was even a film screened at the Todos Santos Film Festival called “Little Muddy Hands” that the kids made about their experience of learning to make clay. But, we didn’t know there was also a preschool. We had intended to send Emilio (when he turned 4 that August) to the preschool in Pescadero, the next town over. That preschool had 30 kids and I was already feeling nervous about sending him there, because he didn’t know any spanish. Or if he did, (after all he has lived in Mexico his whole life) he didn’t know that he knew. 

Emilio on the first day we went to check out the school.

We were very excited that we could send Emilio to a local school, which was a walkable distance from our home. I walked to the school with Emilio, who rode his bike, the next day to meet the Vanessa, the teacher and find out the registration process.  

A few days later I attended a friend’s "give away" party. She was giving away many items from her overcrowded van (her turtle home). One of the giveaways, was a children’s book called the Sign Painters Dream, about a grumpy old sign painter who transformed into a small town hero by painting a “glorious and magnificent” sign for a lady who wanted to give away apples from her orchard. At first he had laughed at the idea of making a sign for free, but after a haunting dream, he decided to make the sign for free for the lady who had asked him, which led him to re-discover his passion for sign painting. This story inspired me on many levels. (And have now added sign painting to my wish list of skill learning. In the meantime I have been teaching my self hand lettering. Which is also incredibly fun. More on this in the future.)

The way the preschool looked the first time we saw it. This is the "bodega side" of the school that the kids weren't using at the time.

The next day, after reading this story, my husband told me about a group of women who were doing community murals in La Paz (our nearest city)—they called themselves the Painting Pirates. I contacted them right away asking if I could be involved, thinking I could really learn something from them. I learned that painting pirates had already moved onto to another country. But then the next morning, it hit me. I could do my own project in Elias Calles onto of that sad looking wall of the preschool I had just seen. I went to talk to Vanessa, the teacher, the next day. In awkward Spanish, I communicated my plan. She liked the idea, and so I decided I would start when the school started again in August. August came and went, and I did not start with the kids. I was scared. I am the only gringa mother in the group. None of the others speak a word of English. My Spanish is pretty good in most cases, but not when speaking with someone who speaks only the strong local dialect. I really struggle speaking with Vanessa and the other parents. A lot of shame comes up in not being able to communicate. And in being different.

The first moment Emilio met Vanessa, his teacher. 

The classroom as it looked at that time. It has since been destroyed by the hurricane Odile that came to visit us in September.

 A few months went by and I still did not start the mural. I even asked the friend who had given me the sign painter’s dream for advice—she was an ex-artist and art teacher and had a lot of experience with murals and kids. Though I appreciated it, her advice caused me to be even more scared. Then I realized that I was jumping the gun, and that it would make more sense to start doing art projects with the kids, and get to know them first before I jumped into the mural. I could let the mural be a long drawn out process that we work towards. From experience teaching long projects to children (filmmaking especially comes to mind), kids gain so many rich lesson from long, additive & continuous projects. That gave me some relief. But still, I did not start my class, which I also decided would include some English lessons. I decided to call the class Art & English. (I adore giving names to things.) But perhaps a more apt name would be: Arte y Ingles. Or Arte y un pocitio de Ingles. 

Then, one day a woman that Lucas and I secretly termed the bossy lady, showed up at one of our endless parent teacher meetings. She had us do all sorts of exercises designed to encourage the parents to be more involved with their kids’ education. The problem here is that many kids do not go on to finish their education, so the government wants to make sure that the preschool kids get a good foundation in case they do not go onto primary school or high school. Some of the exercise she did felt similar to some of the expressive arts exericess I do with my adult students. Yet her manner is quite different than mine--she is very commanding and empowered. Even though part of me resented her demanding presence (she scolded me once for the fact that 4 year old Emilio did not finish his home work one day), part of me envied her, and believed I had something to learn from her. In a private moment, I told her of my desire to teach the kids art. She then announced this at the meeting, and the next day when I dropped Emilio at school, there was a big sign indicating that art class with Zoë, would be held on Fridays. I could not get out of it now thanks to the bossy lady. 

To be continued...

Elias Calles Jardin de Niños DIARIES PART ONE

It's been two months since I've posted here, and I am trying to get through my blog block by letting myself off the hook of my perfectionism. As I often teach in my classes, perfection is the greatest enemy to creativity. 

I have been wanting to share my experience of the Elias Calles Jardin de Ninos, the tiny little preschool that my son Emilio attends. He started at 4 years old. And now he is 5 and a half. This will be his final year there, and we will then move onto the primary school, which is next door. The kids of both schools share the same school yard.

Here are some links to previous posts about Emilio's school from the 365 Blog.

