Learning about instinct from Björk and Andy Warhol

                     Photo credit unknown

Last night, I watched two documentaries about two fascinating art heroes of mine. Andy Warhol and Björk. They reflect both sides of my artist self— shy, clever, design and dramatic, emotional, performance. Björk is my hero because she is a brilliant artist in everything she does. She is courageous, she is deep, she is alive. She respects her own art intuitively, and she teaches us how this is necessary. She makes use of her own arresting image to talk about her human experience, she does what expressive arts therapy does—she uses the material of her self, her culture, her identity, her experience of humanness, her childlike nature, her masculine & feminine energy to create new territories of culture. She combines, she tears down boundaries, she brings the dream world and the world of reality into an altered third plane that is all her own. To me this what great music does. This is what all great art does—creates something that didn’t quite exist before. It is a feeling of visiting a newly discovered planet, that is also relatable—built out of something recognizable. A planet we have never been to before, except maybe in our dreams.

      Polaroid Self Portrait by Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol did the same thing, in his way. He took a careful, critical, but most importantly, celebratory look at culture, at what culture was in the process of becoming, and created something brand new out of it. He got out ahead. He put up a gigantic mirror. He dared to show us our narcissism, and his own. He made use, too, of his own body, his own wounds, his own childlike nature, his femininity & masculinity, his belief in the beauty of humanity. These are also my goals as an artist, but it seems I am much slower to arrive. Perhaps this is because I am so multi-modal, my development in each form has to be slow. It’s also because I often get stuck in my own self-doubt as an artist. I, too, want to turn everything I do into art. I too, want to make use of my masculinity & femininity & childlike nature. I too, want to break down boundaries—I too want to celebrate humanity. I feel like I haven’t quite stepped fully into my artistic voice & body, but rather than waiting, I am starting to put my voice out there before I am fully ready. This blog is for that purpose—and it is what I believe may be revolutionary about it—to expose my process, the messy process of becoming myself. To highlight my process of transformation (which happens over and over again) in the hopes that I might help illuminate your path for yourself.

I don’t believe I have all the answers, I am just willing to share my questions and my quest. I have some answers, or rather, I am in development with some answers, and those I am also willing to share—particularly in my labs and in my counseling/coaching sessions. We already have so many voices on the internet who tell us that they have the answers, the secret to humanity. (Nearly everyday I listen to inspiring TED talks, or master storytellers.) My intention is to reveal the process of getting there. (As if the process ever ends. I don't believe it does.)  My intention is to expose my failures as exciting lessons. To reveal my emotions, so that it makes it safer for you to feel yours. My goal is to keep myself inspired, and in turn, keep you inspired. I want to inspire you to never give up on your dreams, to never give up on you becoming your whole self.

The word that emerged in both documentaries, but particularly from the one about Björk, was instinct. This word is not a word I use often, but now it has come happily, fully to my attention. There are a few nuanced definitions of the word, but Bjork used it in this sense: “a natural or intuitive way of acting or thinking.” (Oxford) She said that her goal in her art is to return us to our instincts. She uses her own instincts, which are highly developed because since she has been an artist since she was a young child. She has never stopped being an artist. I think this is why her art is so magical, so unreal—she trusts that her instincts will take her where she needs to go. This is the expressive arts ethos as well—we move into a deeper well of our experience in order to express the non-linear, less conscious part of our human experience. Andy Warhol used his very-well developed instincts too—his art reflects the instinctual human response to mass culture, to advanced capitalist culture. What it turns us into.

Lately, I have  a similar way of looking at the purpose of art, but the word I have been using is nature. My goal being: to help human culture be more connected to nature. The nature that is already within us. Both our humanity and our animality. I am now seeing that instincts are the function of our human experience that allows us to connect to our nature. What I am also seeing now, for myself, is that it’s not enough just to have instincts, its about trusting those instincts. It’s about not doubting ourselves.  The only way we can do this is to stop being self-conscious, which is to stop wondering what other people will think. To not let our projections of others' perceptions be a factor in how we move our raw material into the art space. How we shape our personal response to our unique experience. This is, by far, the greatest thing that holds me back as an artist, and I know that I am not alone. But how do we do this? How do we let go of our fear of judgment by others? How do we stop worrying about how our art will be received?

There is no simple solution, or rather, there are many solutions, and this is the question that guides how I set up my classroom laboratories: how do I create a context that helps people be free to open up to their vast creativity? One thing comes to mind: it’s about where we put our attention. If we put our attention on our experience, we are self-aware. When we put our attention on others' experience of us, we are self-conscious. If we stay focused on what we are doing, and what we are trying to express, then we won’t be thinking as much about how it will be received. Getting deeply into the work is what evaporates self-consciousness. It isn’t easy to do. I struggle with it every day. But I also work on solutions. Quitting Facebook was one of my solutions. So is writing this blog everyday. Meditating is another.

What are some of your solutions?

The Authenticity Mantra is the Cure for a Vulnerability Hangover

One of my newest heroines is Brené Brown. She is a social researcher, a story teller and listener, author, and a Texan. What she studies mostly is shame & vulnerability. Her excellent, exhaustive research has led her to conclude that our experience of shame, and our inability to talk about  shame is one of the main causes of most of the social problems we see in the US today: addiction, isolation, crime, suicide.

