Summer

ZOELAB DAY 20

It’s still summer. Most of our friends are away in the States. All cafés but one are closed for the entire month. There’s no work. Except there is for me, because I am planning weddings for a local hotel. It’s hot. It’s humid. It’s buggy. Really buggy. Every night we are visited by hundreds or possibly thousands of: moths of all sizes, dragonflies, no-see-em’s (bobos), flies, mosquitos, tiny flying beetles, giant flying beetles, spiders, cockroaches, scorpions, and countless other bugs that I don’t know the names of. Not to mention other types of beasts: little mice, geckos. During the day we hear the clinging of cow bells who roam the area and the whinnying of horses, who also roam the area. Some days are hotter or buggier or more humid than others. Some days it rains, but most days it does not. The sky feels like it’s closing in on you. Your skin feels heavier, drenched and sticky. Your loneliness turns to boredom. Bad moods erupt out of nowhere when your body has decided it’s had enough. 

But, there are moments of sweetness. The relief of a cool breeze from the Pacific Ocean. The irrepressible greenness of growth covering the ground. The joy of seeing a friend, lifting you into mutual understanding. Simple pleasures of ice cream, tamarindo water, grilled meat tacos, fresh mangos, ice cold beer. The low and fast ocean waves, freshly delivering you to the shore. Long mornings sitting on the floor, making a mess, playful lethargy. Feeling the comfort of continuity. Loving a season for it being now, knowing it doesn’t last, and feeling the certain promise of fall.

On Television: Part One

ZOELAB DAY 49

I have a confession to make:

The main, if not totally conscious, reason I chose to do this project of blogging 365 days for a year, was to knock myself out of the indelible, lifelong habit of whiling away the evening (the most precious free time of the day, especially for a parent) watching television. We don’t actually have a television in this phase of our lives, but we do have computers where we watch shows that were once on television. This is the habit of western culture at large. Watching TV (in whatever form of screen) before you go to bed. How many of us have spent a lifetime doing this? TV watching is the most addicting habit I know—or at least within the context of the time after dinner, before bed. There have been a few periods of life that I  was able to break this habit, which involved either a creative project that I was really excited about, or lack of access. Please understand, I love television. Well, I love some television. It has provided such pleasure to me for much of my life. At its best, it provides a unique balm to the troubled soul living in an uncertain world.  A kind of home that doesn’t quite belong to you, but gives you the illusion that it does. At different times in my life, I have fallen in love with: The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I Love Lucy, Freaks and Geeks, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Arrested Development, 30 Rock, Flight of the Conchords, The Magic Garden, The Muppet Show, Saturday Night Live, Six Feet Under, Kids in the Hall, Taxi, The Office (yes, the American version), and most recently, Girls.

When I was living in Brooklyn and pursuing my acting/ screenwriting/filmmaking career, I had the habit (as many urbanites do) of going home late after a full and tiring day pursuing my dreams or at least trying to survive in an expensive and energetic city, picking up take out on the way home, and then watching syndicated sitcoms until it was time to go to sleep. This was the period of my life when I was a syndicated sitcom serial monogamist. I went from favorite sitcom to favorite sitcom, based on what was syndicated at the right time: 10:00, 10:30, 11:00, and 11:30 at night. Two hours of time (equivalent to a feature length film.) There were some sitcoms that I thought I’d never watch, because I hated them at first, most especially: Seinfeld and Friends. Friends was extremely popular when I was in college. I didn’t watch any TV while I was in college, except during visits home, and when I lived in China for a semester. I lived in a foreign student dorm (which was really a hotel) and each room had its own television. American syndicated sitcoms were a welcome friend. Anyway, back to Friends. I had a deep disdain for it. Maybe my disdain was on principal because it was so popular. But somehow, when I moved back to New York, and started watching it in its syndicated time slot, its charm warmed its way into my heart.  And then it became one of my ten, and ten thirty favorites. I particularly loved Lisa Kudrow’s portrayal of Phoebe. I suppose I most related to her character. Lisa Kudrow was brilliant and funny in the roll. I loved how her character was almost dumb, but not quite. It was a subtly different take on the ditzy blonde. Phoebe had edge and she was always a little bit surprising. Which reminds me of my personal definition of comedy: the truth delivered in surprising package. Seinfeld I also hated at the beginning. I found Jerry so whiney and his hair so terrible, that I had to turn away. But, the show’s undeniable funniness lured me back in, and I became an ardent fan. I remember watching it on Thursdays during its Prime Time slot and then again, later, and every night, during its syndicated slot. I even tearfully watched the last episode.

There were two other sitcoms I had love affairs with during this phase that were both because the show was great, but also because I had developed an awful crush on the male star of each of them. Those sitcoms were: That 70’s Show, the crush being on: Topher Grace (Eric). Were you thinking it was Ashton Kutcher? I know you weren’t thinking that. Maybe you were thinking it was Danny Masterson? Who definitely was crushable. But no, it was Topher Grace. His boyish charm with just a hint of cockiness, which, somehow, always got teased out of him. It was also his laugh, because when he laughed he seemed like he was breaking character--it felt so real. It is said in the acting world, and I agree with this, that laughing (far more than tears), is the hardest thing to “act”. And the other sitcom? Newsradio. And the crush? Dave Foley. Dave Foley’s character Dave, had a very similar appeal to Topher Grace’s Eric. Actually, now that I think about it, they were very, very similar. In looks, in the boyish charm, with that touch of cockiness that got teased out of him. And in the very sincere laugh where you feel like you are seeing just the person. Hmmm.

This essay will have to be continued over the next day or two. I have a lot more to say on this subject, and I can’t stay up all night writing. After all, I still want to watch a little something before bed.

One more thing. A behind the scene irony:

Just today a video projector and screen came into our possession (how it came into our possession is a story in itself that I will tell at another time). As I write this, Lucas, who has hooked up the projector and screen, is watching Boardwalk Empire. The screen is set up just a few feet away from where I sit, at the painted ivory table (which I use as a background to many ZOELAB images). I can see only the back of the screen. Only just yesterday we received a bunch of shows and movies that we had ordered. Perhaps this is not at all ironic, but rather, writing this is helping me to resist the temptation to melt back into the couch with him to be blissfully entertained by new content in a new form.

Inspiration from Children's Books

ZOELAB DAY 19

The artwork from children’s books has always captivated me and has had a great influence on my aesthetic. One of the great pleasures of parenthood is getting to reenter and share the incredible world children’s books with my child. Luckily, Emilio loves books as much as I do, and loves a lot the same ones. I am also lucky that my mother was kind enough to save my favorite childhood books. Most of which are in their house for Emilio (and me) to read when we visit. Three of which I have removed from their home (sorry mom) and have scanned tonight to share with you. 

Illustration from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

There is an ineffable quality that children’s book illustrations have. There’s a sweetness because of the innocence and hopefulness that they convey, and yet at the same time, there is a darkness too, a sense of a larger, mysterious world somewhere lurking. Maurice Sendak illustrates this dichotomy so well in his books. 

Illustration from I am a Bunny by Richard Scarry

This was Lucas’ favorite childhood book, which I didn’t have as a child, but have come to love as an adult. It’s illustrated by Richard Scarry, who was also one of my favorites as a child (as he is to so many). But here, his illustration style is more painterly than the more cartoonish style for which he is known. This is my favorite page from the book--someday I want to make a light box out of it and hang it in our house. 

Illustration from Goodnight Moon by Clement Hurd

This book is a classic of course. The images are still so haunting to me. Again, the dichotomy: the innocence of a child’s play room juxtaposed with the darkness of night approaching. And the colors are so unusual and otherworldly.

On an aesthetic level, this was my favorite book of all. It was given to me by my grandmother, Nana, whose first husband, my Dad’s father, was a communist. The book was published in China in the 1970’s. It was perhaps the instigator to my affinity for Chinese aesthetics and culture (which led to eight years of Chinese language study, and living in China for a semester of college.) The book contains several tales with no words (other than the title) teaching children how to be cooperative. I remember how much the book enchanted me as a child. There was something about the drawings-- the colors, the line quality, the utter cuteness of it all. My love of this book is so special, that I have never been able to adequately qualify it. It was as if the book had been made just for me.  

I have come to believe that each of us has a unique aesthetic that expresses something about our soul. Aesthetics are the language of our soul. When we are children, we are living closest to our souls. I think this is why books or music from our childhood continues to have such a powerful impact on who we are as adults. The best way to inspire ourselves, is to inspire the children we once were/still are.

