Mary Poppinz wuz here
Posted by: lucie
Mary Poppins is real! She's real, and she answered my wishes, and she has magical powers! I saw them with my own eyes! Swear to god, she descended from the sky with her umbrella and came floating in through my open window with her heels together and toes turned out, as she does. Boy was I surprised to see her! I mean, I wrote a letter wishing for her and tore it up and threw it out the window (didn't have a fireplace) like Jane and Michael Banks did, but I never thought it would work. It didn't work, as it turns out - guess why she came? She reads my blog! Seriously, Mary Poppins reads Overarching, and everything else on Urho, in fact. She's an Urho regular. And there she was this morning at about 10:00, just floating through the Eastern European sky, come to help a sister out.
So in the end the rest of my packing only took about five minutes. We sang about the robin feathering his nest and having very little time to rest, and we marched around like happy soldiers snapping our fingers at things, and wouldn't you know, those things folded themselves up and arranged themselves ever so neatly in my suitcases. The iron even did the ironing by itself. I'm not kidding. And then she got the mop and broom to dance a waltz and wash the floors. No joke.
It all happened so fast I had no time to take pictures, so you're just going to have to trust me on this one, but it happened.
When all the packing and cleaning was done I offered her a cup of tea, but she said she had to be on her way to help other girls, so long as I didn't have any other tasks she could assist me with. I said I wouldn't mind if she could fix the screen on my digital camera since that would save me eighty bucks, and if she knew how to conjure up a prince charming or something, I wouldn't protest. Oops. Turns out those are Fairy Godmother kinds of requests - Mary Poppins pretty much sticks with domestic chores. I think I may have offended her slightly, because she pursed her lips and gave me the tiniest hint of a look for just a second.
I racked my brain for something else she could help me with, because come on, this was my childhood dream come true - Mary Poppins in my house! - and it seemed wrong for it to end so quickly. I wanted to stamp my feet and say I needed her and that she could move into the new place with me and help me walk the dog and learn math, but when I thought about it for a minute I realized I'm really mostly alright by myself and there probably were other kids out there who could use a hand. So I thanked her very much for her quick response to my letter and we said our goodbyes. She wished me luck in business school and reminded me that when the going got rough, I should just sing a happy song and things would surely turn around. Wise woman, that Mary Poppins.
And with that, up she floated out the window, over the castles and gothic churches in a Westerly direction, disappearing into the summer sky.
swf iso fairy godmother, magical nanny or similar
Posted by: lucie
If there's anyone out there with a magic wand, do us a favor - wave it around, manifest yourself magically in this room and sort my mess out. Or send me Mary Poppins and we can do it by the snapping-fingers-and-singing-about-spoonfuls-of-sugar method. Either would be fine.
Then do the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, please. Because I don't want to do this packing. I'm not in the mood for this real life stuff. This is not my strength. These days my strengths are: making up imaginary lives, dreaming up ways to save the world, fantasizing about a myriad of possible futures, taking pictures, reading books and writing emails. Packing up boring old material posessions feels kind of beneath me, you know. All that stuff on the floor and me with my head up in the clouds - it's not a good match.
I should just settle in and enjoy the present moment, but to be honest I'm a little worn out on moments of brutally assessing my wardrobe and bookshelf, reconsidering how many pairs of socks a girl really needs, deciding what to take over to Rebecca's house and what to leave for the next lucky tenant, doing laundry, making plans, worrying about shipping costs, trying to scale back more and more. So what I'm thinking, fairy godmother or Mary Poppins or any other qualified magical women who happen to be reading this, is that we could work out a deal where I didn't have to skip the next month or anything, per se, but you could make those decisions and get my life into no more than three well-ordered suitcases and I could be somehow spared the nuisance of having to open them until I got to my next semi-permanent (read: more than 6 months) home. Like maybe I could just wake up magically clean in the same outfit every day without having to wash it (which would necessitate unpacking and repacking other clothes) or myself (unpacking/repacking toiletries, etc). I'd be okay with that. I don't have any big plans except walking my temporary dog and studying, so I'm not worried about looking the same every day. There must be a potion or spell of some kind. Failing that, maybe I could borrow Mary Poppins' magic satchel if she's not using it. You know, the bottomless one she pulled floorlamps and hat stands out of.