Cultural Education Uno

Cultural Education Dos

Cultural Education Très

Here is some more about my latest experiences teaching at the Elias Calles Kinder:

The drive to the school is about one minute. I pass through dirt roads—mostly covered in sand. On the middle of my road is a cactus. But the closer I get to it, the more I see it is not really in the road. The road was created to go around it. But from afar it looks like its dead in the middle of the road. I love this cactus. It is so large. So outsized. You know how they say that you can feel the presence of certain things in life. Like gorrillas’ eyes, and whales and stuff like that. Well I feel that way about the cardones. Especially the really big ones, the old ones. They are so human. I feel their energy. I want to take a photo of Emilio every year next to that cactus. I have already taken a few. One the first time we walked to Elias Calles Kinder to check it out. And then again the day we had to walk to school last week because our car had broken down, and the working one was in Cabo with Lucas. Emilio happily walked with me. Sometimes we held hands. Sometimes he ran ahead. Sometimes we sang or chatted about different things. Like the name of his latest new song title, The Dark Side of Love. He said it’s just a song title, not a whole song. 

Of the things that feel generous about my volunteer teaching at the school is not the time spent preparing for the class, nor the money I spend on art supplies, or raising money for the school, it’s giving up a little bit of my break from parenting. That sounds terrible. But it’s true. Giving up an hour and a half of my “off time” feels the hardest. And then I often feel nervous right before because I don't really know what I’m doing, and I usually don’t prepare as much as I think I should. Every time I think: I should practice the technique I’m teaching before I share with the kids. Or I think : I should have brought scissors, tape, or extra paper. Or I think: I should have looked up the Spanish word for design ahead of time. Or I should come up with some ground rules. Or I should do an english lesson plan. But instead, I look through my books, or brain storm with my husband or I get an inspiration from my own playing around with materials and then I decide on something that would be fun to do with the kids. I am not a very good art teacher because I don't really teach art. I am not sure I really teach anything. I think what I really do is spend time with kids doing art. That seems more apt. And really as any teacher will tell you it is all about the relationshipp you have with the kids. And I don’t feel I have much—but still they yell out my name when I come. "ZOE!!!!!" Sometimes one or two will run up to me and hug me. Or they say "me gusto trabajar con usted.” This is enough to melt away any uncertainty or grumbling about having given up my previous free time, which I often waste through overly worrying about something I cannot control. I am not completely aware of it: but the thoughts that I am a failure go through my head in some version or other. I see myself as a failure because I don't plan. And I don't like to plan. It is a flaw on my part that I sometimes overcome, and sometimes overcompensate for. Sometimes I accept it. The problem is sometimes I don't know when planning is the right thing to do verses being improvisational. I don't always know when I should be letting myself off the hook, and when I should be putting some reality-testing type of pressure on myself. I believe in freedom but I also believe in hard work. I believe in commitment, but I also believe in going with the flow. It's hard to know sometimes which instinct or belief to follow in any given moment.

The kids all talk to me at once, and I get overwhelmed, nervous, freeze up. I don’t know what to do. I sometimes say “un niño cada vez." Or something like that. Bad spanish. The kind that is translated word for word from english rather than paraphrased—reworked into equivalent expressions. But I think I mostly convey what I am trying to.

Marcitos loves Emilio. He has that look on his face all the time. He wants Emilio to sit by him. He hugs him and wrestles with him. He laugh with him. I don’t think Emilio shares quite the same enthusiasm for Marcitios. But I do believe he likes him. The boys at the school or rowdy. As rowdy as can be. They wrestle in the dust. They get unfathomably dirty. They run as fast as they can to the bathroom. Emilio almost never eats his lunch because, as he told us last week, he is too busy playing and when the choice is lunch or playtime, he chooses playtime. He doesn't want to miss anything. And then when he gets home from school he wants a snack plate. It usually involves green olives, carrots or cucumber with salt, hummus sometimes, crackers and cheese, apple or pear slices and sometimes almonds roused in the pan with salt and garlic. This seems like a lot of preparation but it is the preparation I prefer to cooking.

To be continued...

The road to our house.

The other side of the school, after Odile removed its roof and wall.

The school after the parents cleaned the front yard.

Emilio in front of school

Marcitos at side wall of the school

Poem Inspired by Andrea Gibson

                                                                  Video still by Mathew McNamara

What would I write

if I did not feel a need to sensor myself?

that I have the deepest love 

for my own body.

for my self 

that spills  out  everywhere, 

in spite of 

and past the 

shame 

that has kept me 

under wraps.

i am so tired 

of the hiding—-

it takes 

so much out of me.

and then what is left?

the skin, with its half truths.

my stuff has been spilled 

all over the floor

with the shit

and the grape juice

and the garbage 

from the storm.

the rigid inadequacies

swallowed whole 

rotting in the belly:

the pretending to be smaller 

quieter

prettier

sweeter

stupider

than i am.

where can i lie awake in this festival of hiding?

underground—

worming my way through the dirt

finding the bones of yesterday

announcing themselves

as living free.

down here

it smells like 

the love of everything.

Everyday/Everynight

Every night I die.
Every day I am reborn.

This wasn’t my plan—

but I stopped being able to shrink 

from its truth.

Why is it that the trees 

that surround me do not take in my fear?

They have no use for it—bending to the will of the wind.

Their roots know that fear is the opposite of shelter.