Focus

“My whole life I have been self-critical about being a dilettante, a dabbler, an amateur, someone who doesn’t really stick with things.
”

Last night, while I was drawing, I had a revelation about how I want to continue with ZOELAB. I had been considering doing resolutions or organizing the year in a certain way, so I wouldn’t be so all over the place, but I couldn’t quite come up with the right format. I was worried that piling on resolutions would add too much pressure. And then as I was drawing, it occurred to me! I realized how much I was enjoying drawing, an activity I don’t normally put a lot of effort or time into (not since being in school.) But because I had been spending more time with it lately, I was focusing on it, the focus shed more light on it. It allowed me to get deeper and also wider with it. So I decided that I would pick an art form to focus on each month. It would be just long enough to go a little deeper with one of my art forms, with out having to give up too much of another one.

My whole life I have been self-critical about the fact that I move from medium to medium. It is easy to be disparaging about it, and call myself a dilettante, a dabbler, an amateur, someone who doesn’t really stick with things. Especially because there is pressure from our society to pick one thing and become really good at it. From as young as I can remember, I wanted to be an artist. Actually, I had written in my journal at age eight that I wanted to be R & F (rich and famous) or an artist. When I was about seven years old, I went to visit my dad at work, which was a film production company. I got to use the typewriter and the copy machine. I typed myself up a resume that had my name, address and what I did: artist. writer. dancer. I drew a picture of myself typing at a typewriter, while wearing dance shoes, and a painting covered my mouth. I made as many copies of it as I could. Soon after that I went through my movie star phase. I dreamed of my big movie role every night before I went to sleep. It all started when a friend of my father’s was casting a hollywood movie, and was considering me for a part. I really thought I was going to be cast, but they ended up choosing a kid who looked more like the adult version of the character. I was heartbroken. But I still continued to want to be an actress for many years. Always trying out for the school play, never getting even a call back. I was told my voice was too soft. I even asked my parent’s friend who was an actor, to coach me before one of the auditions. Still no call back. I also began studying piano, which lasted a few years. It ended in frustration and sadness when I switched to a new piano book that no longer had the finger numbers written over the notes. I discovered that I hadn’t actually learned to read music, I had just been following the numbers. With out the numbers, I was lost. I also started keeping a journal at this age. Most of it was lists of presents I had gotten for christmas (I was thorough and wrote down every single present I received) or secret crushes (describing the exact way that the bangs of the goalie on our soccer team (I was one of two girls on the otherwise male team) would bounce up and down on his face when he caught the ball), or lists of colors in order of most favorite to least favorite. I also kept lists of every Beatles song I could think of, and every movie I had ever seen. I started writing lyrics to songs, and I even wrote a play. It was a mystery. At this time, I also did a lot of dance and choreography. My audience was usually my parents, but later on I performed modern dance in school. In high school, I decided I wanted to be a painter, and also took up photography. Then I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker and made a super 8 film in high school that was based on the ideas from a Milan Kundera book that was about kitsch and the opposite of kitsch (shit). I also started playing the guitar. I decided that I was going to major in art in college, even though I knew that I really wanted to be a filmmaker after college. This was a practical decision because the college I really wanted to go to had a film program, but I didn’t get in. The college I decided to go to (and am so happy I did go to) didn’t have a film program, but they had a great art program. In college, I fell more in love with photography, as well as conceptual art, and postmodern theory rocked my mind.

When I graduated from college, and moved back to Brooklyn, I tried to start my film career as well as my acting career. After one year of misery working a lowly full time job, I applied to the two New York film schools. I was rejected from both. I didn’t give up. I worked at as many film type jobs I could and I met a lot of famous people in the film world. I worked in film publicity, production, script coverage... I made some great friends, and had a wonderful, glamorous time, but it never led to any actual creative work. I was convinced that someone would discover me. No one discovered me. I studied acting for several years, as well as film production and made a 16 mm short. I also wrote a feature length screenplay that I directed a staged reading of, but I never took it to the next level. I decided it was time to apply to graduate school again. This time to theater programs for acting--I applied to seven schools. I got rejected by all, except by one which wait listed me-- eventually they rejected me. I didn’t give up, I dove into studying acting. I continued to study the Meisner technique, I also took classes in comedy improvisation which was thrilling. One of my dreams since I was a kid had been to be on Saturday Night Live or be in my own sitcom. After six years of really trying at acting, a last embarrassing stint in an experimentally bad play, and several months of therapy, I decided to quit acting. Being an actor was turning me into someone I didn’t like. It was no longer creatively fulfilling.

It was then that I decided to achieve another unrealized dream: rock-n-roll. I got back into playing guitar and I wanted to try songwriting. I took classes in music theory, voice and guitar at the same conservatory that I had studied piano at when I was nine. I had no idea how to write a song, but somehow I thought I could. Songwriting had always been one of the mysterious arts to me. It seemed like magic to be able to do it. I had bought myself a digital four track recorder, an acoustic guitar from a stoop sale, and I developed a method where I would take out one of my poems and then try to sing over the chords I played. Soon enough I was actually writing songs, with different parts that I layered with the four track. I actually liked my songs. My boyfriend at the time bought me an electric guitar. I was hooked. One day I ran into an old friend from college who worked in the same building as me (120 Wall Street). It turned out she had just started learning drums. We decided we needed to start playing together so I showed her my songs. She liked them and we started practicing at a seedy music space. We knew we needed a bassist. A few weeks later I met a British woman at a party who was a trained classical musician who played several instruments. I asked her if she knew how to play bass. She said no, but that she wanted to learn. She showed up to our practice with a bass and started learning to play while we were learning our instruments. Even though we were green, each in our own way, there was instant chemistry. We were stumbling our way through magic. Suddenly I was the leader of an all girl rock n roll band. It was creative ecstasy. We practiced weekly for several months. We all worked at non profit type jobs and called our band Social Service. During that time my therapist and I had decided I needed a career other than being a dabbling artist. After an intensive investigative survey of what career I was to choose (that involved actual excel spread sheets), I decided I was going to graduate school for counseling psychology focusing on expressive arts therapy. The day I found out, from a google search, that expressive arts therapy is a mode of therapy that involves not just one discipline, but all or any of the arts disciplines: music, dance, writing, visual art, drama, and that there is a school in San Francisco that offers a MA in it, I knew I had found my new career. This meant, though, having to give up the band, which was, and still is, heartbreaking. We did record a five song demo and had two live performances the month before Lucas and I moved to the West Coast.

This story is not over yet... (there are more art forms, more stories of failure and success) but I have to make my deadline of going to bed by 10:30... However, the point of this story is that I haven’t been able to focus on one art form. I no longer want to see this as a negative thing. I have decided that I don’t need to discount what I do because I am interested in so many forms of expression. I am not a dilettante, I am a multi-disciplinary artist. I am spider woman, spinning twelve webs at once. It makes me kind of dizzy. I may not achieve as much at each one, or my progress may be slow, but that doesn’t make what I do less valid. I couldn’t possibly choose just one art form, and I don’t have to. But I do think it would be nice to have the experience of focusing on something for a little while. Say, a month at a time. This is how Gretchen Rubin formed her Happiness Project by focusing on one thing each month. For my project, I like the idea of the focus being the art form (or maybe sometimes a project). I am considering adding one aspect of life that I am focusing on as well. Something I want to bring light to, in order to make a change. I know this month is more than half over, but I definitely think drawing has been the focus and will continue to be the focus of this month. After all, it was while drawing that I had this realization.

Time & Unhappiness

DAY 17

Time is has become my enemy. But also my teacher.

According to Eckhart Tolle time is ego. This is what he has said about the subject:

“To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation.”

“Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable.”

I find that one of the biggest hinderances to my creativity and happiness is my perception of time. I constantly feel rushed, I have this idea that is well engrained that everything I do has to be done as quickly as possible. I don’t know where this idea comes from. It’s interesting because I come from one of the quickest places on Earth and I now live in one of the slowest places on Earth. If I can’t do something with presence, meaning, while feeling connected to the present, then I tend to feel anxious and mentally unfocused. There is no real joy when we aren’t present. Even if we get joy from a memory or from a fantasy, we are still missing out on what is actually happening. Feeling time pressure takes all the pleasure out doing. When I start to notice this, it means I have to stop doing and find my way back to presence. Usually physical activity is the best way back to presence. Or going into the receptive state. My favorite way is to lie on the floor, listening to calming music on headphones and look up at our beautiful palapa ceiling.

My perception of time also creates a lack of patience. With myself, and with those closest to me: especially Lucas, and Emilio. If I take away the idea that certain things needed to happen in a certain time frame (which usually is: right now), then there’s this sudden feeling of relief, that everything is as it should be. Going back to what I wrote the other day: I can have it all. Just not all at once. This is especially important to remember because I am trying to do so many things at once—I am the spider building 12 webs. If I am really building 12 webs at once, the progress I make on each will be much slower than if I was only to work on one at a time. With Emilio it’s the same. If I ask Emilio to do something, and he’s in the middle of doing something else, he won’t do what I ask until he feels done with what he’s working on. And even though he’s playing, he’s really working. For children, play is their work. Play is the work of childhood. It’s their most important form of learning. If I am patient and let go of the time line that it needs to happen now because I want it to happen now, what usually happens is in a minute or so, he tells me he’s done, and then he’s ready to do the thing I asked. He wasn’t being defiant. He was busy working. With Lucas, it’s also the same, I could prevent so much frustration if when I asked Lucas to do something, if I was no longer attached to when it needed it happen. I am a doer, and he is a thinker. He thinks things through before he does something. I just jump in and figure it out as I do it. When I trust his way, and stop trying to control it, he responds better to me, and he is more likely to do what I ask because he feels free to do it the way he wants instead of responding to me as “the taskmaster.”

