You Need Ear Holes for Spaghetti Music

This morning I rode the subway.  I thought about how my friend has stopped talking to me because I stole her hair style.  I thought about seeing that celebrity on the train last week and I secretly hoped he would ride again.  I considered the line between stalking and soul-mate searching… was it not fate that this actor - one of few about whom I have fantasized - took a nonchalant seat directly in front of me?  Would it be considered fate if I found out where he was working and casually hung around there for the next week or two?  Or fate could move through me in such a way, impelling me to investigate the neighborhood near his train stop (I heard from a friend, he's living off of Graham Ave) and wait until some serendipitous morning when he happens to be braving public transit again.  Right? 

I felt my face furrow with serious consideration.  I took a deep breath and unstuck the expression.  The man next to me shifted uncomfortably as I took interest in his worn tweed pants.  The young woman in front of me pointed her eyes to ground when I looked at her face.  Finding real estate where our eyes can rest in a swollen subway car can take some effort, but the ground is usually available.  She went there.  I followed.  She wore blue suede sandals that wrapped snugly around her feet and showcased mint green toe-nail polish.  She too shifted uncomfortably with my attention. 

A mother and her daughter boarded.  The little girl's hair was alive with static electricity.  A large black man sat next to them on the one side, pretending to read a book, but I could tell he was sleeping.  He didn't fidget when I looked at him.  He just stayed on the same page forever.

Nearly everybody wears earplugs with spaghetti wires traveling to pocket-hidden or hand-held devices.  I realize I can hear it, the collective noise produced by these objects of convenience.  It's like being in a room full of preschoolers who each have their own musical instrument and are all playing fantastic sociopathic solos.  In these public spaces, the discordant song is quiet, but it's the same.

Green toe nails, big sleeping man, small girl with sea anemone hair.  Her mother stands over her, holding onto the support bar with one hand and cradling the large bag on her shoulder with the other, preventing it from sliding and swinging into the sleeping giant.  A young, bearded, bespectacled (thick, dark rims, flannel shirt, tight pants… maybe you know the style), chubby-faced man sits on the other side of the little girl, who I have noticed is carrying a headless barbie doll.  No private theme songs for headless characters.  You need ear holes for spaghetti music.  The girl is half asleep.  The young man is visibly bothered by the arrangement.  I can hear his thoughts above the hum of his headphones - he knows he should give up his seat to the mother, but goddamn it!  There are so many families here nowadays, and it's so soccer mom...Williamsburg.  It was way better like 10 years ago, or so he heard because he was a sophomore at Dover High School back then.  For some reason he talks with a valley girl accent, rolling his eyes and sighing inside.  He wants to sit and who cares if she has a tired kid, this is New York.  Everyone is struggling and he was here first, right?  His asshole is clenched.  I see it in his face.  He gets up, but not until he has to - the very last moment before the door closes on his stop.  He huffs away with the imagined pressure inflicted on him by the mother who softly slips into the space after his departure.  The little girl hugs her headless doll.  Her hair reaches in a multitude of directions and I smile - even though I might look crazy - because I love the one-act plays that regularly materialize before me in the underground mise en scene of New York.

Follow the Pleasure

After hearing all that is wrong with the world, why it's wrong, the historical context that produced the wrongness in the way we do things, the last bit shared is always the most difficult to convey:  what can you do?  What can I do?  Here's all this information and now you can tell people righteously that GMOs are bad, that soy products may contribute to infertility and perpetuate monoculture and are not easily digested, that bees are migrant workers.  There is always a problem, always some noble cause that can inspire a rant or even a manifesto, but when does actual change happen?

The small steps taken to make the world a better place are good, they are important and they clearly affect the immediate community.  This is wonderful.  But it will not change the world.  In order to do that there needs to be a greater paradigm shift.  As of now, the majority of solutions offered to people today in the humdrum world of capitalism, still rely on consumerism (just a more responsible version) for their effect.  Again, we live in a consumerist culture, so responsible consumption will make a difference, but it is an allopathic solution.  We offer stevia and agave substitutes to quell our sugar cravings without asking the question, what are we lacking in our lives that impels the need for such concentrated sweetness?

But these are hard questions and the bigger changes - the radical ones - are just that, too radical for most people to embrace.  I am no exception.  I can rant (as you have probably figured out) with the best of them, but I am an absolute hypocrite in my diatribes.  I see the need for extreme change, but I have not the will nor desire to cut myself off of everything I love - and that's often how it sounds to me.  Revolution requires some kind of sacrifice greater than I can imagine, so instead I choose to close my eyes to reality and wait for apocalypse to kick my ass.  Until recently.

Through beautiful conversations and the privilege of travel, I have realized that the most satisfying moments are often the most revolutionary ones.  What does that mean?

Maybe revolution does not have to begin with a bloody fight or construction of a  martyry.  Perhaps it can grow out of a far more enjoyable experience.  That's real sustainability.  It is not a new idea, but the more I interact with different ways of doing life, the more I realize that change must happen first in the individual before it can be played out effectively on the stage of society.  Here is the possibility:  that by getting in touch with those things that really make us feel good, by reconnecting with our bodies without the burden of intended weightloss or as part of an "antiaging" program, but really just feeling good, we can begin to shift the power dynamic that puts people at the end of consumerism's marionette strings. 