The trees are not self-hating, 

and have no magazines

telling them how to seem

or catalogues telling them what to want.

The self that dies dissolves

into the dreamless sleep

darkness its master.

I have learned to surrender.

After all,

it’s not my doing or undoing—

The passage of the planets, 

and their posses of playthings.

What is up to me is

already quite enough—

all five senses

keeping track of their inward knowledge,

unfolding to

art.

And the sixth?

the free agent organ.

the heart.

The brain has no business there.

And the heart —is it my doing or undoing?

Or is it simply my friend—when I remember.

I remember

in the morning,

when I am reborn,

and have just had my first sip of dew

and am stretching my fresh, fine pair

of wings.

These wings may get clipped today—

by fear.

The air has not yet determined it.

Or they may 

lead me to flight—

but only by keeping my wandering eye

here,

on my heart.

Letter to my 22-year-old Self

 A film still from a silent film, where I played a singer. Here I was "pretending" to sing.

Recently I discovered the amazing spoken word artist/poet, Andrea Gibson. She is inspiring in her beautiful and powerful words and her willingness to share her vulnerability and voice. I found clicked through a series of internet meanderings and came across a page (that I can no longer find) of letters written to one's 22 year old self. I wish I could find it again! I got inspired to write my own letter:

Dear 22 year old self:

I know you are consumed by this concept of perfection which you believe will make you beyond reproach. You aspire to make films and act and write, and want to make the world cry and laugh because of your heart. You are in love with beauty and believe the world will discover you and bloom you into your destiny.

Except, when you don’t.

Sometimes, you are living in a different place than your body, and this feels like bad acting. And sometimes, you tear at your own skin, and wonder who you are. Sometimes, ugliness obliterates the beauty—and your heart grows black. Sometimes, your wanton success is a battle cry for something dead in you. Something in you that is ready to fall away. Something that no longer belongs to you.

You turn away from yourself at those times—the times when your self-hatred dominates and crumbles you into a broken, silent doll. Those times—dear one, those times are when grace enters—if you look for it—and grace, it reaches deep into your heart and tells you to sing. Your heart tells you that your power is your brokenness, if only you could have one moment of silence. If you are too busy listening to the detractors within your mind, or worse, to the oppressors of humanity on to which you have flung the darkness within you. Turn down the volume on that station and tune into your very own, true voice. Your voice holds a power you don’t know about yet. 

I can tell you now that your voice will transform you into a post-modern saint with a yearning to hear itself in all its ugliness and beauty.  Your voice, like a tornado, will harvest the undercover music of being. I can tell you now that you can trust this voice that lies sleeping within, but can be awakened at any time of day or night, if you can be still, just for a moment.

One day, when you are quite a bit older, you will discover your gifts—and your poetry will bloom into songs and your voice will find its depth and width, and it will no longer stray from emotion or truth for very long. One day, your beauty will age into grace and your skin will sag, and stretch, and your address will disappear, and your world will be at once very very large, and very very small. And you will still have self-hatred at the quick, and you will still strive, at times, for perfection, and you will still, sometimes, get it all wrong. But, you will have a voice that can hold it all, and move you forward into your larger Self, the Self you sense, but can’t yet embody. And the spell of disempowerment will loosen its grip on your body, it will be shed like a snake’s skin—and you will discover a newfound freedom that will be both new and old. And in your forever expanding and contracting home of presence, you will funnel the true yearnings of your soul into your voice.

Love,

Your 40 year old future self

Poem after Meditating

I can sense you,

like a bottom-heavy baby bird 

senses her first flight.

You are there—

and every time I sit,

I can almost open your door,

to the vastness to which I may return.

But then the door—

recedes,

and I am left with tiny explosions of thought

tingling the mind,

but not expanding

into everything/nothingness

as you do.

I know you,

but don’t.

I feel you,

but I can’t touch you.

My fingertips are greedy for your requisition.

You don’t recognize this language

and you sleep soundlessly.

I have a memory of your taste,

but my mouth is tinged with 

the flavor of burnt coffee.

I trust you—

when I am ready for you

I will open like a star jasmine.

A tiny white explosion of

destiny

when the stars and the heart and the spine 

are aligned.

Until then, I meet you

in theory.

A delicious promise

of nothingness

to overcome my own forgetting.

My own boxed self.

We will open each other’s boxes

and bloom each others lotuses.

And in this, our marriage, will be

forever giving birth to itself.

I can wait because I have no choice.

But I can also wait, 

because I choose you, 

you 

who includes me

       in all that you are, and all that 

I am.

The Spider's Poem

I have been a sealed up hermit, since the hurricane, and poetry is what has been coming out of me. Maybe one day soon, I'll try to publish some of my poetry.

The Spider's Poem

And she, 

of the eight legs

rushes into the night

making

others

dreams

happen

with a flick of the wrist

turning away

from her knowledge of

the spider’s poem.

Makeshift

simultaneous

slower than summer.

Upright

in its need to tell the truth

The truth—

where does it lead her?