It's amazing how much crap you can end up with, even when you think you have practically none. You think you're living a simple life, but when you try to fit that simple life into a few suitcases, it resists. No matter how careful you are about accumulating stuff, stuff builds up. And when it's time to move, that stuff mocks you. "Look at me! You actually thought it was a good idea to spend money on me! Ha! And now if you want to keep me, you'll have to pay a bunch more money to ship me, dumbass!" Even seemingly docile books will make fun of you this way. Even Buddhist books! There is no mercy.
Someday I'm going to have a real home - by which I mean "place in which one lives for more than a year" - and I'll keep all the books I ever buy and cram stuff I'm tired of looking at into the attic and closets like a normal person.
that old familiar feeling
Posted by: lucie
It's nearly time to face the challenge of the uneasy, displaced vibe again. A little twinge has appeared much earlier than expected, prompted by the seemingly straightforward business of packing up my flat. I'm not leaving town yet or anything - just going from independent living to dog-sitting, couch-surfing life on the other side of the city for a month - so I'd say the old emotions are probably a step ahead of themselves. In England there wasn't even a hint of this anxiety until I actually found myself in the check-in line for my flight out of Heathrow (at which point I started crying for no particular reason, then spent the next fifteen minutes trying to stop, or hide it, or both - unsuccessfully). But so it goes; feelings are funny things that seldom adhere to predictable schedules.
I'm pretty sure the worthiest challenge we face in this life is to accept that there is ultimately nothing to hold onto. Letting go. Over the last few months I've been trying to practice that by contemplating "the five remembrances." It's a Buddhist meditation on the roots of fear, and let me tell you, it works. Consider these five gems and see if they don't stir you up a bit:
| I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill-health. There is no way to escape having ill-health. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them. I inherit the results of my actions of body, speech and mind. My actions are the ground on which I stand. |
It can be a pretty nervewracking set of ideas to sit and think about, but holding each one of them close for a while, the unease eventually gives way to a glimmer of courage. Because we're all on our own in this game anyway, kiddos, and we all know it. It's just a matter of looking it in the face. Taking a deep breath (or a hundred) and remembering to accept that can evoke a solid feeling and ground you enough to think eh, so I'm alone, moving to another city, another country, taking on a new challenge, having to make new friends again. So the future is unknown. So there's nothing to grab onto in the world. Okay.
What is packing up one's flat and moving to another country, after all, but a grand meditation on impermanence?
I think what I'm trying to say here is this: I'm going to get through this next Big Life Transition without freaking out, even for fifteen minutes. Because it's not that big a deal. I mean, I'm moving to the UK and going to business school. It's not like I'm off to Beirut.
Anyway, all that stuff about meditation on impermanence having been said, a girl should also have some quick fix methods up her sleeve for cultivating a shred of inner peace when the nerves begin to frazzle - like chamomile tea and Bach solo cello concertos. And I have a new favorite to share: the video for The Shins - The Past and Pending over at the Rodeo Film Company website. It's incredibly beautiful and calming. Some guy from Portland made it, apparently. If any of you PDX people see him, please tell him I said thanks for the video valium.
embedded
Posted by: lucie
This embedded bronze cross marks the spot where a 20-year-old student immolated himself in 1969 to protest the invasion of the Soviet regime and jolt his countrymen from their ever-deepening resignation and apathy. He did not die immediately, but suffered for days in the hospital, 85 percent of his body covered in third degree burns, before exhaling his last breath. "Tell them why I did it," he begged the doctors as he lay dying. "Make sure they know that it wasn't a suicide but a protest."