She also teaches authenticity, as an antidote to shame. This is her definition of authenticity:

“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who think we’re supposed to be, and embracing who we actually are. Choosing authenticity means: 1) Cultivating the courage to be imperfect 2) to set boundaries and 3) to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. Expressing compassion that comes from knowing that we’re all made of strength and struggle. Authenticity demands wholehearted living and loving, even when it’s hard, even when we’re wrestling with the shame and fear of not being good enough and especially when the joy is so intense that we’re afraid to let ourselves feel it. Mindfully practicing authenticity during our soul searching struggles is how invite grace, joy and gratitude into our lives.”

I took the above quote from her 6 hour talk called The Power of Vulnerability. If you listen to it, it will change your life. In it, she also shares her authenticity mantra, which I use all the time, and tell to everyone who will listen.

"Don't shrink. Don't puff up. Just stay on your sacred ground."

I am sharing this because this blogging project is all about my new found commitment to authenticity. It's not an easy path I am now on, and I am suffering from what Brené Brown calls a vulnerability hangover. At times I feel a bit raw, and alone. But I also know that if I want to be a trailblazer, which I most definitely do, I am going to have to tolerate the discomfort of vulnerability. If I want to be a leader, I need to go first. This month of blogging is me going first. When I feel afraid to risk being myself, it always helps to have a hero in mind. Brené Brown is my hero of the day.

I made my dramatic statement about leaving Facebook on Facebook today. And now I feel like I left the party. But I also know that I can create my own party, on my own terms. This reminds me of one of my own mantras that I use when I feel a need for external validation, but then remember that self-validation is really what I am looking for.

"I'm where the party's at."

Facebook feels like a popularity contest that I'm losing

The other day, I went on Facebook after writing my blog post about how I am done apologizing for the collective shadow, and the first thing I saw was a link posted by an old friend to an online magazine who had done some sort of exposé on his fancy country house. He had received a ton of comments and likes, everyone complimenting his house. One part of me sees that there is nothing wrong with this. This is normal behavior, acceptable behavior. But another part of me felt envious, and underneath that, angry. Not at any person, just at the way Facebook makes me feel. Then I realized it. Facebook is a place where we re-confirm what The Culture says is acceptable about us, and where we continue to hide our shadow, which grows bigger and bigger, underground. For me, it exacerbates the ego's need to confirm itself over and over, but then I am left feeling empty. I rarely find authenticity in the realm of Facebook, most especially not in myself. And yet,  since I live in the desert, in Mexico, and I am far away from much of my friends and family, Facebook has sadly become the main way of keeping in touch with people in my life. It is a very paltry way of communicating with people you care about. Nearly every time I go on Facebook, I leave feeling wounded, inadequate, ashamed, disconnected & profoundly disappointed. For a long time I have wanted to share more of what I really think and feel on Facebook, but I have been afraid to tell the truth. How could I not be afraid of being myself in front of (what feels like) an unpredictably random assortment of  500 people I know or used to know, including: grade school best friends, people I've never met, dead relatives, clients, bosses, co-workers, ex's, therapists, teachers. On Facebook, in front of almost everyone we've ever known, our social connection is reduced to momentary reactions to fleeting images of people with whom we've had every kind of relationship imaginable. People's behavior has been reduced to the simplest gestures and statements that fall in the category of that which can be commented on in a few words, clicked in less than a second or more often, ignored.  On Facebook I have the feeling that I need to express myself as generically as possible because I have no idea who I am actually communicating with. This feels like the fear of being judged in middle school and high school when we were first developing an identity. I don't want to go back to that trapped-in-silence feeling again.

I say:

FUCK FACEBOOK.

I typed the above statement last night into my computer and it felt just right. I decided I am going to leave Facebook and see how it changes my life. I am moving my comments to Twitter (which is new to me) & Somewhere and maybe I'll discover a new social platform that feels more welcoming of my full self. But of course, most of comments will be here at the zoëlab HQ. I am always available by phone and email. Those older technologies seem so warm now with Facebook out of the way.

I might give myself a little time to adjust to this new idea. I am still contemplating whether or not I want to leave up my Art For Life page or leave Facebook all together. Right now I feel like slipping out the back door. Tomorrow I may feel a need to make a slightly louder exit.

This idea feels a little thrilling, strangely. Writing this post certainly has been thrilling, and I almost didn't post it. Almost.

(I confess this blog post took longer than 15 minutes. But I had a lot of fun, so it's okay.)

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?

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.

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

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...

Start from where you are, again

I started zoëlab 365 as a blog, as a way to track my personal happiness project. As a way to get back to my inner life after motherhood. As a commitment and challenge to my faith in creativity. But then zoëlab blossomed into something much bigger, more complex and longer lasting than just a blog, it became, simply put: a process. A process I fell in love with. A process in which I could share my most intimate enthusiasm for artmaking and in-love-with-ness of life and a place where I could be honest about my darkness, revealing of my heart, and a place where I could develop my point of view. It became a place where I could catalogue, and at the same time discover patterns in my past artistic explorations and musings. Starting with my early childhood—I unwound an improvised, non-chronological autobiography, or artography. I saw that the person I was trying to become was the same person I was as a child. I was self-revealing, but I was veiled, too. It was satisfying to experience the tension between exposing myself to a potential public, while at the same time feeling so hidden, unseen. Living on a raw piece of desert, building a life from scratch, and trying to find myself, as a woman, as an artist, and as a mom. I saw how not only was my role as mom was a creation, just as our family—was a creation. My dedication to my philosophy of life as art--taught me that everything in our life, if we approach it with love, humor, and creativity is art. We could decide how we wanted to create our life in a way that best suits all of us. Living in this way takes lots of compromises, and things are quite, yet deliciously, imperfect. We live a life that skids on the edges of camping and homemade comfort. Garbage and art. Off the grid, yet plugged in. We live a life in between—in between two cultures, in between two languages, in between two worlds—first and third. We live a life that is exciting and feels right even when it goes wrong, which it does often, because we are living from a desire to grow and develop and learn everything we can, everything we are fascinated by and enamored with.  Everything that will help us become better human beings. 