Away from brown packages.

Away from city living.

Away from the prized possessions

of the other side

of the world.

The other side

of the world

where

Emotion—

has been drugged down

into the underworld

& 

there is no place

to weave her poem

because there is no space

to live a dream

that is larger than

one poem

one web

one history

one voice.

The other side

of the world

where

Machines—

are drumming up the business

of human hands

which still work

in conjunction

with the needs 

of the grids & the grates

keeping fires

in check 

and electricity 

flowing

on the other side of the world.

Togetherness—

this is the

underlying

revolutionary

experience

of the cells & 

the stars & 

the machines even.

Don’t call her away 

from the matters of weaving

seed-started destinies

growing out of garbage.

She won’t have it any other way.

Poems by New Yorkers in Massachusetts

Sunday, May 25, 2014

When my brother and I were in Massachusetts this summer visiting my parents, we decided to take a hike one day on Monument Mountain. Monument Mountain is a beautiful piece of Berkshires landscape that is famous for having inspired writers. "On August 5, 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville enjoyed a well-chronicled picnic hike up Monument Mountain. A thunderstorm forced them to seek refuge in a cave where a lengthy and vigorous discussion ensued, inspiring powerful ideas for Melville’s new book, Moby Dick, which he dedicated to Hawthorne." 

Alexander and I climbed while we chatted fervently (as is our style) about writing. On the way up the mountain, he told me about the novel that he has been working on and his excitement about being dedicated to a project outside of academia. He listed off all the books he has been reading to help him focus on the task of actually writing a novel. On the way down the mountain we talked about the memoir I have been struggling with for the past year, and how I really want it to be a story I tell on stage, but am having the hardest time finding "the story" within my life. He suggested I make fun of myself a little--and the first thing I thought of was my embarrassment about my secret and shameful desire for fame.

We tend to lose our connection to our surroundings when we get deeply in a conversation, which is what happened, as we neared the end of the 90 minute hike. Suddenly we had no idea how to get back to the car where we had parked. Luckily, we saw a hiker walking confidently down the path and asked her for directions. She pointed us in the right direction, and we chatting breathlessly with her as we walked back to our cars together. She told us that her trail name had been "the happy hiker" but was considering changing it. She asked us for advice--we tried, but we were unable to offer anything useful. She told us she was doing a project called 365 poems by new yorkers, where she asks people on the New York Subway to write a poem, which she then publishes on her site. I was immediately drawn to her. She, like us, is a born and bred New Yorker in Massachusetts visiting her family. She asked us if we would participate in her project. We agreed. When we got to the bottom of the hill--we each wrote a quick poem in a little notebook. She took a photo of each of us, and we exchanged email addresses. She is also a filmmaker and writer. And teaches children and has twin daughters. I found her utterly compelling.

The day after hurricane Odile, she emailed me letting me know she was ready to publish my poem alongside Alexander's but she had lost the second page. She asked me if I could re-write the second part of my poem. I had no memory of what I had written, so I added what came to me on the spot. Unfortunately, our poems are not side by side as I was waylaid from internet because of Odile (which my friend Holly Mae told me is the name of the Black Swan (the shadow of the Swan Queen from Swan Lake). Here are the two links to the poems and the project:

Alexander's Poem

Zoë's Poem

Here is my poem (with the newly-fashioned ending):

I am famous to the trees

who look over me 

who have known me 

before 

before

I was born

before 

the terrible 

act of birth

before the DNA

fought for its right to be seen.

Under their patient arms

I grow

and let go

of the need

the pressing

need.

To become 

something

beyond the destiny 

of trees.

After the Storm

The minisuper a block away from our house.

Wednesday, September 17th

It’s been five days since I have left the house. Our friends who live in Todos Santos, drove all the way out to see us to make sure we were okay—as they couldn’t call. We were quite touched by their efforts and concern. They brought their two kids so Emilio got to have a spontaneous play date. Lucas ventured out yesterday to see how his mother and sister are. They have no power or running water, but their spirits are high. They had damage to their palapa, but it mostly remains, with a few holes. Everything got wet, but few things were ruined. Lucas’ sister Emily, and her boyfriend, Agus spent last season working very hard on building themselves a general store (called MiniSuper Munchies) out of wood, and a roof to protect the trailer where they live. Agustin is Argentian, and learned to build the Argentinian way—which is very strong, and weather proof. The strength of the posts (with a 4 foot deep foundation) supporting the metal roof prevented the trailer from blowing away (which is what happened to most trailers we later found out). So their home remains intact. Their store—which was constructed of all wood is also miraculously left untouched. Their store had not yet opened, but their plan is to open in the fall season which starts in November. Lucas heard through the grapevine, as only one person in our community can get connectivity—that the winds were 185 miles an hour and that the devastation in Cabo is catastrophic. Destruction, looting, mayhem and homelessness. Our one Cabo friend that was home during the hurricane, we learned via Facebook, is okay. 