In a recording made by a psychiatrist at his bedside, he pleaded with his people: "In history there are times when action has to be taken. Now is the time. In half a year, in a year, it will be too late forever."
His name was Jan Palach.
this is it
Posted by: lucie
"In the Zen circle, we say 'This is it.' What you are experiencing in the present moment, this is what you are looking for. This is it. You don't have to look for it in another place, at another time. This is a very wonderful door of liberation. You have to put this into practice. It will relieve a lot of suffering.
"Our civilization is not going in that direction. We are always looking for something outside of ourselves. We are always running to the future. We are not capable of recognizing that the conditions for our happiness are already there in the here and the now.
"One of the easiest exercises is to take a piece of paper and sit down at the foot of a tree and write down the conditions of happiness that you have in this moment. Like 'I have eyes still in good condition.' That is a condition of happiness. You only need to open your eyes, and then a paradise of forms and colors are there for you. Your ears, if you listen, hear the songs of the birds, the wind in the trees. You can hear - it's a paradise of sound for you. You can hear the talking of children and other beloved people.
"You have plenty of conditions to be happy in the here and the now, and yet you don't treasure them. You step on them, and you are looking for other conditions of happiness - like fame, like power, like sex, like wealth. And many who have plenty of these things suffer very deeply because they are not capable of being happy. So with a pencil you can write down some conditions of happiness that are available in the here and the now, and you will be surprised to see that two full pages are not enough for you to write down your happiness. You don't have to go anywhere else, or to the future, in order to be happy."
- Thich Nhat Hanh, Plum Village, June 7, 2006
photo courtesy Plum Village Practice Center, France
take two
Posted by: lucie
Longtime Overarching readers may remember a scandalous early episode (since removed from the archives as it fell on that side of the "how candid is too candid" line after the content rethink) involving a girl on the rebound, a certain conference, a hotel and uh, a new friend on a Friday night and then a newer friend on the Saturday. In my defense, it had been nine months since my boyfriend and I split in a rather melodramatic fashion and I hadn't so much as looked at a man since. I mean, a girl is entitled to patch up her ego and have a bit of fun. But looking back it does make me cringe a bit. Mr Saturday came to be known around here as Matt. We met up for another couple weekends and had some good adventures; he dropped me off at the airport when I left the UK, in fact, and we're still in touch.
Friday, though, I'm a little uncomfortable about that one. Not least because I rather harshly blew him off on Saturday. To be fair, I'd had far far too much to drink and he had literally followed me into my hotel room, which was less than smooth. But then he seemed to get rather attached and think the whole thing meant something. Hint for the boys: follow a very very drunk girl back to her hotel room and something might happen, but it probably won't be love. In the emotional sense, if you get me. Saturday I had that "oh crap, please get away from me" feeling and I dealt with it pretty poorly. You see, back in the day when I traveled and partied a lot I saw a lot of pretty bad male behavior, and I suppose I developed a deep cynicism about men and their intentions and emotional depth, if you will. You see enough boys pull enough girls into hotel rooms and forget about them the next day, you win "one of the boys" status and hear enough stories, and you'll eventually begin to forget that there exist less edgy, less tour-hardened men who have actual feelings that you might hurt.
What I'm trying to say here is that in my experience man + hotel room = player, and player = the only thing I'm responsible for is the decision whether or not to get physically involved, because that's all it could possibly be about.
Anyway, suffice it to say, Friday was perhaps not such a player - or maybe he was a bit, but not so seasoned that he was incapable of getting his feelings hurt... and I didn't give that much consideration. I hung out and flirted with Matt right in front of him and pretty much acted as though nothing had happened. Before he put two and two together he actually came up to me and whispered, "Does Matt, uh... know about last night?" - meaning, to my mind anyway, "Does Matt know that he doesn't have a chance because I already won you?" And I just looked him very intensely in the eye and said "No" in a tone intended to convey "No, and you won't be telling him," then breezed out the door to the next bar. It was pretty cold. I didn't feel very bad about it at the time because I resented his presumptuousness, this vibe that he thought he owned me or something, and I kind of felt like he deserved the hit to his ego. I still feel that to some extent. But really, there were more mature ways I could have chosen to handle it. You can always choose to be nice about things.