Lately, in particular, I have been under my own spell of feeling rushed. It causes anxiety and it makes it hard to focus. I especially feel it in relation to my blog posts. The pressure I put on myself to post everyday can be both motivating and paralyzing. Tonight, instead of going into a heady process, I decided to use an expressive arts modality to work with my issue about time. I drew this picture, which expresses the constraints that time, and ultimately, ego puts on my experience.

Then, I drew a picture, purely from the unconscious, of the image I have of what it would be like with out the self-imposed constraints that time puts on me. I’ll refrain from delving into a deep analysis of the drawing for now (as is my tendency), and let it speak for itself in its yet to be finished state. (When Emilio saw my drawing, he wanted to draw on it too, and I let him! Can you see which marks are his?

The drawing is quite different from my usual style—a bit out of my comfort zone. I think the new style was inspired by some drawings my mother drew recently and also by the film Ponyo by the Sea, by the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. (I met him once when I worked as the Directors’ Liaison at the NY Film Festival, when his film Princess Mononoke was screened. He is a huge celebrity in Japan, which I got to witness when a mob of fans came up to him at the film festival.) His animation is breathtakingly beautiful and imaginative. The stories are sophisticated and delightful and are immersed in Japanese mythology, they often have strong, yet complex female heroines, and promote environmentalism. If you haven’t seen his films, I strongly recommend watching them. Most especially Ponyo by the Sea, My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. The versions we have of Ponyo and Totoro are only in Japanese. These are the first films Emilio watched--they’re so visual, he never seemed to mind that he couldn’t understand the language. Or perhaps he has picked up some Japanese from them. Maybe one day I’ll watch them in English.

In honor of my letting go of the time pressure I put on myself, I didn’t do this post last night. And so I broke my commitment a little--which I don’t like to do. But it really helped to focus on drawing and to let go of feeling rushed. On top of that, it helped me to keep my new resolution of going to bed earlier and waking up earlier. Last night, for the first time in who knows how long, I went to bed at 10:30 and woke up at 6:30, a few minutes before sunrise. I took a walk up the small mountain near us and even though I didn’t get to work on the blog as Emilio was awake before I got back, it was refreshing to have some time to myself in nature.  

Keeping Balance

DAY 16

Speaking of balance, from yesterday’s post... I struggled a lot today, which let me know I am out of balance. I am out of balance with this blog. Spending too much time working on it every night (2-3 hours), going to bed too late, waking up tired with Emilio. Feeling irritable and not remembering to slow down enough to enjoy life. The problem with being ambitious, is forgetting that non doing and doing just for fun are also important. For every truth, its opposite is also true. I have been too focused on trying to accomplish things which brings out the “taskmaster” in me. (The part of me that has endless tasks and to do lists and little patience for how long they take to get done.) The result is I become perfectionistic and anxious and constantly feel rushed. Feeling rushed is one of my biggest blocks to happiness.

Resolutions are forming for the week:

1.    I want to to get 8 hours of sleep each night. I also want to try going to bed earlier and getting up earlier.

2.   I want to spend less time working on my blog and trying to accomplish things in general and more time relaxing and having fun. (Not to say my blog isn’t fun. But it isn’t relaxing. It’s very stimulating, and it’s hard not to want to make every entry as intricate and thorough as possible. But I need to lighten up with it a bit, or I won’t last the full year.) Maybe I will experiment with writing earlier in the day.

3.   I want to take the pressure off--stop myself from feeling rushed by reminding myself it’s okay to slow down.

4.   I want to set up my sewing space so I can start sewing again. If I sew something, that’s great. But I don’t HAVE to.

Here’s something I wrote in my journal several months ago:

Being happy is a choice, 

and you have to work at it, 

or at least put things in place, 

(according to your heart)

so you can open up to grace

the grace state of happiness =

gentle attention + discipline + compassion

Here’s something I read today by Carl Jung:

Meaning comes... “when people feel they are living the symbolic life, that they are actors in the divine drama. That gives the only meaning to human life; everything else is banal and you can dismiss it. A career, producing of children, are all maya (illusion) compared to that one thing, that your life is meaningful.”

I think Carl Jung is rad. In the true meaning of the word, radical. He is the grandfather of the art therapies, and the indirect grandfather of AA. (He believed spirituality was a cure for addiction.) His theories on the process of individuation and archetypes are gorgeous. I need to read more of his works. I will do a future post about his theories and how I have integrated them into my life. I also want to see that movie called A Dangerous Method about his relationship to Freud.

Here are some things that made me happy today:

I went out to our new microbrew pub to hear our friends play some great music: a mix of rock, classic r & b, and even some swing! Some of us danced like no body’s business. I love living in a small town where going out means just a few people enjoying music, there’s always room on the dance floor, there’s parking right out in front, there’s no traffic, and I almost always see someone I know.

I borrowed my mother in law’s ukelele and started writing my first ukelele song. Ukeleles are fun to play and their sound is so cute and old-timey. 

Today is Mexican Independence day. A real fervor. Everyone was at the beach, or out on the streets. There were celebrations galore.

Already I’ve kept my resolution, this post only took an hour to write (with a few interruptions.)

Thinking about Happiness

DAY 14

I’ve been gathering my thoughts on happiness. I’ve been thinking a happiness project is a lifelong pursuit, an orientation, a process, but it’s never a fully-realized place. It’s not perfection. It’s not a permanent state. I have often had difficulty with the word “happy.” A lot of people do. Few admit to being happy, especially people who live on the East Coast of the US. To me the word happy comes with a feeling of pressure and disappointment--I should be happy, but I’m not. I used to think happiness was complacency. It sounded boring. Or it was a feeling that was fleeting, just as all feelings are. But now, I see happiness in a different way. I see it as a worthy goal to set out for yourself. 

As we evolve we learn about ourselves--what our unique and universal needs are, what our individual and situational limitations are, and then we gain acceptance of those needs and limitations. We start to learn how to go about getting those needs met given the limitations we have. Of course this is an ever evolving process, but I started to feel like an adult (at age 30) when I started to think this way. This is partly what the pursuit of happiness is about. But it’s also about something more than basic needs. It’s about growth and evolution, and connection, living out your potential, not only as an individual, but as a family, a community, a society. It’s about aligning your inner life’s purpose with your outer life’s purpose (this idea comes from the book A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, a book I return to over and over.) There is real effort involved in trying to be happy. And then, sometimes all that is needed is surrender. The practice of balance is also integral to the practice of happiness. We never actually achieve perfect balance, as something is always out of balance a little bit. The idea is that we are always trying to be balanced, like a yogi practicing tree pose, making micro adjustments several times a second, trying to keep the pose. Sometimes we lose our balance and fall out of the pose, other times we become as graceful as a tree, and can even close our eyes. We do the same with our lives--sometimes I fall off my path for several years at a time, and rebalancing requires therapy and major life changes, and sometimes the balancing happens within a single day, the adjustments are small enough that no one would notice. What needs to be in balance depends on the individual, of course. But there are some universals for all of us: some combination of the physical, mental/emotional, spiritual. We all need a sense of inner and outer purpose. I realize that I can’t have it all. At once. But I can have it all spread over a lifetime. Once we accept our limitations, we can let go of our expectations, and give our attention to what’s happening right now. We can try to find balance through out a day, or we can try to find balance over a lifetime. The range of balance is up to each individual.

I also have come to believe that happiness is a choice. It has to be something you want first. It doesn’t often feel like a choice, it is so easy to feel like a victim of our situation or ourselves. I make an exception for people who suffer from severe depression, mental illness, physical illness--sometimes our faculties are too damaged or restricted to be able to make choices. However, no matter what difficulty life gives us, we still have a choice in how we react, what story we tell about ourselves and our situation. With practice, I can now start to make choices that will bring happiness (not only for me, but for the people around me). We are used to having certain thoughts or experiences that bring up certain feelings. In fact, there are patterns of synapses that fire in our brain that occur based on certain stimulus. After years of practice, our brains become trained to release certain chemicals that make us feel a certain way. Our brains are malleable, however, and we can change the patterns of how the synapses fire. It takes awareness, and effort. Once we slow down enough to notice the thoughts and reactions that cause unhappiness, we can start to feel empowered to make a change. The most powerful way to make that change, I believe, is to get out of the head. To stop thinking. A cycle of thought can be the most destructive of activities. If I notice myself thinking thoughts that cause unnecessary suffering, I turn my attention to something else, to whatever’s available to me, especially the physical realm. The quality of light in the room, the callous on my foot, my breathing, the sound of trucks driving up the hill. That momentary shift can be revolutionary, even if it only lasts a few seconds. Each time I have that shift in consciousness, my attachment to my thoughts loosens. Every shift brings a little glint of empowerment.  Meditation practice has been proven to help us develop awareness, take control over negative thinking, reduce addictive cravings, as well as many other mental and physical health benefits. I believe a mindful arts practice is another way to increase awareness. It is a more active form of consciousness raising. In fact, any activity if it is done mindfully, can increase awareness. I believe mindful art making (in any form), is a particularly uplifting, and beautiful way to increase awareness.