Thursday, September 18th

I finally left the house yesterday—we all got in the car and visited Pescadero and Todos Santos. I was not able to get online. I took videos and photos of everything I could. I hugged the few friends that were around and Lucas’ family. It was comforting to see other people again. We still had no idea if there would be gas, water or food available. We found a makeshift store that was selling food, and Lucas grabbed everything he could. We were concerned about toilet paper. He found a few rolls. A lot of houses were destroyed, or partially destroyed, but then a lot weren’t. People’s spirits seemed high—the people who live in Baja are used to service interruption and are used to their homes being in a state of incompletion. Family is mostly what matters here. And having beer. We heard that beer was scarce, and that the government would not be resupplying beer because it was a state of emergency.  This was not good news.

We also checked out the area around Elias Calles. See photos below.

The Elias Calles valley, with the arroyo (dry river bed) filled with rainwater.

The Elias Calles Jardin de Niños (where Emilio attends school) has a missing roof and wall.

Drying out our clothes while there is sun available.

A palapa that did not fare well near the beach in Elias Calles.

A restaurant on the highway that had just finished completion a few weeks before the storm.

Hurricane Odile

PART ONE

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

This morning we learn a hurricane is coming—Odile. A category 4, with 125 mile an hour winds, which would be the most ferocious hurricane of recorded history to hit this peninsula.  It is expected to be a direct hit. It is supposed to come in the evening, but it could arrive earlier—so we work as quickly as we can. We spend the day of Sunday preparing for our imaginings of its wrath.

PREPARATIONS

In our unfinished brick bedroom building, Lucas takes cracked plywood boards (which had been left over from the building materials that Marcos and he used to build our houses)—and nais them to cover the two glass windows of the bedroom building. He nails a large piece of plywood to the front door which previously was used to block the space between the bathroom and our unfinished bedroom. He tapes x’s onto the windows with blue masking tape. He finally gets around to inserting the glass piece that had been missing from my unfinished design nest window into its gold painted frame. Lucas piles up every waterproof plastic case (filled with my vast collection of thrift store clothes) to prevent the french glass door from blowing in. Next, he inserts bricks (we have many left over from the construction of our bedroom building) into the window openings to prevent water from completely flooding the building. We take everything we can off the floor—piling our clothes and other items on top of vintage metal lockers, hampers, and tables. 

In the main house, we sweep the floors in order avoid unnecessary mud, cover our bookshelves, chairs, and musical instruments (mostly in cases) in plastic tarps. As news of Odile’s intensity progresses, our plans of where we are going to sleep change—our first plan is to start in the bedroom, and then if it gets too wet in there, we can retreat to the bodega. We soon realize that we would be better off in the bodega—which still leaks badly—but it had the fewest openings of all our spaces, and a cement roof. We know from previous rainstorms that the roof leaks, so Lucas ingeniously rigs up (as is his specialty) a sleeping space in the disorganized, overcrowded bodega, which begins with a platform of stainless steel metro shelves (wire racks) to keep us above the water line. He piles our tumbling mat on top of that. Then he resurrects what we had deemed an usable two person tent, which had bent poles (due to rowdy play by Emilio and and his friends), knowing, that even in its broken state, it is our best option to protect us from unwanted bugs and errant raindrops coming throughout the ceiling or front door. For a mattress, he takes what had previously served as our couch cushion (originally taken from an old camper.) After Lucas sets up our sleeping arrangements we feel a little more relaxed. Knowing that if worse comes to worse—which in our minds is the complete destruction of our palapa roof. (A palapa is a roof made entirely of dried palm fronds, woven tightly together over wooden beams. No metal is used in their construction.) We had before experienced a partial roof blow off in our first Baja hurricane —Jimena in 2009—a few weeks after baby Emilio was born. Our other very likely to happen fear is that our bedroom building will be completely flooded—as it had during Juliette last summer. The water had literally poured through the wall of bricks. Juliette had taken us by surprise—a tropical storm with 50 mile an hour winds.

Other preparations include shopping for extra water, gas (for the generator) and food (including candy bars, Special K, and beer to keep up the morale of the troops), filling the above the roof water tanks with water (both to ensure that we have extra water in case we need it, and that the tanks will be sufficiently weighed down as to not blow off the roof), cleaning the kitchen, making sandwiches for dinner in case cooking will not be possible, charging laptops and batteries for headlamps and flashlights, filtering extra drinking water, creating a water proof case of emergency provisions, and letting Emilio watch videos all day so as to occupy him while we focus on our tasks and so that he is in good spirits—which he absolutely is. “I love this day!” he exclaims regularly. As we prepare, we have visions of Cabo being covered by water—and us being roofless, stuck for days—all of our stuff wet and/or blown around the valley. We think it’s possible that this storm will change our lives forever. We don’t fear for our lives, but we are concerned about the amount of damage done to our our community. We know that if Cabo goes down, and our local towns flood and suffer major damages, the economy of this place will be majorly altered. Lucas will have to alter how he makes his living, which is primarily as a photographer in Cabo. We also know that the local palaperos (builders who specialize in making palapas) will be busy for months.