This new process brought me to a new place in life—or rather returned me to something that had been dormant but present since I was a little girl. For the first time, I truly believed in myself. Not in the sense of Rocky or Spiderman—well a little bit in that sense—but also in the sense of my self being something that was always changing, ever creative. It wasn’t the small self, the ego self, it was the larger SELF that I had encountered. This SELF is not a thing in itself, but rather, a potential (a potential that we all share as humans) and that all I needed to do was face my fears, laugh them in the face and then keep going, keep making, keep digging down deep enough to find compassion and humor and courage to live a little larger than I was used to. The self  that emerged was bigger than I could hold in any one picture in my mind. And thus a blog is a perfect place to collect such a kaleidoscope.

This process is, in itself, a testament to process, itself. It is a celebration, investigation and navigation of process—of what it means to be in-between the polished products of life, of how we make meaning of our life, how we develop into our destinies, while at the same time empowering ourselves to act upon the life that flows out of us. It is a study in how we reclaim the parts of ourselves that we have not wanted to see.  It is an explanation of how we get crazy loving and curious and childlike and grow ourselves up enough to be responsible for our choices and yet, irresponsibly committed to the magic of life—sometimes putting it above strict bedtimes or careful expressions or logical spending or any expectations the outside world may have on us. I am learning how to question unconscious values while at the same time upholding the often unmirrored values that I have held (until recently) secretly, inside my heart. Values like kindness, compassion, creativity, tolerance, expressiveness, generosity, forgiveness, honesty, grit, upholding the feminine principle, kick-assedness, embracing opposites, beauty, and grace. 

I trained myself to be more disciplined, I challenged myself to be more alive. I awoke myself to the mysteries of natural life. I dared myself to share what was shameful. I flirted with exposing parts of myself to the public eye. I got curious about what it was like to take my art more seriously and myself less seriously. And, most of all—I let myself be. Anything was okay to share if I wanted to share it. I gave myself permission to be or express or share whatever/whoever I was in the moment. The combination of that freedom with the daily commitment was a magical potion. It worked for me in a way that no other project had ever worked for me before because it provided continuity and visibility--two aspects of my life that have been particularly lacking.

And ever since it ended I have wanted to get back to it. But somehow, I didn’t know how. And then I figured it out: 358 days later—all I have to do is get back into the process. I had lost sight of what it really was, and what had made it so magical for me. This is the raison d’être of the blog—why it was invented—as a way to track a process, and yet to be able to return to it over and over in an easily searchable fashion. The only problem was that my last blog was missing a search feature--as well as a tag feature. This fact frustrated me to no end. And then I realized I would have to start over and do a new blog on a new platform with new parameters. I would have to learn a new interface and new design skills. I would have to get better internet at home. I would have to get a computer that actually worked. I would have to get our electricity hooked up. I would have to quit my job. I would have to return to music. (Well that was just something I needed to regardless.) I would have to get organized. I would have to build up the courage again. And now I have done all those things, a year has gone by. And I still felt blocked/blogged. I didn’t know how to start. Or re-start. I couldn’t just press unpause. Or could I?

At various times thought out year this past year of bloglessness a voice inside me told me this: “After a whole year has gone by, you need to catch up your readers (if you still, or ever, had any) to the latest events in your life.” “You have to transfer all 360 posts to the new platform. This could take months, maybe longer.” “You should create a clever graphic recap time line of the past year.” “You have to make a video compilation of all the posts of 365.”

And then I consulted the Tarot Cards—which I only just started studying a week ago, (after having just received my first professional reading.) I am always looking for signs from the kind and playful universe. And the tarot cards told me this—a message which I gleaned from several different readings over a few days: even if you can’t publish everyday, go back to your commitment to be in the zoelab process everyday. Find your way back to the work by going back into the work. You are a the second stage of completion and you are about to embark on a new journey. September will be a month of success for you. And then another sign, this time from the-universe-via Lucas: he showed me a piece of video he had downloaded earlier of Ron Sexsmith and friends singing the Elvis Costello song: “Everyday I write the book.” 

As poet/astrologer/musician/pronoaic prophet Rob Brezsny (whose book has been inspiring/affirming me lately) would say, with welcome "rowdy blessings" from the universe, I am re-committing myself to The Process that this blog started two years ago to this day. 

Stay tuned....

p.s. I have transferred all the posts for the first month of ZOELAB 365, and will continue to transfer the rest of the 11 months of posts here.