In her book The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin (to whom I’ve sent an email about how she inspired this project) lays out some guidelines to start your own happiness project. I thought I’d try experimenting with her basic method here. First she suggests identifying what interests you and brings you joy and then what causes more difficult feelings, such as anger and remorse. I’ve been collecting lists like this in my journal for a few decades. Resolutions, what I need more of, what I need less of, goals, dreams, etc. Of course they’re always changing and shifting, but the same themes return over and over again. 

She came up with many resolutions based on what she believed needed changing in her life, that she put into practice each month over the whole year. Gretchen also came up with a list of lessons she learned while becoming an adult which she calls Secrets of Adulthood. Additionally she made a list of 12 commandments that were to help her keep her resolutions. Now I think my system will be a little different, as I imagine I will add to my resolutions through out the year, as well as secrets my secrets of adulthood. My lists will evolve as I continue to do this daily project of sharing writing and images, while trying to bring more consciousness, productivity and creativity into my life. I have started my lists, but I will share them in a later post.

Here is list of books on the art and science of happiness, published on an a very interesting website Lucas just turned me onto called, Brain Pickings: “a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness.”  Click the yellow star. 

Art with Children

Last winter, Emilio, who was two-and-a-half at the time, started to get interested in drawing and painting. I had gotten him an easel with a dry erase board on one side and a chalk board on the other, and a roll of butcher paper to use for painting. He took to painting right away. I was amazed by how careful he was in his choice of colors and strokes. He actually seemed to be thinking about what the painting needed next. I consider this a spiritual approach to art, an inner knowing about what the piece needs as if its future were predetermined. I discovered abstract art in this way. 

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As a child I made hundreds of little pen and ink drawings in little black notebooks. I remember the day I discovered this particular style of drawing. I suddenly realized all I had to do was listen to what the paper needed next on its surface, and then draw it to the best of my ability. Much like improvisation. It was if the unconscious had its own particular destiny. And sometimes the most appropriate language of the unconscious was abstraction. One school morning when I was about eight years old, I was drawing a picture in the little office of our house. I was supposed to be getting ready for school, but somehow I got entranced by a little sketch I was making of a monster who was pooping out some sort of abstract shape. My mother, who is a painter, suddenly discovered me and was about to scold me for the fact that I was going to be late for school, but when she what I was drawing, she couldn’t help but praise me because she saw how intently I was drawing and she liked the drawing. She saw that I was discovering a new way of drawing. It was then that I realized the idea of art being holy on some level, and that it may be more important than other more practical things, like getting to school on time. This was a wonderful thing growing up in my family. Art came before other activities. Both my parents value art as a form of communication and presence. When I was in high school, I started making abstract paintings--my parents gave me a book for my birthday called The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985. This book expressed my language.

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I love watching Emilio discover his own painting and drawing styles. He had one phase that lasted a few weeks where he experimented with little groupings of energy connected by line. (Drawing above on left is an example of it.)  It’s very inspiring to watch him discover and play with form and line and color. I think we all need to draw this way sometimes. Creating marks because we want to see what it will look like and feel like. Not because we have a plan. I started to draw with Emilio and he would sometimes make marks on my drawing. At first I was annoyed because he broke the rule we’re always taught: “you’re not allowed to draw on someone else’s drawing.” But then I started to get curious about the idea of embracing the presence of his haphazard marks over or near my more controlled marks. Again, I learned to let go of my preconceived notion of how something is supposed to look, and realized his style with my style was really fun to look at. So I got out a bunch art cards and had him draw on one, and then give it to me and then I added something to what he drew. Then we tried the reverse, where I drew on a card, and he got to draw on it next. This is what we made:

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A few months ago, Emilio’s friend Georgie, who is one year older, came over for a sleepover. The three of us sat and made a drawing together. I had the middle of the paper, and each boy had a side of the paper. This is what we drew:

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Drawing with children is inspiring and fun. I recommend trying it. If you don’t have a child at home, try drawing with your inner child. I am sure s/he would love the attention.

temporary art

DAY 13

When I went to La Paz, I also purchased a new set of dry erase markers to use with my various dry erase boards. Each marker has its own eraser at the tip of it. Today I cleaned the house and moved my office space from the bodega to the living room so that we could put the rest of our stuff into our bodega. I created a little nook for myself with bookshelves, desk, dry erase board, art supplies  inside our vintage coleman icebox. The wooden cubby box I bought at the segunda the other day stacked above the coleman. I tried to put my markers out of sight from Emilio, who has a keen eye for new things in the house. Especially a brand new set of markers! But sure enough, even though they were out of his reach, he somehow found his way to them while my back was turned. I told him they were mine (sometimes we actually fight over toys!) but he could use them as long as he was gentle with them. Lucas suggested we get out my largest dry erase board (the one I use when I teach workshops) and draw on the floor. Emilio loved drawing with the markers on the large smooth board. But what he loved even more was erasing! He was careful to erase every single mark. We came up with a game where I would draw something, and he would guess what it was in a funny, round about way: Him talking to himself: “Is it a rug? no, it’s not a rug. Is it a car? No it’s not a car. Is it a pig? Yes, it is a pig!” He had such fun getting to erase anything I drew. It was hard for me at first, but then I realized it was a great feeling to let go of my ego. (We feel attached to objects (even art objects) because we identify with them--they are a part of us.) We have another similar game where I build something with bristle blocks and he gets to destroy it. The one rule is he has to wait until I’m done making it before he can smash it apart. With this game as well, it was hard at first for me to watch him destroy something I had made. But I got used to it, after all, and now I find the game invigorating. After all, destruction is a part of the creative cycle.

Tonight, like last night, I was at a loss for what to write about. I felt I have been too heady lately, and I wanted to get into an art process. Lucas suggested I bring out the dry erase board again. So I propped the board on my bed, put some headphones on, listened to music (a mix including: Chopin and Ratatat) and drew using 4 of the 6 markers in about 20 minutes. This is what I made:

It was very fun to draw with dry erase markers with expressiveness. (I also love office art. Art done with office supplies, or art done at work. I have a growing series of projects on this theme.) And then, I knew it was time to erase it. But of course I photographed it too. And then I erased it. I hesitated for a moment, and then I erased. Again, the same exhilaration.

Start From Where You Are

DAY 12

Here I am with nothing to say.

For the past few weeks I’ve been taking a lot of notes. They pile up in my computer, and in my journal. They will all eventually become something cohesive. A book, perhaps, or maybe something less concrete. Ideas and thoughts tumble out of me, I write them down as quickly as I can, often another one comes before I have finished writing the last one.

But now, I am here with nothing to say.

So I am going to reveal a little of my process, by sharing with you some of my recent notes:

I feel like a spider, simultaneously building several webs at once.

* * * *

For creative flow and productivity:

If you come to an obstacle with a project, immediately move onto something else, to keep the momentum going. Therefore you need several projects going on at once, so you can easily move from project to project, instead of letting the obstacle stop you from being productive at all. 

* * * *

A bohemian lives outside the laws of culture, while engaged in the ideas of culture.

* * * *

When I was in graduate school for counseling psychology and expressive arts therapy, my friend  Holly and I connected with a phrase: “start from where you are.” One day I was talking to Holly about how I was having trouble with my music, and I listed off my criticisms of myself. She suggested we write a song about it, and we did that night. We both contributed lyrics about the things we told ourselves when we felt stuck with making music. We later recorded it and sang it as a duet with our guitars at graduation. 

Where I am

by Holly Mae & Zoë

I’m so bored

With playing the same chords.

Over and over and over again.

My friend says

This is a test

Of how you’re living in the world.

I think she may be right.

But I don’t want to admit it tonight.

I can’t strum up.
It fucks my thumb up.
I can only play rock-n-roll down strums.

I can’t sing

for anything.

But I got a voice that’s shy and course.

And you’re using it right now.
You don’t have a choice anyhow.

I’m gonna start from where I am.

(I think I like the way I play.)

With no memory or plan.

(I think you’ll love me anyway.)

I’m gonna offer who I am.

(I think I like the way I play.)

I’ll be my own biggest fan.

I’m so mad cuz

I’m so bad at

Lyrics that don’t really rhyme so good.