I guess I've yet to get to the reason why I'm actually thinking about this today, so here it is: there will be a reprise of said conference in September, and as I've been trying to decide whether to go or not I've been haunted by the cringe factor of last year's conduct. These people do like to gossip. I know they all picked up on the chemistry between Matt and me on Saturday (they're not shy about pointing these things out), but I think Friday is still my little secret. As far as I'm aware, Matt knows nothing about it. For a while I felt like I ought to tell him before someone else did, but ultimately I decided it was none of his business, and hell, I didn't know what he was doing on the Friday, and I didn't care.
But of course I'm not the only one who knows what I was doing on Friday. There's one other person, and I suspect I left him with a badly bruised ego. He's a regular at these events, so there's no doubt he'll be there. And um... he actually lives in the city where I'll be going to school. And if I go to this thing, I'll be rooming with Matt. So... yeah. It's all a bit awkward.
I made a little mess last year, is what I'm trying to say. It was the first time I'd met this particular group of people and I whirled through the conference like a tipsy little tornado and created situations for myself with two high-profile regulars in their scene (later described to me by one woman as "our two alpha males"). Being a woman, this puts me at high risk to receive a label I probably don't deserve (well, okay, but at least not in the bigger picture) and would really rather not wear, and I won't spell it out for you but it isn't "player" or "stud."
I booked my ticket today, and I think I'll need to grow some ovaries and address the situation with Friday when I get there for two reasons. First: I do owe him an apology. Sure, some boys are begging to be taken down a couple notches, but no one deserves to be so ignomoniously blown off. And second: I would really prefer the full extent of my activities last year not to become public, for if they were I would feel compelled to choose between hanging my had in shame, skulking out of the conference never to return, or adopting an attitude of "What? I'm an empowered woman - I can do what I like! These are the two biggest big shots you guys have around here? You can't be serious. I tied those clowns' shoelaces together last year. What else have you got?"
See, this is why girls like me are better off just living in our own little dreamworlds. Real life gets pretty complicated.
pretty buildings
Posted by: lucie
As mentioned yesterday, I lack the particular talent required to get good shots of buildings. Nonetheless, there is some beautiful architecture around here, so I'll share some of my attempts to capture its beauty as my time in Eastern Europe ticks away. You'll notice they consist mostly of super cropped chunks of buildings. That's because I'm not so good at making all the stuff of life fit into the frame in a way that looks beautiful, so I just pick my favorite chunk and capture it as best I can. It's tough being an amateur photoblogger.
As for this surge of blog content, I figure it'll end pretty soon. I'm supposed to be moving in 3 days and I've yet to start packing, so it can't go on forever... right? But may as well roll with it while it lasts.
dreamworld (living in a)
Posted by: lucie
Getting bored of the James fantasy. I think it might have peaked and burnt itself out just after that Balkan trip. You meet someone, you connect, you part ways and email for seven months, you invent a whole future, you meet the mom, she likes you, and then... what's left? Just real life, that's what, and real life is not so exciting when thousands of miles of ocean lie between oneself and a fake future husband who is too busy saving the world and fighting for justice and earning people second chances in life to follow through on any of his repeated threats to visit.
James is a lawyer, if I haven't mentioned this before. He quit his corporate gig at the beginning of this year to start his own practice, and he's now taking a lot of legal aid cases, immigration and refugee claims, volunteering at homeless shelters and giving talks at community centers to help recent immigrants learn their way around the system. He spends his days with clients and in court, his nights studying up on the areas of law he'll soon need to apply. Outside of that it seems to be Buddhist practice and a lot of philosophy reading. His emails tell of the refugee whose ear was bitten off when he was attacked by a gang in his home country, the family he's trying to save from immediate deportation, an amazing book about Hegel he's reading, maybe a movie he caught last week. Doesn't get out much, but it doesn't bother him in the slightest, by the sound of it. He reads, he works, he practices, he studies, and he's happy and fulfilled. I don't think he particularly worries about whether we might have a future together, or if we don't, whether he'll ever find someone who seems like a better fit (men do not tend to worry about whether a relationship will not happen, one of my more astute girlfriends has pointed out). The boy is rock solid. He needs no one. It's one of the things I like most about him, except it comes with the inconvenient side effect of him not being that bothered where our fake long distance email relationship is going.