Backwards Night Dreaming About Camp

ZOELAB DAY 78

I have been so busy lately. Working on ZOELAB is the only time of the day where I don’t feel “busy.” Or when I watch television, though television is still being busy, because we aren’t really present when we’re that passive. (I must confess I fell off the television wagon the other night, and instead of creating with ZOELAB, I watched four episodes in a row of The Sopranos. God, I forgot how good, and funny, that show was. Carmella is my empowerment heroine.) Anyway, what is busyness but preoccupation with things that don’t exist in the present. I really don’t like being this busy--when we’re busy, we start to accept stress as a baseline emotion. I want to remember the reason we live here, in Baja, in the desert next to the Pacific ocean, is so that we don’t have to be so busy. So that we can be more relaxed as parents, and as a family. So that we have more time to be creative and social. So that we can have time to just be. But, with parenting, work, and all our various projects, we are living in the busy world. 

Trying to find inspiration for sharing on ZOELAB, I started looking through some old writing and found a list I had made for my first blog, almost four years ago, of pluses and minuses of living outside, while we were camping on this very land that we now have a house on. I never published the list. Today I noticed there were 15 items on the minus list. On the plus list, only 14. I added the 15th today, so the two lists would be even. 

How beautifully simple life was when we camped here. Not that it was easy, but it was a special and peaceful time. I realize how lucky I was to have lived in nature while I was pregnant--ocean, mountains, desert, and also: dessert. 

Pluses vs. Minuses of Living Outside

Minuses

1. Everything gets dirty

2. Sun damage

3. Windy

4. Cold at night

5. Have to dump our toilet

6. Keep food in storage away from animals

7. Lots of prickly, hurty things, scorpions and cholla

8. No cell connection

9. No internet connection

10. No place to hang a mirror

11. Things break a lot

12. Lack of security

13. Lack of comfort at night

14. Lack of entertainment at night

15. Have to take garbage to the dump 

Pluses

1. Keeping track of how much water, gas, electricity using

2. More aware of the moon, the stars & the sun

3. Love rocks

4. Peaceful (except for noisy neighbors)

5. No rent

6. No bills

7. Can make as much noise as we want

8. No need for alarm clock

9. Can recycle gray water for plants

10. Hear ocean and birds

11. Perfect for Ping/guard dog/free dog

12. Appreciate the little comforts in life, with each new comfort comes a whole new possibility of life style

13. You can create new spaces freely

14. You never have to worry about parking

15. Being present comes naturally

The Slow Making of a Dream, Third Phase of Building: Bedroom

ZOELAB DAY 77

I am aware that my Second Phase of Building post, the latest and biggest phase of our house building project, is long over due, but now, even though it will be out of order, I am announcing Phase Three. Thanks to my parents, and their upcoming visit in February, we will now be able to finish the bedroom building, which my parents will stay in when they visit. It will be the first time I have had my parents as a guest in our home. Lucas has two months to gather a crew, buy the materials and finish the building. Will he and his men be able to do it in time? Only time will tell. 

Above photo is a shot of the North view from what will become Emilio’s bedroom, which is now our clothesline area.

View of our living space building from Emilio’s future bedroom.

Front entrance to building. Emilio’s bedroom will be on the right, ours will be on the left.

Lucas still hasn’t decided many of the important structural aspects of the house, like how he’s going to do the roof, but he’s created the basic design of the building. Lucas is an amateur architect with no training, and a moderately experienced builder, you could call his style of working “improvisational architecture.” But I am not even sure it can be called architecture, it is more like building with giant legos. No matter what I call it, I continue to be in complete awe of his vision and skill, using nothing but his imagination and the internet, in creating comfortable, elegant and unique spaces. This is Lucas’ basic design: there is an entrance in the center of the building, into avestibule, which leads to two symmetrical bedrooms on either side. Each bedroom has a closet that is also located in the center section, and a shared bathroom with an entrance from both bedrooms. This center part of the building is already built, out of cement blocks (the most popular building method around), which was started while the main house was being built. But the bottom part of the walls are made out of earth bags, which a lot of our main house is also made of. More about earth bags when I write about the Second Phase of Building.

Wider North West view of bedroom building from front entrance before earth bags and foundation. Photo taken on January 29th, 2012.

seis doce: behind the seams

ZOELAB DAY 76

(Numbers can have meaning too.)

It came to me a few years ago. The idea for a clothing line that was so local it was named after the area code. 

When we first moved to Baja, I got a cell phone with theCabo area code (624) because that was where we bought my phone. We lived, however, in the 612 area code of the Pacific Side of the peninsula. There is a considerable amount of rivalry between Cabo (624) and the area I live in which is comprised of: La Paz (the city where Emilio was born, making him a pazeño), Todos Santos, Pescadero, and Elias Calles (our town, which is, driving south on the highway, the last town before you reach Cabo San Lucas). After a few years of using an out of area area code, I realized how much cell phone credit I was using up for no reason. The Pacific side folks tend to feel significantly superior to anyone from Cabo. I am not sure if the snubbing goes in the other direction. 

I eventually myself a new phone in Todos Santos, and I was considerately excited that I finally had a 612 area code. Imay have some identity trauma from having grown up in Brooklyn during the area code change, when in 1984, Brooklyn, which had had the same area code as Manhattan, 212, had suddenly been given a new area code: 718. I remember being really mad about it. After all, I reasoned, Brooklyn is not a separate city from Manhattan, we are just different boroughs. I had learned that we were supposed to put Brooklyn, NY as our return address when we wrote letters. But I refused. I argued again: Why should I write Brooklyn, NY, when it’s part of New York City. I stubbornly continued to write NY, NY for Brooklyn addresses. My feelings about area codes and neighborhood pride run deep, as they do for many people who come from the area that is less well known than it’s neighbor.