I’m so sad

Cuz I’m not rad, 

Or hip or cool or whatever the word is.

At least you’re holding your guitar

This is where we are so far.

I’m gonna start from where I am.

(I think I like the way I play.)

With no memory or plan.

(I think you’ll love me anyway.)

I’m gonna offer who I am.

(I think I like the way I play.)

I’ll be my own biggest fan.

Do Do Do

Do Do Do

Do Do DO DO DO DO Do

The idea is whenever you want to make art, (or do anything for that matter) but you feel stuck, start from wherever you are at that moment. If you’re feeling frustrated, or bored, or insecure. That’s where you create from. That is what you need to express because that is where you are. If you deny where you are/what you are feeling in the moment, it won’t go away. It will linger in your subconscious and get in the way of whatever you’re trying to do. 

Another way to see this idea comes from a phrase I learned during my two year study of the Meisner technique, Joe and Phil, our teachers, had put a large banner in our acting studio which read:

THAT WHICH HINDERS YOUR TASK IS YOUR TASK

Meisner was all about the truth of the moment. When the moment is gone, you discover and react to a new emotional truth. It is really a practice in staying present, especially emotionally present. When I was studying counseling psychology and worked as a therapist, my Meisner training was very useful. The basic technique we learned, which is the underlying technique of all his teachings is called “the repetition technique.” Two actors go up on stage, each of them sits in a chair facing the other one.  A and B. A makes a truthful statement about something s/he notices about B. B repeats the statement, but from his/her point of view. EG: A: “You’re smiling.” B: “I’m smiling. A: “You’re smiling.  B: “Yes, I’m smiling. A: “You’re smiling,” (starts to laugh). B: (starts to laugh) “You’re laughing!” A: “Yes, I’m laughing!” They both laugh. Then a new moment begins. Now it does not sound interesting if you just read the transcript, but to watch the actors’ behavior change in response to one another is intoxicating. The thing is, they’re not being actors. They are being themselves. The experience of doing the repetition technique was also intoxicating. Revealing and expressing your true emotions as they continuously unfold but with out analysis and story. When watching others, I got better and better at knowing when the actor was being congruent. That was our teacher’s job-- to make sure the actors responded to the present moment, and didn’t hold onto what had already happened. It’s amazing how quickly we change emotionally, if we are really attuned to another human being.  Being a therapist is very similar to this, the therapist attunes his/herself to his/her client, and stays present with the client, no matter what emotional journey the client goes on. The goal is not to judge, but to stay connected, and listen. I have taught this technique with different people who were not actors. They boldly jumped tried it, and instantly came alive from the experience. I also showed this technique to my parents. After just a few minutes of repetition, I had never seen them so giddy. 

I started from where I was, which was emptiness, went to a few random notes, and ended up remembering my acting training.

I’ll end with something I thought about today:

Through the process of this project, I am starting to believe that consciousness might be one of the key underlying elements of happiness. If you are conscious then you are able to know what you need, and take care of yourself. If you are able to take care of yourself, then you can see the world from kinder, clearer eyes, and therefore do what is right for others. Something to think about.

Eleven Years

ZOELAB DAY 11

It was one of those days where you remember where you were, what you were doing, who you were with. Eleven years ago today: it was a few minutes after 9 AM, and I was coming out of the 2/3 Wall Street Subway stop and I looked up and noticed pieces of paper falling through the bright blue sky. It was a surprising sight. I continued to walk as I looked up. I thought maybe the paper was ticker tape, related to the mayoral democratic primary that was to happen that day. But somehow, I also knew that it wasn’t. That it meant something different. I thought to myself “I’ll always remember this moment,” not knowing what it could possibly mean. I arrived to my building, 120 Wall Street. The building was an anomaly, the non-profit building of Wall Street. I found out later by pure coincidence I had two friends who worked also at two different offices in that building. As I entered, it became clear that something was going on. Someone was crying in the elevator. Once I got to my office, the headquarters of the organization Jewish Child Care Association, I found out what had just happened. A plane had hit the World Trade Center. How could that be true? It seemed impossible. We turned on the television. It was true, and then another one hit. And then one collapsed. And then the other one collapsed. Each one was unbelievable all over again. Panic hit me. I got a few phone calls from friends and from my mom to check to see if I was okay. Looking out the windows, the streets were covered in gray ash. People ran into the lobby of our building to take refuge. No one knew where it was safe to be. Nowhere felt safe. I couldn’t decide what to do, where to go. Should I go downstairs? Should I go home? It seemed absolutely wrong to go outside, to walk over the bridge, back to Brooklyn. And yet, after hours of waiting, a small group of people from my office convinced me to walk over the bridge with them. It didn’t seem like a good idea, the bridge felt like a target, and yet, what else could I do? My cousin called, who was in Brooklyn, and he agreed to pick me up on his Vespa on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge. I walked in my small group, thousands of others were walking too, making our pilgrimage to the bridge. Everything was covered in the gray ash. We walked slowly. There were no cars. We made it to the other side. My cousin was there, and rode me home to my uncle’s house, where his wife was waiting with pasta and wine. We all drank and talked manically. I slept at their house that night, in the basement apartment. It was best not to be alone. When I woke up the next morning, the nightmare was still inside me. It was a collective nightmare. Some lived it much more closely and still do. Everyone looked for love wherever they could find it.

Several days later I wrote this:

Finally a place to rest my weary decade-ridden head. I rise and wait for further cities to burn. But we all hear the same song. I don’t mind if you sing, but please remember to drink clean water and not to blame time. Time is always the same. I thought I was born in the wrong time: time (who is older) has proven me wrong.

I am older this week. I am centuries old. Like the rabbi said, I see the face of god in the faces on the subway. The space around them shrinks and turns gray, towards history. But the faces have the colors that painters see. The faces show that our hearts have expanded to show how death has always been part of us. We are older now, but really, we have always been older. We just didn’t see a use for it. Now we have many uses: to walk, to light candles, to dig, to share our own blood, to sing old songs, to embrace ourselves by embracing others.

I am swollen with grief but I am alive. I burst daily in little ways. I try not to hide from the symbols that alienate me. I try to look beyond symbols,beyond unnatural boundaries, beyond fearful unity. I look instead for truth. Every symbol contains a lie. That is natural. But what is left that does not contain a lie? A tree. A dog. A sister. A dance. An office. Perhaps all things contain lies, but to see purely is to see myself in the face of the world. Whether it is ugly or beautiful. All things are both ugly and beautiful. That is truth. We knew this before and now we realize this. I realize this: to be useful takes me on a journey. At one time, I felt my life was stagnant and I was stuck under heavy fallen walls. Now I see that every moment can be a journey and those walls are fear of those journeys.

At a time like this people feel humble. They feel they have suffered less than others, they feel their words and actions are inadequate. People even feel guilty, ashamed of having any petty thoughts, any thoughts other than thoughts of victims. I say it is a time to be as big as possible. To appreciate the words and thoughts and art and breath and life we do have. To say I am not humble, I am human. Anything we do can be important, if we do it with care, thought, truth, strength, courage, love... there are so many people in this world, we all count for something. Unspeakable acts have happened before and they will happen again. It is time to start realizing how our actions affect others, even those who live in other countries who speak other languages who believe different ideologies. It is time not to shrink, but to expand. The more we expand as people, the more people will remember what is to be human. At a time like this, people feel sentimental, they generalize in order to feel better, in order make sense. People are ready to rush to judgement; they call others evil; I don't think I believe in evil. I think I'd rather believe in something a little more human. Evil relates to god, to the devil or god's enemy. It is hard for me to find solace in god at a time like this I know that others need that, and that is fine. But I hope that their connection with God eventually leads them to other beings here on earth. I hope religious leaders are able to help people with that connection. God is important in the way all things are important: plants, humans, dogs, houses, mountains, dirt. If we see god in these things that is fine. But if we see only evil in other human beings then we don't understand them. We have failed to try to educate ourselves. I hope that everyone feels the joy and beauty as well as responsibility of being a person born on earth. I hope everyone who is fortunate enough to have access to education and communication takes advantage of these blessings and passes them on in whatever way they can. The way in which they choose to pass on their humanity, that is the joy and beauty of life, the importance of this act, that is the responsibility of being human.

Clear/Receive/Create

ZOELAB DAY 10

When I teach my creativity classes, and when I make art at home, I like to create an environment that maximizes creative flow. The environment consists of different rituals within three basic phases. 