Storm Progresses, we lose connectivity

We have disastrous images in our minds while we do all we can to ensure our safety, comfort, and the protection of our stuff—but the truth is: we really have no idea how the hurricane will affect us, and when exactly it will hit. And that, is, by far, the worst part. The unknown fills us with a steady stream of adrenaline through the day. Lucas constantly checks our hopelessly slow internet connection in hope of weather updates—knowing somewhere inside that these updates don’t really offer much as there is nothing left for us to do except await mother’s nature’s wrath, but still, for him, it assuaged the unnerving feeling of having no information. We know it is only a matter of hours before our cell phone and internet service will be out—they both come from the same source—a TelCel tower a hundred kilometers away on top of a hill, which we can see in clear view from our house.  Whether or not we will continue to have electricity was not clear. We are now fully on solar power, and have a back up generator. But, our solar panels are on the roof our bodega—which is attached to our main building. They are securely wired down, but you never know.

The day is over, and evening has arrived. We have lost connectivity. The immediate order at hand is to eat our sandwich dinner, and get Mio to bed safely in the tent before the Odile hits. It is already raining and storming, but we know it will get worse. Much worse. We know that if Emilio falls asleep before the hurricane hits, which is supposed to be at about midnight, he will sleep through it as he had with Jimena & Juliette. Lucas has made the tent space nice and cozy, and after a bedtime book, Mio has no trouble falling asleep. I lay awake for a while in the tent—listening to the storm trying to knock its way through the metal doors of the bodega. I can hear Lucas pointlessly mopping—pointlessly trying to keep the tile floor of the living room dry. I join in him in the living room—and tell him he might as well let the water come now, we can clean it up when the storm is over. He feels he must do the mopping—as it is all he can do, and it comforts him to do something. I decide it’s time to drink some alcohol to calm my nerves. Lucas has a bottle of Sambuco, a liqueur of licorice. I drink as much as I can until the jangle is gone from my nerves. Lucas and I sit there chatting, with a jokey, we’ve done the best we can to prepare, but we’re still terrified spirit. There is something about that feeling of surrender—when you know you’ve done all you can, and the rest is beyond your control that is both comforting and humbling. It reminds you how human you are, and therefore how small and inconsequential, when faced with the momentum-building fury of mother nature on its way over to visit.

Retreating for the night

At around eleven I convince Lucas of the futility of mopping and persuade him to come to bed— we can try to get a little sleep before the really loud sounds come. We retreat into the tent, inside the bodega, which is not exactly dry—but it is the driest spot there is. I charged my iPod earlier, knowing it would be an invaluable mind distraction and sound blocker. Intuitively, I know my job is to be calm and optimistic. Lucas comes up with his own method of blocking out the sound—squeezing a pillow tightly over each ear. Mio continues to sleep soundly. His comfort is a comfort to us. 

The sounds we have been expecting come—bone chilling, earth-trembling, god-fearing sounds. We know where they came from—-it’s the metal roof getting torn off the part of our main house that is not covered in palapa. It comes off in pieces—every hour we hear another piece tear off. We imagine it smashing everything in its path, including our cars. I continue to listen to my ipod—first I listen to the last music practice session with Lucas, then I listen to an hour of solo practice from a few days earlier (after a kundalini class my voice was particularly resonant and confident) and perceive this practice as a voice breakthrough. This kind of listening gives me solace while the wind wrecks havoc on our homemade home still in process. Then I listen to a most inspiring podcast—a TED talk by the monk David Steindl-Rast. He communicates simply, eloquently, with great compassion the simple fact that gratitude creates happiness and precisely how this works. Here is a chunk of what he says: “We experience something that’s valuable to us. Something given to us that’s valuable to us… These two things have to come together. It has to be something valuable, and it’s a real gift—you haven’t bought it, you haven’t earned it, you haven’t traded it in and had to work for it, it’s just given to you and when these two things come together… then gratefulness spontaneously rises in my heart, happiness spontaneously rises in my heart. That’s how gratefulness happens. Now the key to all this is that we cannot only experience this once in a while, we can not only have grateful experiences, we can be people who live gratefully. Grateful living—that is the thing. And how it can be lived gratefully is by experiencing, by becoming aware that every moment is a given moment as we say. It’s a gift!  We haven’t earned it, you haven’t brought it about in any way… you have no way of assuring that there will be another moment given to you. And yet, that’s the most valuable thing that can ever be given to us. This moment with all the opportunity that it contains, if we didn’t have this present moment, we wouldn’t have any opportunity to do anything or experience anything, and this moment is a gift… What you’re really grateful for is the opportunity, not the thing that is given to you because if that thing were somewhere else and you didn’t have the opportunity to enjoy, to do something with it, you wouldn’t be grateful for it. Opportunity is the gift within every gift. And we have this saying “opportunity knocks only once”, well think again. Every moment is a new gift! Over and over again. And if you miss the opportunity of this moment, another moment is given to us, and another moment. We can avail ourselves of this opportunity or we can miss it. And if we avail ourselves of this opportunity it is the key to happiness. We hold the master key to our happiness in our own hands. Moment by moment we can be grateful for this gift. Does that mean that we can be grateful for everything? Certainly not… we cannot be grateful for violence, for war, for oppression, for exploitation. On the personal level, we cannot be grateful for the loss of a friend, for unfaithfulness, for bereavement, but I didn’t say we could be grateful for everything, I said we can be grateful in every given moment for the opportunity. And even when we are confronted with something that is terribly difficult, we can rise to this occasion and respond to the opportunity that is given to us. It isn’t as bad  as it might seem. Actually, when you look at it, and experience it, you find that most of the time what is given to us is opportunity to enjoy and we only miss it because we are rushing through life and we are not stopping to see the opportunity. But once in a while, something very difficult is given to us and when this difficult thing occurs to us, it’s a challenge to rise to that opportunity and we can rise to it by learning something which is sometimes painful. Learning patience for instance. We have been told that the road to peace is not a sprint, but it’s more like a marathon and that takes patience, that’s difficult. It may be to stand up for your opinion, to stand up for your conviction. That’s an opportunity that is given us. To learn, to suffer, to stand up. All these opportunities are given to us, but they are opportunities and those who avail themselves of those opportunities are the ones we admire. They make something out of life. And those who fail get another opportunity. We always get another opportunity. That’s the wonderful richness of life.”