Living now in Elias Calles (which is halfway between both Cabo and Todos Santos in either direction), as I did in Brooklyn and Oakland, I feel again the born out of defensiveness local pride that comes from living a half an hour away from the larger town. 

Anyway, when my cell phone had 612 area code, I felt, finally, that warm, familiar feeling of belonging to the underdog. One day, while dialing a number from my 612 phone, and feeling that pride, I was reminded of a clothing company called Neighborhoodies that makes custom t-shirts and hoodies with people’s neighborhoods (or anything they want) written on them. I ordered three tank tops from Neighborhoodies as a surprise gift to my social service bandmates--each t-shirt had written on it: social service, in the front, our individual band name which was a combination of our given name and the instrument we played, and our favorite number on the back. Zoetar, Drumifer & Pollase. Sure, it was dorky, but we embraced that as part of the band aesthetic. 

Anyway, the memory gave me an idea: I had just started making t-shirts that were really simple to make, and yet very flattering, and then I realized I needed to make t-shirts with 612. In fact, I decided to name my future clothing line 612. As time went by, I discovered that local Mexican, don’t say: “six one two” “seis uno dos,” when they give you their phone number, they say: six twelve. Seis Doce. If you want to be real local, you need to say seis doce. And hence, the name of my new label. 

How can you have a new label if you don’t have any clothes yet? Well, today I finally had a day in the sewing studioat Casa Luna and got myself through a day of sewing with my new serger. The serger is a wonderful exciting new machine that I have been wanting for a few years, but because it’s new, and different from a regular sewing machine, it is a bit tricky. It is so easy for me to get intimidated by new techniques and machines, and want to give up. However a little perseverance got me through an hour of troubleshooting the bad sounds the machine was making. It was a lot of threading and rethreading, but when I finally found my rhythm, it was incredibly gratifying to be able to actually use the machine. Sergers sew the seams, cut the fabric and finish the seams all at the same time. They are fast efficient machines that make even a novice’s sewing look more professional. They use 3 to 4 different needles at a time. Anyway, they are the ideal machine to use when sewing knits, which is primarily what I make, because the seams they create are both strong and stretchy. 

Using the dark blue bolt of fabric (my first bolt ever bought) I got at the Segunda in La Paz, I made six Y-shirts (this style looks more like a Y than a T). I also finished a shirt (pictured above) and appliqued my first 612. I still need to sew down the numbers, but that’s more or less how it will look. I am currently researching label options, considering getting a stamp with the logo printed on it, that I can put on the inside of the of the clothes. Six and a half is not a lot, but it’s a great start. Initiating (or re-initiating) is always the hardest step. On Monday ZOELAB is going on the road for a week, so I don’t think I will have a chance to do any more sewing for a little while. But when I get back, I’ll definitely getting back to the studio! I want to do more with the applique, I developed another style of applique (that I made on my pink sweatshirt) that I want to try with the Y-shirts.

This story has a dual purpose, to share the development of an idea for its own sake, sharing its intention and its process of creation, all successes and failures, but also as a way of copyrighting it, to prove that it is in fact mine (though not really mine, as you can see, my idea is a pastiche of others’ ideas.)

Art World: Outsider/Insider, Part Two

ZOELAB DAY 70

Meanwhile, I was going graduate school school to become an expressive arts therapist. I thought of it as the ideal career for someone like me. I could continue to express myself in all the varying art forms, free from the constraints of making money within that context, and at the same time, I could make a living as an expressive arts therapist. Through my three years of school, and two years (one year overlapping with school) working as an expressive arts therapist, I developed a new relationship to the arts. Making art was no longer about ego gratification and being clever, but it became a soul need. It became a way of living. A way of making meaning out of life, so that I could have a more playful, creative relationship with myself, and with others. It was a way to take myself less seriously, but at the same time take my feelings more seriously. I found something I really believed in. Making art in this way is magical, deep and satisfying. However, as I headed deeper into the professional world of psychology, with its licensing hours, ethical codes and boundaries, I started to feel uncomfortable. I asked myself is this what I really want? I started to find myself feeling less whole, and more split. The connection I had with being an artist in the world started to slip away, but I wasn’t willing to give it up. I wasn’t willing to put it into hiding. In an expressive arts therapy based desire to integrate this split between the Professional and the Artist, I came up with an idea for a sitcom character--an untrained working therapist, who was very unprofessional, with very poor boundaries because what she really wanted to do was to be an artist. Every week she had a new fantasy, and as she sits with clients she fantasizes about her other life. I did not make the show, and we moved to Mexico soon after. (Since then I have been developing the show within the new context of Baja, and plan to start shooting in 2013).

It wasn’t until last year, when I was planning workshops for Art For Life,  my organization that I am building in Mexico, where I teach cultivating creativity workshops and do creativity coaching, that the realization came to me. What if the work I do helping people to access their creativity IS art in itself? After all, this could be a form of art as social practice. When I think about it, it is not so different from what an expressive arts therapist is trained to do. With expressive arts therapy, “the work” or the therapeutic relationship is private, and therefore personal only. But with social practice art, “the work,”  while still just as personal, becomes public, and therefore universal. In this way, the work benefits not only the teacher/therapist/artist (me) and the participant/student/artist, but also, the public, who witnesses the interaction (whether through recordings, or as a live audience.) Another important difference between expressive arts therapy and social practice art is the context, and the language of aesthetics. My goal is to make Art For Life (its teachings and experiences) relevant in different contexts, using distinct languages of expression. Some workshops will be relatable to people with no arts training, while some will behelpful to people who are fully engaged in the art world. I am interested in connecting the gap between the sophistication and internationality of the art world and the depth and empathy of the expressive arts therapy world. The art world can be kind and the expressive arts world can be hip. 