CLEAR

I have been focusing on cleaning and organizing lately because I have come to believe it’s an important aspect of the creative process. I’ve learned the hard way, because keeping things orderly has not been natural for me most of my life. But I have discovered that when my space is clean, I feel happier, calmer and more conscious to make a choice to either relax, or do something productive. Either way,  having a clear, open space helps me to remember to check in with myself. It’s not that I must have my space clean space in order to be creative, but having a clear desk calls me back into creativity. I am more productive in an organized space. When the space around us is messy, we unconsciously block out the mess, and the rest of the space around us, using avoidance as a refuge. When there’s less clutter we see our environment--it calls us into it, it awakens our eye, our touch. A clean space makes me want to make a mess. I want to fill it up with something new. I observe this with Emilio. When his toys are cleaned up every night, he is more drawn to them in the morning. He literally throws himself into the imaginative and curious world that his shelved toys quietly promise. 

RECEIVE

Another aspect of the creative process is the state of receptivity. In order to be in this state, we need to be relaxed, present, and attuned with our senses. I find that the act of clearing our space makes us more relaxed, and ready to receive. The receptive state can be the experience of non doing. Or it can also be an activity where we are receiving stimuli but in a relaxed, and conscious way. Some of my favorite receptive activities are: meditating, deep listening to music with headphones, taking a walk, spending time looking at nature, even reading. I think watching videos or television is not an effective receptive activity, because, although we are receptive, we are in a passive, unconscious state. Receptivity creates space--space in our imagination for images, space in our body for sensual experience, and space in our mind for ideas. This is often where inspiration happens. This is when revelation happens. This is how we hone our attention to our experience of the world around us.

CREATE

After I have cleared my space, and put myself in a receptive state, I am ready to create. Creating is the active phase of the process--this is when we actually do the work. This can be a timed or ritualized practice, or it can be a spontaneous act of expression. Because I often work multi-modally, I like to set up for this phase by creating little making stations for myself all over my room. I set up markers and paper in one corner. I put out several art books or postcards for inspiration. I set up my guitar in the corner. I have my computer ready on a desk for writing or research. I find that the creative flow comes more easily, if I have done some clearing and receiving first. 

The next phase is sharing, which is an important phase of the creative process as well. When I’m teaching, sharing happens at the end of the workshop. But at home, sharing may never happen, or it may happen months or years later. In the case of ZOELAB, though, it happens at the end of every day. I love ending the day this way. It feels complete. When I was in elementary school I had a special ritual with my best friend, Molly. Every day after school, we would meet up in the school yard and ask each other: “was today 100 percent complete?” If we both said “yes,” then we would say goodbye and go our separate ways. But if one of us said “no” then we would agree that we would have to go to one or the other’s house and create something. Usually we would create a dance routine to a popular song of the day, and perform it for our parents. After that, we felt satisfied, and we could finally put the day to rest. I’ve written a rock song about this ritual called 100 percent complete. I’ll share it with you once I have a good recording of it.

ZOELAB acts as Molly for me now. For years I have tried to come up with a daily checking-in-with myself ritual. At one point I had made a sign that said: “Little Zoë, was today 100 percent complete?” I posted it on the wall of my studio. But after a few days, I barely noticed the sign was there. Another time I made myself a daily reminder on my computer that would pop up with the same question, as well as a document with a series of questions that followed up. But after a few days, I didn’t even notice those pop up windows. This is the first time I have been able to stick with a daily ritual. And so, after I hit the publish button on iweb, everyday ends feeling 100 percent complete.

Segunda

I am reminded of why I have so much stuff. 

Today I went with my mother-in-law to the segundas (second hand stores) in La Paz (the city nearest to where we live and the city where Emilio was born.) The segundas are filled with junk from American thrift stores that didn’t get sold. They are mostly filled with dirty, discarded stuffed animals and mass produced styleless furniture. Often the prices are too high and there’s nothing worth buying. But there are some magic days when the shopping fever happens. This was one of those days. The photo above depicts the items I bought today, minus a vintage industrial chair of plywood and metal, and two large bolts of jersey fabric (gray and white stripe, and faded midnight blue). (The chair will become my dining table chair, and the fabric will be used for tops and dresses that I will make for my upcoming  clothing line: seis doce.)

The shopping fever can happen at a retail store. But it’s that much more exhilarating when it happens while thrifting. Searching for treasure is a real sport. It takes the ability to both hunt and gather at the same time. It’s both a left brain and a right brain activity. The left brain works in a linear, focused way, analyzing details, such as a label to date the piece in question. The right brain works in a holistic way, sussing out the entire store, allowing the treasures to stand out and announce themselves. And then comes asking for the price, considering the purchase, and then finally, the big bargain. I am not quite in my element enough to do a hard bargain here yet. But when I lived in China, I was at a professional level. It was the most fun way to practice my Chinese. After the initial back and forth--my counteroffer was usually at least half of what was first asked--I would add a special dramatic flair. I suddenly claimed I didn’t want the item in question and would walk off, entering other shops, and only returning if the shop lady ran after me. And she always did. But here, in Baja, the shop owners don’t seem to care as much as if they sell their wares. The bargaining is casual, offhanded. I don’t have the style down. But Lucas, who is a thrift store maven, (his skill is so acute he can sense where the thrift stores are in a town he has never before been to) has a few techniques that skip the haggle all together. When he has an item that he knows has value, he waits for the segunda clerk to be busy with other customers, especially ones that are already haggling over every peso. Then he holds up his object, and asks casually “cuanto cuesta?.” The clerk is so busy and annoyed with his customer, s/he doesn’t have time or energy to really study the object and give it a price that matches its value. The price s/he gives is lower than it should be, because his/her price reflects the lowest common denominator of an item from that particular category. Another one of Lucas’ techniques is after he has picked out a few items he’s interested in buying, he adds a few extra items he doesn’t really want, and asks for the price for the whole collection. After he gets the overall price, he states that he doesn't have enough money, and asks for the cost of each item, and then piece by piece, takes away the items he didn’t want and gets the other items based on the lowered overall price.

If these techniques make us sound thrifty, it’s because we are. We live mostly hand to mouth, so buying thrift store treasures is a little burst of pleasure we can only sometimes afford to have. I have always loved shopping, and when I lived in New York, the call to shopping came to me more often than was wholesome. I even developed a habit I call shopping bulimia, where I would buy clothes just for the thrill of it, but then return them later. When we were camping on our land, we didn’t buy much, so shopping became looking for rocks and shells and bones. We created quite a collection which I placed in a circle around the circle of trees. And now, I really enjoy living a life where shopping is an occasional treat--it’s both an occasion and a treat. I like having long periods of not buying anything except for the basics and food, and then the taste of a little splurge is that much sweeter. Also, a splurge at a second hand store is not harmful, wasteful, or costly, so it feels that much better. I love thinking that the object had a previous owner, or several previous owners. The item is being passed around for future use. It’s a useful reminder that all things and beings in this world are impermanent. An object has its time with you, and then it has its time with someone else.

There is nothing/no one that reminds me of the impermanence of things more than Emilio. He has his boisterous way with his toys--his friends hide their best toy before he comes over, fearing he might destroy it. If a toy can be smashed or dismantled, it will be. I used to be attached to Emilio keeping his toys in pristine condition, especially because most of his toys are the beloved toys of our childhoods (Fisher Price toys made of plastic, wood, and metal from the 1970’s found at Segundas in Mexico) I hope that this idea of impermanence will lead to me getting rid of more of my stuff.  In fact, I think bringing new things into the house should necessitate my getting rid of some things. This will be my resolution for the week: to get rid of at least nine things.

Before/After

Before/After Bodega

“Tackle a Nagging Task” - This is one of Gretchen Rubin’s resolutions from The Happiness Project. I know from experience that it’s gratifying to finally take on the thing I’ve been avoiding, because usually that thing I’ve been avoiding is preventing me from doing all the other things I need to do. That nagging task creates a blockage. 

We have a bodega (lockable storage room) that sorely needs to be organized. It’s a room that currently acts as our closet, my office, and the storage space for all of our stuff. Lucas designed the house with the idea that the main living space could remain clutter free because most of our stuff is put away neatly in the bodega. We moved into our house in April, and we have yet to take all of the stuff that was in our old bodega (and now resides in the bodega of my parents-in-law) and put it away in our new bodega. It’s a daunting task that I’ve been avoiding, and fills me with dread. So I asked my friend, Greta, mother of six, who has moved many times since she’s lived in Mexico and is generally a neat and organized person to help me. Mostly I needed her for moral support, and to help me focus. I knew even with her support, that I would still have to make all the decisions. We worked for six hours and in that time we were able to throw away two garbage bags (It was surprisingly fun to throw stuff away), give away several boxes, and drive two carfulls of stuff to our house. We brought over a shelving unit, which Lucas set up, and then in five minutes we filled it with about 1/57th of our stuff. It was great to make a dent, but it was only a dent. Poco a poco. Just a little movement creates the momentum to keep going.