If we follow the pleasure, we may just discover that it feels better to eat good food.  That is feels better to live in a healthy space, a vibrant community.  It feels better to connect with people in real, unpretentious ways.  It feels better not to have to obsess about image, but play creatively with style.  There will always be pain, we don't have to create it.  It will come.  In the words of Brillat-Savarin, "Good living is an act of intelligence, by which we choose things which have an agreeable taste rather than those which do not." 

A Love Letter, or Temporary Marriage Certificate

New York.  It wants me.  It longs for me, has for some time now.  It has been seducing me with its intensity, its charm, its poetic fervor.  Apocalyptic buildings and menstruum of narcissism.  Oh New York.  You are such a cad.  How did you know I would come back?  I thought I was finished with your icy stares, your warm surprises.  I thought we were through.  And yet, this affair presents itself once again.  I am going to be with you.  Risking poverty and comfort, because I have always loved you.  I did in high school and was afraid.  Again in college.  Too scared to break up with Colorado.  Easy Colorado, so sunny and bright.  But I don't get wet in that mountainous state.  I need an island city for that.

Dublin almost did it.  There was a man there - Ireland man.  He held my heart for a while, so that the green country, wrapped in mist would be my object of pining.  A year passed and New York, your stable chaos waited.  You are a patient and tenacious place.  Extreme cool, extreme autonomy, extreme diversity.  You are the hero of my story right now.  Will you break my heart?  We'll find out. 

You, New York, incubator of ideas and edges, you keep calling.  What will you do with me?  Have I become strong enough for you these past few years.  Am I resilient enough to bear the force of crashing dreams?  Dreams that, like the ocean wrapped around you, swell and crash with reassuring predictability.  I find comfort in your brutal honesty.  I exist alongside your furious temper, your open arms.  What was it about the land where you have grown that called such a clever city?  What demanded I return for a hearty period? 

So I will confess my current position.  I will speak it to my camera and pull it together in time for you to really know what you're getting in to.  Because New York,  I am a force to be reckoned with.  I am a powerful woman, wrought with inspiration, tormented by addiction, excited about life.  I am not a faithful lover in the tradition sense.  I cannot promise monogamy.  I will have affairs with other cities.  I can't help but fall in love with the warm romance of Latin countries, the dusty magic of an unsanitary meat market, the Spanish idiom, or Portuguese.  But you call me nonetheless.  I have until this point resisted your flirtations.  Now I am giving in, surrendering my body to your dirty streets and perfect sunsets.  New York, for now, I'm yours.

What To Do When All You Think About Is Food

I keep thinking about food.  What might I have for breakfast? Images of poached eggs and thick-sliced sprouted grain bread.  A smoothie with fresh yoghurt, ripe bananas, cacao and oat milk.  An apple and a spoonfull of almond butter.  Macadamia nuts with sultanas and dried figs.  The perfect cappuccino or a pot of chai - the floral spices muddled together in the stone bowl of my mortar and pestle and brewed delicately with honey and milk.  As my brain ever rapidly produces possible menu items, my mouth fills itself with impatient juices.  How am I supposed to be present when my mind can't stop flirting with the future kitchen?  I am frustrated. 

Such is the humble practice of my meditation.  Every morning, after a kind stretch, I sit quietly for at least 15 minutes.  The routine is beautiful and nearly always takes some detour like that described above.  Food is my mental escape.  It is the maddening digression from work, play, connection and even silence. I use it to distract myself from everything.

This morning, however, I tried something different.  Rather than being the witness to my thoughts or coming back to my breath or exercising any number of techniques designed to empty the mind, I felt my belly and moved lower.  I recognized the impetus behind the habitual food dreaming as a desire to consume, to eat life.  I moved beyond the hunger for food. As it turns out, I'm not starving.  I want to fuck.

I began imagining myself making love with everyone.  Touching, licking, waves of delightful fire. My whole being engaged in a sexual feast.  Legs spread arms wide - body cracked open for this experience of life.  No shame, just real human connection rooted in the physical body.  A celebration of humanness!

There seems to be a tendency to confuse sex with uncouth intentions. Not a real revelation, but actually consider the opposite.  That more than being "not a bad thing" sex can be the beautiful entry point into a practice of integrity, honesty and (of course) love. 

Public education, if we're lucky, may touch on the sexual experience, though it is typically to warn teens about STIs.  Our parents may have shared some bits in a serious and awkward conversation that always included "protecting yourself."  Rarely is sex talked about as a creative, exciting opportunity for embodiment, a playground for the art of connection.

I am not brushing aside the risks of sexual play, but they are harped on.  On a public soapbox, the announcer for sex over-emphasizes potential dangers without giving enough credence to the healing aspects.  Nor does he mention that sex is intense (in part) because the risks are great.  But this does not mean sex is bad or only dangerous.