The internet is an integrative space that can hold the kind of approach I am speaking of. This blog is, in itself, my foray into social practice. My goal is to make it more interactive--so that it feels more of a mutual experience. I want to share one of my favorite examples of participatory art--the project by Harold Fletcher and Miranda July called Learning to Love You More.  If you are interested in social practice/participatory art, please write to me and share your knowledge, as this is just a starting place for me. I have been sharing with you a a new thing, a delicate thing. The first seed of a possible direction of my ever-evolving desire to integrate my dreams, passions and skills, so as not to feel compartmentalized, so that I may live the enchanted life of my dreams, and to help others live their creative dreams. Ultimately, to live life as creatively as possible, to live life as art.

Art World: Outsider/Insider, Part One

ZOELAB DAY 69

I have always had an ambivalent relationship with the visual Art World. Even though my mother is a painter, with an MFA in art, and I was a Studio Art major in college and grew up in New York City, getting to go to some of the finest museums and galleries in the world and I have dedicated to my life to the study, practice and teaching of the arts, there was a clear moment when I decided that I would not become a professional visual artist in the traditional sense. I knew, somehow, that I did not want to make art to sell in museums or galleries. I have had a few pieces in shows here and there, but really, it has not been my goal. This project ZOELAB is the most I’ve put myself out there as an artist in my life.

The art world, with its erudite sleekness and exclusivity, is both a real and conceptual place to which I have felt intuitively I don’t belong. And yet, there is a paradox. Because I also feel a connection to the art world, I understand its language, but yet something has been missing. I love to go to museums and galleries. I love to read art criticism (or used to) and have heady discussions with artists about aesthetics and contexts. Many of my friends are artists who are entrenched in the art world. And yet, since I was a small child, art has always meant something else to me, more personal, less categorizable, something in the realm beyond judgment. I felt that art belonged in a different context than a museum or gallery, and yet I loved visiting those very places. And even if I can participate in the culture around art with which I am so familiar, it somehow does not include me. Perhaps it is because art and commodity don’t go together for me. Perhaps it is because even though I love visiting museums, they still feel like places of restriction and institution. Perhaps this is also because I have not yet found the right medium.  That is... until now.

I have dabbled with the idea of performance art. I can get excited about conceptual art. I have taken a lifetime’s worth of photographs, and yet, I have no interest in putting them in galleries. But, there is one art movement that is gaining more and more recognition that genuinely calls to me. It is an art movement that is accepted in the art world, and yet, by its definition, is difficult to commodify. It does not have a clear title, but is often referred to as social practice or participatory art. From Wikipedia: “Participatory art is an approach to making art in which the audience is engaged directly in the creative process, allowing them to become co-authors, editors, and observers of the work. Therefore, this type of art is incomplete without the viewers physical interaction. Its intent is to challenge the dominant form of making art in the West, in which a small class of professional artists make the art while the public takes on the role of passive observer or consumer, i.e., buying the work of the professionals in the marketplace... It may also be categorized under terms including relational art, social practice, community art, and new genre public art. Folk and tribal art are also considered to be "participatory art" in that many or all of the members of the society participate in the making of art. While a painter uses pigment and canvas, and a sculptor wood or metal, the social practice artist often creates a scenario in which the audience is invited to participate. Although the results may be documented with photography, video, or otherwise, the artwork is really the interactions that emerge from the audience's engagement with the artist and the situation."  Here is a quote I found by Andy Horwitz on the site culturebot from his essay on social practice in the context of performance. “...the emergence of social practice as a trend speaks to two fundamental shifts in American culture: one, a broad re-thinking of the role of the arts in society and two, a rejection of corporate capitalism’s demand that citizenship is predicated on being a consumer, not a creator or empowered participant in civic life.” When I first heard about “participatory art” something in me awakened and I knew I had discovered an art form for me. I love its emphasis on altruism and its stance against commodification. Also, I am interested in playing with outsider forms that question the institutional form.

To be continued...

Turning Against The Self

ZOELAB DAY 68

Buddha was said to have said: 

“not getting what you desire and getting what you desire 

can both be disappointing.”

Sometimes we get what we want, and we rejoice.

Sometimes we get what we want, and fear makes us recoil.

Sometimes we don’t get what we want, and we learn and grow.

Sometimes we don’t get what we want, and we turn against ourselves.

There are times when my heart opens up with desire. Especially around my birthday. But if things don’t go my way, sometimes I identify with the child in me, and let it be about the ego. I tell myself a story that makes it all about me. This is how children are in the world. Not only do they easily get disappointed, but they personalize, they think there must be something wrong with them, and that’s why they didn’t get what they wanted. As the story that I tell myself continues, as a balm for the disappointment, I see the cause to be direct action against me. As if the world wanted it that way. And then, instead of soothing the hurt child, I turn against her, unconsciously aligning myself with my projected view of the world. This is perhaps an adolescent response--thinking the world is paying attention to our disappointments. And that we are the only ones feeling that way. When really, the world is in a constant flux of a totality of disappointments and triumphs, as well as everything beyond.