Listening to his words as the hurricane rages outside is life-affirming. No matter what the destruction that we will discover the next morning—we will have the opportunity to continue to live, we will have a chance to re-create our life how we need it to be. It will be difficult, and it will be messy—but we will still be grateful for what we have. We will survive and we will continue to appreciate the life we have built, and the fact that we are still a family in tact. There is nothing like outside threats to strengthen the bonds of a family or community—as long as we are grateful. We were bonded together in our tent, and Ping—who is the most nervous dog I have ever known—-is huddled against my body, on the outside of the tent. I can feel his shaking through the thin nylon. We had to lock Ping inside the whole day to assure he would not run away out of fear. His response to danger is flight. He hears loud noise and his legs just start running. No part of his mammalian brain is available to him. He had previously escaped a few times during this especially stormy summer on the days we left him at the property and surprise thunderstorms came.

A New Day—counting our losses

The storm rages all night long and through out the morning. Between the two of us Lucas and I sleep about an hour. Emilio sleeps until morning. Bless that little sleeper. Early in the morning, Emilio and I wake up and unzip the damp tent—we step through the flooded floor of the bodega into the main house. Odile is still expressing himself—wind and water blowing around—but less so. Everything is a wet mess of water, dirt and leaves, but the palapa roof, made with not one nail or screw, is miraculously still there. It is roughed up, and there are holes in it, but it covers us. All of our windows are in tact. We step outside—the vision breaks my heart. The only thing I have not previously imagined is how the plants would fare. I am not prepared for what I see. The circle of trees is mostly flattened. Our beautiful Neems (the only trees on our property that we have planted that are now almost mature) have all their leaves blown off—they are all more or less sideways. Our three Terote trees—the three naturally standing trees that Lucas built the brick bedroom building around— are badly damaged—limbs have been torn off—even the bark itself is stripped bare in places. The wood that Lucas nailed to protect the windows has been pulled off. We see pieces of roof from four different roofs scattered all over the land. The rainproof plastic roof over the kitchen is completely gone—there is still the lower layer of plywood covering it—with the inner layer of plaster falling down in chunks all over the kitchen. The metal roof (photo or link to previous post) over the art camper is missing except one piece. Now here is the real miracle—the camper is almost completely dry—except for one small puddle on one of the counters. We had thought the camper to be not at all waterproof which was why Lucas had scrambled before Juliette to build a waterproof roof over it. All of my precious art supplies and art work and books are not damaged! I continue to have a real respite in my camper. My beloved garden that I had planted next to the camper is quite damaged. Most of the leaves were blown off, the plants have been knocked down or repositioned at deep angles—but on close inspection, I see that they remain rooted. A blessing! I lament them anyway as is my tendency when there is any sign of losing greenness in our desert dwelling. It takes so much effort to keep a plant thriving when we do not have an irrigation system, and the summer can be so hot when there’s no storm. The rainstorms all summer have been good for the plants—and now all of that growing green has been stripped out. The paint on Lucas’ truck was also been stripped off in sections—as was the paint (applied only one year ago) of parts of our house—literally sandblasted off. 

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The two water tanks that Lucas filled yesterday, which provide the main source of house water (using a gas generator we pump the water from our large water tanks at the bottom of our property into the two tanks above our house that through pressure of gravity, provide our sink water and toilet water for flushing) have been knocked off the roof. One is beyond repair, and one may still be usable. Lucas realizes that the connection to the tanks has been severed, which leaked all of our water out, then allowing the wind to blow the empty tanks off the roof. The large metal bodega doors are damaged and will need to be replaced. The bedroom building is a wet, chaotic mess, but most of our stuff was not damaged. All of our clothes that were not in storage cases will need to be dried out in the sun. The wood that Lucas had nailed to the windows and had put to block the open front doorway were torn off by the wind. None of the glass was broken except for, ironically, the one piece that Lucas put in the day before in an attempt to keep some of my design nest stuff dry.