I am particularly focused on order right now is because we are still very much in the process of setting up and building our home. We moved into our half-finished house only a few months ago. The house contains many contradictions: it’s at once stylishly urban, with clean lines and high ceilings. And at the same time it’s made of natural and/or recycled materials and has a home-made look to it. It’s brand new, but it’s already cracking and falling apart. The main space looks clean, and finished, but there are parts of the house that are still raw an unfinished. This house represents an enormous and long-awaited accomplishment. The end of a particular chapter of our life, and also not yet materialized dreams and plans. There is the half finished bedroom building. The unbuilt but often envisioned studio/guest house. The toilet room with a curtain, but no door, and a bucket for use as a composting toilet. The kitchen counter is still rough cement, it has yet to be tiled. The bathroom walls are unpainted gray cement and the shower is untiled. Some of the outside walls of the house need to be stuccoed. The bodega is still in a state of transformation. Living in this state of half-doneness is both interesting and challenging. The desire to create order and tackle house projects constantly haunts me, and gets overwhelming at times. There is just so much to do! And yet, I need to remember that it will happen poco a poco, and that I have to be realistic about what is achievable in this heat and humidity. And even with all that there is that is unfinished, there is so much more to be grateful for and to appreciate. We are finally living in the house we dreamed of making for so many years. And the house, even in its flawed and unfinished state, is beautiful.

Moment/Momentum

ZOELAB DAY 7

I just had this inspiration. I realized that I have arrived. I have landed. We have landed as a family. And I have landed. I have my family, home, education, community, friends, the beginning of a new business. And now I am allowing/making myself as the artist I always wanted to be. I am ready to live out my dreams. And for some crazy reason, I am sharing this whole process with you. I don’t know how to define this or describe this. It just is. All things I did before are leading to now. But it’s not just a moment. It’s the continuation of a moment. It’s as if there had been a four year pause button, and now I’m pressing play and am continuing on my life’s path. 

This feeling brings me back to these images--different views of my studio I used to have in Oakland, California. It was a spare room in our apartment that we lived in for three years. I loved this apartment. It was the longest I had/have ever lived in one place since my childhood home. It was the only time in my life I had a studio. It was not a large room. But it was large enough. It held an office desk, all my art supplies and musical instruments, my books, a small altar, my Snoopy collection and my collection of special/cheap stuff. It was the greatest act of love when Lucas let me have the spare room all for myself. Everything else in the apartment was shared. 

Our last year in Oakland, the year after I graduated from my master’s program, I was extremely busy: I was regularly studying and performing in an improv troupe, I was writing and playing music with Lucas for our band, Garafon. I was drawing, and often engaged in my own expressive arts practice. I also worked as a nanny, a haircutter, an expressive arts therapist, and led a music and arts therapy group for elderly people. This was the last year of my life before I moved to rural Mexico and became a mom. This was an empowering time for me, but it wasn’t easy, and I was often lonely. My three closest friends had moved away, and Lucas was away often for work. But it was a powerful time, because I spent a lot of time alone, and it really stretched me, and made me aware of what I was capable of. I loved doing all that I was doing, but I still wanted a different life. I wanted a feeling of community, openness and friendliness. I never felt that in the Bay Area. After five years, it still didn’t feel like home. We had decided we wanted to make a big change, but we had no idea what our life was to become once we moved to Mexico. All we knew is we had a piece of land in the desert that we were going to build a house on, we wanted to have a child, and we were ready for an adventure.

I think these particular photos just came to mind because they represent the last time I felt like a fully engaged artist. It was the last time I felt inspired and turned on the way I do now. And it was the last time I really put myself out there. I took these photos four years ago, a few days before we packed up our apartment to get ready for our move to Mexico. The next month was November 2008: I turned 35, wrote a novel as part of National Novel Writing Month, (www.nanowrimo.org,) the economy collapsed, Obama was elected, and at the end of the month, three days before we left for our road trip to Mexico, I found out I was pregnant. These photos show the last moments of a chapter of a particular momentum, before everything in our life changed. And now, after four years, we have finally landed, and a new momentum is starting. 

Thank you for reading.

Some Images

DAY 6

A lot of people watched the democratic convention tonight.

A lot of people are following the election and were inspired by Michelle Obama’s recent speech. Not me. I didn’t see any of it. It’s not that I don’t care, but I am increasingly disengaged from politics. I’ve found other things to believe in that make a difference. I guess I am radical/apolitical. Also, we don’t have a television or high speed internet.

Tonight I ate pizza and drank beer with a group of friends after an incredibly fun day at the beach. I’ve fallen in love with boogie boarding with a blow up surf mat. I rode home at dusk in the back of a pick up truck, sitting on top of the surf mat. Emilio, from inside the cab, joked as we drove home: “this car surfs on the waves.” Now at home, I am sunburned and tipsy, and I feel like sharing some images. 

These are some photos I took in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. Lucas and I went here on vacation seven years ago. It was our first vacation. It was here that I discovered how to enjoy a vacation. The key is the two beer lunch. I also melted into a mermaid by basically living in the warm water of the Carribean.

On Cleanliness and Order

I have always been contradictory and ambivalent about cleanliness. I can’t seem to get to the bottom of this—but I keep trying. Am I clean person trapped in the body of a messy person? Or a messy person trapped in the body of a clean person? My husband thinks that it’s just about where I’m at. Sometimes I’m into being neat and organized and sometimes I’m into everything else. Anyone who knows me well has seen how utterly messy and dirty the state of my living space can be, this has at least doubled since being with my husband, and tripled (or perhaps it has grown exponentially) with the addition of our now 3-year-old son.  Part of it has to do with the amount of stuff we own. We have A TON of stuff. And it is spread out in different places all over the world. Well mostly in the US and in Mexico. We are both avid collectors. We are both, and particularly my husband, frequent thrift store shoppers. We can both always think of reasons why we need to buy some particular item: because its part of a collection we already have, or often because we want to use it for some creative project. Or simply because we think it’s beautiful.

I have never been quite able to reconcile the two sides of me. One side abhors messiness (dirtiness is a little more acceptable—I believe showering is overrated, and I don’t own a vacuum and that’s not just because we don’t have enough solar electricity to run it) and lack of organization. I have a deep sense of shame when someone happens to enter into my house while it is in a state of disarray. I want to tell that person defensively: “I don’t think this is acceptable either! I just haven’t had a chance to clean up yet.” And yet, a neat and clean type of person would never let their house get that out of order. I suppose it is all a matter of priority. It’s not that I don’t prefer neat and clean, it’s just that when it comes to living life, I prioritize other things first. Such as: lying on the couch and watching an episode of The Office (American) for the 30th time, or looking at myself in the mirror while I dance to Missy Elliot, or obsessively searching the internet for the perfect jean skirt that I wished I had bought,, or nagging my husband to go and get our 940 ml refillable beer bottles refilled (known in Mexico asballenas (whales)) or writing this blog entry about cleanliness. For a lifetime I have said to myself that I want to be neater, cleaner, more organized. And I become that way. For a little while. And then the inevitable chaos of life slowly sneaks back in. Each person varies on how messy they let their living space get until they just can’t take it anymore. I think I am getting better, in that sense. I think my tolerance for mess is less than it used to be--fewer days go by before I declare: everybody out of the house. I need to get this place in order! Which is what happened today, except my husband took the cue and left with Emilio before I needed to say anything.

Another aspect that is influencing my relationship to organization and cleaning, is what I am learning from the Mexican way: poco a poco (little by little.)  This is the way our house was/is being built, this is the way most Mexican houses are built. When you have a little to money to spend, you create an addition to your house. You start with a roof. And maybe a floor. You don’t necessarily need walls right away--not in Baja. It might not be as pretty or as easy—but it makes it possible to build a house if you don’t have a lot of money. And with cleaning, it’s the same: if I do a little bit every day, or several times a day--it wards off the chaos, even as the chaos nudges its way in. My perfectionist side has a lot of difficulty accepting the poco a poco style because it wants the satisfaction of “perfectly clean.” However, unless you are only a housewife and not trying to do ANYTHING else (or if you have someone you hire to clean your house everyday), it’s impossible to keep up a state of perfectly clean. And the desire to have this unrealistic state creates deep frustration because I have no sense of control . Also, the accumulating mess calls forth my inner critic: “what is wrong with you Zoë? All your friends have fulltime jobs and twice to six times as many kids as you, and they always have a clean, organized house.” My critic can sometimes be overdramatic to prove a point. Then again, I don’t tend to drop by their house uninvited in the middle of the day to see what it might look like. However, if I am in a continuous state of upkeep, little by little, the mess never becomes completely overwhelming, and I don’t necessarily have to kick everyone out of the house. It’s still difficult sometimes to accept that the house will never look exactly perfect. But then again, that is the reality of our house. That is the reality of life. I will post soon on the story of our house.