You may be wondering, what kind of disappointments am I speaking of? They are the same disappointments we all feel in a daily way: we didn’t receive the phone call we were expecting, our favorite tea cup broke, our life doesn’t look quite like we want it to. But, when I really think about it, the greatest disappointment is usually in myself. Ultimately I am disappointed by my own abandonment--by not taking care of myself, not keeping my life in balance, not giving myself enough rest, not taking care of my own needs. It is a disruption of function within the inner family of the psyche. It is easy to blame the world, but it is impossible for the world to take responsibility. It is more effective, and far more empowering, to take responsibility for my own feelings, and my own actions or lack of actions. Of course sometimes events happen that are beyond our control, but still, we always have a choice in how we respond. And in how we care for ourselves. Often, when the heart is vulnerable and full of longing, it is a sign that the inner child is needing attention, and the inner adult self, whose job is it is to take care of the child, is wrapped up in the outer world that seems to have no room for those quiet soulful needs.

However, that is not the end of the story. Even after I’ve caused further suffering from turning against the little self while it already feels vulnerable, I realize that as soon as I start to have compassion again, and show kindness, the little self didn’t actually come to any permanent harm. It never seems too late to show kindness. Again, like a child, the self is resilient. It can endure great suffering, and responds well to compassion. It is soft, yet strong, like a jelly fish. Maybe it stings a little in self defense, and instead of breaking when poked, it gives just a little, and then its body fills back into the space after the aggravator is gone. 

I notice with three year old Emilio, whose ego is not yet fully formed, that he does not yet personalize his disappointment. If he feels disappointed, which sometimes happens several times a day, his response sometimes is to go into arage, but more and more often, his response is to go into a corner of the room and hide. He goes under a blanket or a desk or a table. Perhaps this is how he tends to the hurt part of himself, or perhaps he is ashamed. Or perhaps a little of both. Either way, after only a few minutes of hiding, he returns to his world of play, bounced back in full recovery (just like the jelly fish.)

Another way to see this cycle of separation and reunion is as a spiritual longing for connection with the The Self. Here is a poem by Rumi to illustrate:

Love Dogs

by Rumi

One night a man was crying,

                                                Allah! Allah!

His lips grew sweet with the praising,

until a cynic said,

                             “So! I have heard you

calling out, but have you ever

gotten any response?”

The man had no answer to that.

He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.

He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of the souls,

in a thick, green foliage.

                                        “Why did you stop praising?”

“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”

                                                                   “This longing

you express is the return message.”

The grief you cry out from

draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness

that wants help

is the secret cup.

Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.

That whining is the connection.

There are love dogs

no one knows the names of.

Give your life

to be one of them.

GeGe & MeiMei, Part Two

Our feet at the beach in Rio 1999

ZOELAB DAY 67

The other lessons that came from Alexander were cultural. One day, sometime in the mid eighties, while waiting for the bus in Brooklyn, Alexander turned to me and gravely stated: “Promise me, Zoë, that you will never wear designer jeans.” I asked him why, and he said, “just promise me.” So I promised him. I didn’t figure that one out until a few years later. The ironic thing is the only designer jeans I have ever owned is a pair of turquoise Calvin Klein jeans that I had picked out and Alexander bought me as a birthday present three years ago.

And then there was the time I was sitting in my room, and Alexander walked in with a new record. It was David Bowie’s Changes. He showed it to me, and I asked him who it was, and he said David Bowie. I told him I thought he was a girl. And he said, well he’s not. Then he put the record on and I was transfixed. 

When Alexander was in college, he majored in religion and philosophy. He was very interested in Buddhism, as well as other eastern thought. I was a senior in high school at the time, and curious about Buddhism--he recommended that I read the book “What the Buddha Taught” by Walpola Rahula. I read it and recognized what the buddha taught to be truth. But I also knew that I was not ready to transcend my ego. I knew I was still addicted to the highs and lows that ego attachment brings, and that I had I would return to Buddhism later in life.

A year later, I was to go to Beijing for a summer with my high school Chinese class to do a summer course in Chinese language. While I was preparing for my trip, and starting to feel anxious about going so far away, Alexander tried to give me courage. He said, I have three pieces of advise for you about your time in China: “1) Don’t bring your walkman. 2) Speak as much Chinese as you can. 3) Stay aware.” I actually can’t remember if I followed the first piece of advice, but I did follow the second one. I pushed through my fears, and struck up conversations with Chinese people as much as I could. I even made some Chinese friends. But number 3 is a piece of advice from Buddha, via Alexander, that has been with me my whole life. The experience of being aware, being the observer, not only of others, but of my own thoughts, actions and interactions, has led to much wisdom and relief from suffering. It is a wonderful piece of advice for teenager (who can be so self conscious).

During a summer visit from college, my brother introduced me to yoga. This was still the 1980‘s when people still aerobisized. I didn’t know anyone else who did yoga. He would practice his poses on the porch of our house in the Berkshires daily, and I found it fascinating to watch. I took black and white photographs and wrote a poem about it called Yoga in Earshot. A year later, I bought a book on yoga, and started doing headstands in college. I have continued to practice for all these years.