Counting our Blessings

Our solar panels did not get blown off the roof.  And, they are still hooked up properly and are working. We have electricity! Even our fridge—which runs on its own solar panel and battery is working. We have no running water in the main house—but our lower storage tanks are full enough to last us a while. We have some water in our bedroom building so we can take showers there. For now. We are stocked with food, and basic medicine and first aid supplies. Our Peruvian neighbors, who recently moved back to their land, and we have become friends with—checked in us to see how we were. We both reported we were fine—their house is even less finished than ours. 

It has become easy for us to count our blessings because we are reminded daily of the conveniences and comforts we now have that we didn’t start out with. Beginning with camping on our land (which we didn’t yet legally own) while I was pregnant, our life over the past six years has been a gradual increase in self-sufficiency, comfort, convenience and freedom. We also received lots and lots of help—from our families especially, but also from friends, and neighbors. Not always, but often it is natural for us to appreciate what we have, instead of focus on what we have lost because we have gained so much! Part of the reason we live the way we do—out here in the desert wilderness—is because we are aware that the world will bring and more more disastrous types of situations. Global warming brings more storms, and dwindling resources brings more desperation to people. This is Lucas’ grand project—being prepared, just in case. We discovered recently there is a term for what he is: “a defensive pessimist”. It’s not a very flattering moniker, but it fits. I think he feels affirmed by the fact there is a term for what he is. A defensive pessimist is defined as a person who imagines the worse case scenario, and then plans for it so as to feel assured. That is the kind of person you want to live with if there’s a real disaster on its way.  I am quite sure I would have had no idea what to do with out Lucas, who not only is great at thinking through possible catastrophes, and coming up with ingenious solutions on the spur of the moment—but he also invents and designs future projects with all matters of nature, both destructive and creative, deeply in mind.  If he’s a defensive pessimist, that makes me an offensive optimist. That feels about right. To some people my optimism probably is offensive. But, I am good to have around during difficult times because my goal is to keep up the morale of the troops, and I do so love a good adventure. I think of all the goodies that creates little moments of comfort, fun or pleasure.

Odile’s wrath immediately cut through our indecisiveness, mental blockage and distraction from the important stuff of life. The storm awakened in us—even in moments while it was happening—a sense of celebration of life—of our gratitude to being given an opportunity to go on living with greater clarity, purpose and appreciation. The storm re-affirmed for us what previously had been wavering, let each choice or commitment we had made to come forward and announce itself, or otherwise retreat into the background and then let go of. With all the land a mess—our beloved trees damaged, much of our stuff wet, damaged, but most of it, not—we could appreciate what was left—a home that shelters us (mostly), a beautiful piece of land in the foothills of a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains and ocean. For Emilio—it was all an adventure or perhaps non-adventure (it can be hard to tell with him)—either way, he got a few days with his family all together, all focused on the same goal, as he got to have the normal rules loosened in favor of more movies and more treats. As for me and Lucas, we still have the same dreams, and the same personalities—but our dreams feel more precious and are in sharper focus. Our personalities shine—the positive forging ahead, old habits disintegrating. For Lucas—he has been dreaming of his next weatherproof house design. And for me—I feel a greater resolve to build community through the arts, work on my creative projects and develop my thoughts and ideas and share them with you here.

We have yet to learn of how others’ fared, but we are quite certain, overall, we are some of the lucky ones. I am bracing myself to hear of the devastation in Cabo, which I am sure will be severe. Cabo already is a place built quickly, cheaply, with little taste, and no planning. The communities that we are connected to—Pescadero & Todos Santos, and to a lesser extent, La Paz—will have their own struggles to overcome. But for now—there is no internet, no phone, and the road over the bridge has a gaping hole in it, and we are not sure if anyone is driving. I will post this as soon as I can find a place that has an internet connection.

The view from our courtyard from our roof.

Emilio pretending we have cell phone service, calling Snoopy to tell him of our troubles.

To be continued...

Whole

Here is a poem I wrote a few days ago after a particularly rich, self-facing, nature-emergent day.

I

Throw your ego to the wolves

and the sparks of your youth will fly towards you.

You go to meet that ancient child—

you, 

as future self.

Imperfectly perfect

with your secrets 

worn as flowers in your hair.

II

I lay on the ground today,

bits of it still lie on my back

as I sit here

remembering

the touch of it

the feel of it

the weight of my body—

like a fallen tree

and then

I lay on the cement,

and watched the clouds undress

the moon.

This morning I read that clouds

weigh as much as 20 elephants.

I weigh as much as heaven when I’m upside down.

III

I faced my self underground—

she had ribbons as roots

and no desire

other than to know me

exactly as I am.

Future and past,

lion & queen

madly mated in holy ritual.