ADDENDUM (added on September 9th)

It’s useful to view our individual tolerance for neatness and messiness on a spectrum. We can give ourselves a number on a scale as a way of quantitating our tolerance threshold. I am experimenting with a system that uses two numbers, one that represents the maximum level of messiness you can tolerate and the other represents the level of cleanness that you would realistically like to maintain. The scale: 0 = spotless and completely in order, and 10 = utter chaos, with no concern for order or cleanliness. What would your range be? My maximum level of messiness tolerance is at a 6 (before I would start to be upset just to be in my space), and my real/ideal level is a 3. I think it’s helpful to know what level you can stand, and what your goal level would be. That way, we can judge the cleanliness of our space within our own range, instead of judging our space in absolute terms, which is usually rife with our projections of our insecurities. It makes us feel bad to give ourselves a non-subjective standard of cleanliness and order. Judging ourselves never helps us make a change. We are only motivated to change if we give ourselves rewards for our efforts and give ourselves compassion when we struggle. Eventually we don’t need to come up with rewards, because the reward becomes the exciting experience of growth.

Thank you for reading.

Do it Yourself

DAY 4

Yesterday, we spent most of the day at home. It rained intermittently all day, a perfect excuse to go nowhere. What did we do? We drew pictures. We ate a snack plate for lunch. We made play dough. Not this is not revolutionary, but it certainly is fun. Making things yourself is so much more satisfying then buying them. And.... it saves money! It also creates an additional activity for you to share with your child. Its empowering for them to be involved in projects--it gives them a sense of mastery over their universe. Its also satisfying to make the colors you want to make with adding food dye. I love the two colors we made: bright mustard yellow and internal organ pink. Everything I made with the pink one made me think of the stuff inside our body.

Here is the recipe we used which we found on the web:

2 cups flour

2 cups warm water

1 cup salt

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1 Tablespoon cream of tartar (optional for improved elasticity)

food coloring (liquid, powder, or unsweetened drink mix)

scented oils 

We didn’t use the scented oils. But it’s a good idea! You are supposed to heat all ingredients in pot and mix until it looks like mashed potatoes. Then you wait for it to cool and then knead with your hands to make it smooth. You can keep it in the fridge to prolong freshness. We made half the recipe--it came out a little lumpy, but next time I’ll use a smaller pot and less heat and I think it will work better.

The other thing I did was draw spider webs because I want the Web Map page of this site (each link will be in the center of each web) to be hand drawn. It was very fun to draw spider webs--I had never done it before. But I am not yet happy with it as the web page. I might try again and create more space between each web cluster. Here’s what I did:

I wanted to find a spider, put it on top of the drawing, and take a photo, but my husband thought that it was not a good idea as there are some pretty poisonous spiders out there. We’ll see...

We did have a good gecko sighting near our palapa--which really is a daily occurrence. Sometimes they attack each other.

The Happiness Project

ZOELAB DAY 3

The impetus to do this project came a month ago while I was riding the Peter Pan bus from the Berkshires to New York City. I had just had a visit with my family, and my brother had lent me his copy of The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (which I’m not planning on returning to him). He had told me about the book a few months ago on the phone (we both secretly love reading self help books). He told me it was a self-help memoir about a woman who decides to dedicate a year of her life trying to be happier. She writes about her experience of applying the principals of happiness based on her extensive happiness research and also on self-reflection. She writes about the process of trying to be happier, and the effect it has on those around her, especially her husband and children. She is transparent in the book revealing her own flaws and struggles and difficulties in keeping her resolutions. My brother said the book made him think of me, and then he suggested that the self-help book on creativity that I’d been planning on writing also be a memoir. I had already been half-heartedly writing about our life in Baja. The suggestion lit a spark in me: a book that integrates my own experiences as a mom creating a life and home from scratch, off the grid, in Mexico, while I build my organization “Art for Life”, while at the same time also experimenting with the ideas and exercises for unleashing and increasing creativity on myself. 

Later, while riding on the bus, (Gretchen comes up with her idea to do the Happiness Project while riding on a city bus) I read the chapter in The Happiness Project on Aiming Higher, where Gretchen starts a blog. It occurred to me: this is what I need to do! I had started a blog on wordpress three years back while I was pregnant and camping on our land. It was about our life in Baja, and I enjoyed writing it, but it was too difficult for me to keep it up due to limited electricity and internet access, and then the baby came. And then it was too difficult for me to do much of anything. Now, our son is three years old, and we are living in our house and I have more time and energy to contemplate, build a business, stay organized, and create art. The perfect format occurred to me: one entry a day, for 365 days. The only stipulation is that I do at least one entry a day, of words and image, for one year. The entries can be on anything I want. Whatever I am struggling with, inspired by, interested in. Past, present and future.

ZOELAB is my Happiness Project. It is my attempt to remain positive and proactive and productive, and at the same time to stay honest with my feelings, accept the reality of limitations, and make time for relaxation and rest. It is about trying to make contact with myself, and anyone else who is interested. It is about being my true artist self and living a bohemian life that reflects that, and it is about trying to achieve my life’s purpose. It is also a gauge to keep me in balance--the balance of health and growth for the mind, body and spirit. ZOELAB is the organizing/integrating principle around all the seemingly disparate elements in my life. It is about sharing the process of art and life simultaneously, while trying to striving to live my potential. Some entries will be about planting our garden, or ideas about how to bring more creativity into parenting. Some entries will be about trying to keep up with a resolution (for the day, week or month), some entries will be about sharing my art and design work (music, writing, drawing, photography, video, fashion design, graphic design, etc.). I imagine the project will change and grow as the year progresses--unexpected discoveries, patterns and shapes will emerge. Within the web that I am building daily, there will be stories on a theme, or whole books. My plan is to create theme pages as a way to organize posts by themes, so that a particular theme can be searched and read each as its own separate piece. The other unknown aspect is the reader/viewer. As people read and respond to my posts, this will change the course of the project. This is my hope. The openness of possibility is very exciting.

As Gretchen does in her Happiness Project, I plan to include my versions of resolutions and secrets of adulthood (which is her term for rules or guidelines for living.) I have been collecting them and will create a page of them soon. It will be a growing list. For now I am going to share one that I have come up with recently. Always have a book I’m very into reading. I may not read everyday, but I never want to finish a book before I know what book I’m going to read next. Reading books brings me a lot of happiness. It’s inspiring to read another’s ideas, or to live inside someone else’s story. While I am in the middle of a book, I tend to adapt the narrator or writer’s voice in my head--s/he starts to narrate my inner life, adding a new perspective. Plus, reading almost always inspires me to write. And not only do I want to write, I tend to write better. Also, if I am in a bad mood, reading a book almost always lifts my mood. Forgetting myself can be the most positive thing I can do. That being said, I broke my own rule because after finishing The Happiness Project (about 2 weeks ago) I didn’t immediately start a new book. But the book I plan on starting is My Ear at His Heart: My Father, a memoir written by Hanif Kureishi about his reading an unpublished memoir by his father about his childhood. I recently took this book off of the bookshelf of my father (who is also a writer).

One of the parts of The Happiness Project that most struck me is the idea that the pursuit of my own happiness is worthwhile, even if it can sometimes be perceived as selfish. Ultimately, and the studies Gretchen quotes support this, happiness is not selfish because its infectious and cyclical. “One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; one of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.” - Rubin. Because I am a mother, and often the emotional and organizing center of the family, I find it’s especially important to be happy. My happiness has a direct impact on my husband and son. And then that happiness comes back to me--my family’s happiness brings me more happiness. The happiness doesn’t just stay within the immediate family, it extends to the larger web of family, friends and community. Gretchen’s project book proves this to be true--I am already happier (more inspired, more self-aware, more productive) as a result of reading her book and embarking on my own project. And her book is NY Times Bestseller--she has sparked many others to start their own happiness projects. 

I will be returning to this subject in future posts. This is just to whet the appetite.

I want to add a note about the photograph/collage in this post. It’s called “I took photographs today to help me feel okay.” I made it in 2007 for a photography show in Oakland called “Don’t Fail me Now: a photographic tribute to what carries you through the day.” It’s a collection of digital photos that I took at various times at moments when I was feeling lost or invisible as a way to feel connected to myself, to the moment, to my surroundings. I’d like to do a few more of these tile pieces as I have many more images that fit into this subject. I borrowed the title, (which I slightly changed) from a lyric to a song I had written. Here are the full lyrics. Someday I’ll post the song when I make a satisfactory recording of it.

Don't Tell me how

To be alone

To be a friend

To me again.

And where were walking

It is snowing.

Where were walking 

It was stolen.

I’ll draw pictures of your face

Capturing your grace

So it won’t be a waste

And I’ll take photographs today

In my close-up way

To make the pain okay

Don’t tell me why

I’m afraid

To be inside

Of you again

And where were walking

It is raining

Where were walking

It was frozen

I’ll write letters to your face

Capturing your ways

So I can know this place

And I took photographs today

So I could run away

From all of the display

Don’t tell me who

I can be

In my mind

To see again.

Where we’re sitting

It is sleeping

Where were sitting

It was broken.

I’ll take photographs today

You teach me how to play

To make the pain okay

I’ll make jokes about your face

So I will know the taste of

Your skin and your embrace