In high school, the influence that my brother had on me made me feel different from people, and sometimes alienated. He initiated me into the world of cultural criticism and spirituality. He inspired me to be rigorous in my thinking and to question everything. He became an anthropologist, sublimating his personal cultural alienation into a discipline of social science. And I became a therapist/artist, sublimating my sensitivity and emotionality into artmaking and helping others. 

We have visited each other or traveled together in many parts in the world, including: Kenya, Tanzania, France, China, Vietnam, Brazil, Holland and Mexico. And now, in some ways, we are going in opposite directions--I have become a sort of society drop out, while at the same time using my memory and knowledge and personal experience to engage in a cultural dialogue. And him, a professor and writer in Amsterdam, living an urban plugged in life with all the bourgeois trappings. We are each going our own paths, influencing each other along the way. As I go, I continue to see all the little and big ways that Alexander’s early lessons have stayed with me. And now, more than ever. I probably won’t ever use Algebra or Latin ever again, and I do hope to play more basketball, but as I look at my life, I am continually reminded of his ideological and intellectual influence. He helped build my school confidence, and encouraged my development as an emotional spiritual intellectual. To illustrate his kind of influence, I will end with an excerpt from the personal statement I wrote for my undergraduate college application, which was an excerpt from my journal (which had only one section.) 

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 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.

Okay, now we’re going to the beach.

GeGe & MeiMei, Part One

ZOELAB DAY 66

In honor of his visit, I want to write a post about the person who had the biggest idealogical influence on me during my coming of age--my older brother, Alexander. Just last night, we were having an intense conversation about how freeand authentic I feel in our new life in the desert, and how strange and surprising it is that my life has taken this direction. I found myself confessing how deeply anti-capitalist I’ve become. At first, I sensed a hint of defensiveness on his part--as he had just confessed to his recent shopping spree in LA. But then, the more we talked, he started to remember how it was when we were kids. When I was a young teenager, and he was an older teenager (he is three and a half years older) he would talk a lot about his alienation from American culture, and he would criticize not only capitalism, but the whole bourgeois way of life. There was a part of me that saw what he saw, and agreed with him, but I still loved shopping, American television and all the wonderful mass marketed consumer goods that America had to offer. To show how I grappled with his influence, I will quote from a section of my journal that I had called “Unorganized Thoughts.” My journal during that phase was a small 3 ring binder that had several sections separated by tabs, they were called: diary (a typical girls diary detailing dramas with friends, crushes, and reports of basketball games), Miscellaneous: Unorganized Thoughts, Writing, Vocabulary, and Lists (to do lists, Books I want to read, Famous Good Looking Men (formerly cute boys)). I was fifteen, a sophomore in high school, and he was eighteen, and was in his first year of college.

April 22, 1989: 

[This started out as a poem, but kind of became a diary entry.]

I am an observer

of words

of actions

of relationships

I am a poet

or am I?

Is it critical to be clever

when writing poetry?

yes, I mean that in both senses.

Alexander is a bohemian intellectual

Is that what I sometimes

think I am?

Though I do no hate all T.V. except Channel 13

and I don’t only watch foreign movies

and I am not totally against

superficiality.

Though should I be?

I am allowed to be different than him.

I wondered at first, where did this drive or interest that I was intellectual or anti-America, or at least against some of the things that America represents like: Capitalism and well I don’t know exactly. But my point is that all this thought was instigated by the influences my brother has on me... I can’t align myself in this world. What the hell am I...

EARLY TEACHINGS: ALEXANDER’S SUMMER SCHOOL 

BASKETBALL

The summer before 5th grade, Alexander decided that he was going to teach me how to play basketball. He took me every week to one of the schoolyards in our neighborhood, and showed me how to dribble and shoot. Sometimes we’d play “around the world” or “HORSE”. If there were other kids his age around, he’d play a little one-on-one, while I watched. Afterwards, he bought me a Welsh's Strawberry soda. There was only one store I knew of that sold it, and it was across the street from PS51-where the court was. I felt pretty cool playing basketball, and ended up playing on my school’s basketball team for seven years.

LATIN

The summer before 6th grade, before I was to enter a new school, a private school that didn’t have grades, but written reports, and taught subjects like painting, poetry, modern dance, Latin, Chinese, where you were encouraged to think for yourself and write essays, Alexander decided that I should learn Latin. He knew I would be learning Latin the upcoming year, but he wanted me to have a head start. We spent the summer at our house in The Berkshires, and Alexanderheld daily lessons on the grass. He even gave me quizzes. My first lesson was to memorize the conjugation of love: Amo Amas Amat Amamus Amatis Amant. I repeated over and over until it became an automatic mantra. And I still remember it. Though I never did study more than one year of latin--the next year I switched to Chinese.

ALGEBRA

The summer before 10th grade, Alexander decided it was time for me to learn algebra. Again, he wanted to me to be prepared for the subject when it was to be introduced the following school year. I don’t remember what instigated this, perhaps it was a compassionate response my expressions of insecurity about new school subjects. In Elementary school, I had had low self esteem and school anxiety. Every summer I would fear that I wouldn’t be able to handle the next grade. My parents had to reassure me by saying that everyone was going up a grade, and we would all be in it together. I don’t know if it was because of Alexander’s teachings, but I ended up loving algebra, and even though it was difficult, I did well in the class. There was something about the abstraction and the perfection that appealed to me. I really surprised myself with that one.