Sexual interaction provides an opportunity to share with another person or connect with oneself through the focus of paying attention to the body.  Sex does not have to adhere to rules, it does not have to include penetration or even nudity.  The kind of sex I am talking about does, however, require the flesh.  It is not intellectual.  It is experience.  It is the twin desire to the food impulse - to taste life sensually, erotically.  There is an aliveness in the quality of sexual presence - a delightful and deep magic that pulls us beyond mediocrity. 

When the meditation ended I reentered the house.  As the day progressed, everything was colored differently.  Suddenly everyone became a sexual being.  It did not matter age, education, relationship, I simply viewed every person as a sexual creature.  It leveled all social expectation. Everybody begins at the bottom.  All it took was relaxing my vagina and anus with every human interaction.  Simply paying attention to these sexual parts - to my nipples and my tongue, the fleshy hoc, and my hands.  It made my awareness of other people more whole and sexier.  I blushed often and thought less about food.  My dining thoughts did not disappear entirely, but I gained another choice about what to do with the energy. 

An Ode to Physiognomy

The human face is a work of art.  There is a multitude of fantastic arrangements.  Those perfect lines, rich with stories and suffering.  A woman a few rows from me looks up at the screen.  The skin below her chin rests on her manubrium, wobbles in rhythm with the movement of her worried eyes.  The small, bespectacled man beside her whispers something and a dimple appears in his right cheek.  Her generous neck lifts momentarily and her eyes brighten.  Her expression comes alive with the secret. 

I sit in the Boston airport right now, waiting to board.  I fly into Amsterdam and then on to Vilnius.  I admire the expressions around me, wondering about the lines that will someday speak of my experiences before I have a chance to articulate them.  We fear wrinkles, the betrayl of our inner world and histories.  We fail to celebrate their honesty.  Wrinkles are tools for truthsayers, artists of vulnerability.   

I especially love the weary face.  It shines in airports, sewn into the traveler's composition.  Sometimes excitement is there, often it communicates the long day.  Here, at gate A14 the European face is showcased.  It is an older crowd, so the story lines are abundant.  This particular countenance is rich with history.  It seems to me the depth of ancient culture can be read in the weathered facial features of Europe's elders.

A Note on Car Masturbating:

Yes, of course it can be dangerous.  It can also be employed as a stimulating activity during long, late night drives when a person may otherwise be at risk of falling asleep at the wheel.  You don't need to come to orgasm.  The energy can be raised and celebrated without the inebriation of climax.  I like to blast my favorite music, reach my hand down and yell and sing and scream and laugh.  I ride with the wind blowing in my face and the divine wisdom of my ipod shuffle wrapping me in song.  This is a wonderful venue for auto-erotic exploration, especially for a homeless vagabond such as myself.

Let's Have More Sex! (A Semi-Political Manifesto)

I sit here and listen to Obama address the United Nations.  "Peace is more than just the absence of war." 

For a decade I have been obsessing about my body.  I have been creating meaning outside myself to such a degree, that I limit the broad possibilities of experience available to me.  The world is my oyster and, yet I create conditions for my own enjoyment of it.  I want to feel the sweetness of human connection and I tell myself I am undeserving of that pleasure unless I look a certain way, unless I have some level of fame proving my value, unless… 

I arrived in North Carolina yesterday, here to visit wonderful friends.  They live near the beach and one of the first things I did upon arriving was to swim in the ocean.  I skipped down to the warm water at sunset.  Despite my insecurities, I let my arms reach for the sky and flipped along the smooth sand.  What a delight, this physical form.  As much as I resist self love and acceptance, it is moments like this that remind me how lucky I am to exist in a body.  

The North Carolina shoreline is speckled with people who clearly disapprove of my blatant display of physical sovereignty.  They mirror my own self judgement and looking into their puckered faces, I am grateful for their reflection of the crotchety bigots in me.  By extending a hand, a wave and a loving smile, I choose to accept them rather than let them dictate my actions.  I glimpse freedom.

This is all very good and philosophical, but it is in the application of this experience that really intrigues me.  Last night I shared a brilliant conversation with my hosts.  We talked mostly about sex.  The both of them, roughly 30 years my senior, expressed regrets at having not explored the cornucopia of sexual experience available to them when they were young (like me).

Now, I do not think that their own sexual exploits need be finished because of the limitations of age, but I did hear the sage advice.  Those voices inside me forever nagging me about my perceived faults, prevent me from creating the experiences I want. 

I have had some amazing sexual experiences.  And I want more.  The transcendence of these derogatory voices removes the barricade from the extensive buffet of sexual enjoyment.  Sex is just one example of experiences we limit, but it is an important one because it is such a potential celebration of our bodies.  But moving beyond judgment requires one more step.  Now that we have access to the feast, we have to start somewhere.  We must have the courage to try new things, discover what we like and what we don't (without judging the latter). 

Driving along highway 20, I unbuckle my belt and jeans, reach a hand down my pants and turn up Tom Waits.  Caressing my pussy, moving in circular motions along the sensitive jewel, I shudder and giggle.  I am merry playing with myself, laying my fingers along the soft edges of my lower lips and reaching a happy finger inside.  I want more of this.  Pure pleasure.

Obama says again, "Peace is not more than just the absence of war.  True peace depends on creating the opportunites that make life worth living."