We had a joke about him moving to the UK when I went back there for my MBA; an arrangement facetiously negotiated on our "first date" that I reference whenever he expresses his jealousy about me getting to live in beautiful European cities. Just a couple months left until we move to our new home, I'll say - you'll love the old architecture and the parks there. "Ah yes, I do have the UK and you to look forward to," he writes back. "A man can sustain himself well on a dream."
"You see," I tell Rebecca, "I'm just a dream. He probably doesn't even care if we ever see each other again."
"Babygirl, we live in dreams," she says in a tone that suggests that this is an unarguable matter of the purest fact. "That's why we're happier than most people."
She's right, of course, and I'm probably worse than him - because at least whatever interest he has in me is ostensibly in me, whereas my interest is more in a fantasy loosely based on him than James himself. Becks once asked what I actually wanted to happen with this situation and I promptly replied that he should get on a plane, sweep me off my feet, propose, and we should get married and have 3 adorable smart creative children, travel the world doing good things for humanity and live happily ever after. This is a huge lie, of course - I don't really want to make any attempts at a real life scenario; in fact I didn't want anything to change. I like having the fodder for my fantasies. I like imagining James coming to visit and us falling in love and getting on with our perfect future and saving the world together and having 3 adorable smart creative children.
If the phone rang right now and it was James, calling from the airport to say he'd come to town to surprise me, I think I would die. Honestly, I can't think of anything worse. I wouldn't have a clue what to do with him. The reality couldn't possibly match the persona I've been painstakingly crafting for all these months. There would be an awkward greeting, we'd hang out as friends, the first hour would be excruciating, and maybe there's a one in fifty chance that we'd still have some spark and things would go beyond really long, interesting chats about the world over cups of tea.
The Balkan trip put my imagination into overdrive - being in his hometown, hanging out in the parks he would have played in as a child, chatting with his mother. It made him seem so real, yet without any risk of him personally interfering with the version of himself that I'd made up or failing to match it in any way. I honestly had us getting married and spending our Christmases back there, sitting in front of that fountain together with me saying "Baby, remember when I came here on my own and met your mother for coffee? I sat right here, on this very bench, and thought about how we'd be here together someday. Even though I hadn't seen you for months and we lived so far apart, I knew."
This now seems very funny to me, because of course that's just so over the top and so far removed from reality, and now that I've seen myself wander quite that far into my fantasies it's pretty hard to deny what they are. God, I really love my little dream world. It brings me lots of joy and excitement and can transform the most boring day into a scene from a romantic comedy. But I'm beginning to think that rather than drag people into it, maybe I should just completely make someone up. Just completely invent someone. Because this whole James thing? It really hasn't been about James. I mean, I'm not saying I couldn't see it happening - I could, and it still might - but if it did, it would progress along an entirely different track from the one in my mind. In my little dreamworld we have a whole life together. In reality, we'd have to pick up where we left off, which was not so far down the path of romance. That could be such a letdown.
There are moments when I think my creative energy is squandered on making up these stories about boys, and the really funny thing is that I don't think I do it out of loneliness; if anything, it's out of boredom. Maybe I should quit inventing fantasy futures for myself and find the nerve to channel it into short stories or something.
Za nic
Posted by: lucie
I'm overblogging. Blogging too much, posting too much, and everyone's going to get sick of me. "That Lucie is posting like three entries a day - who has the time to keep up with her antics anymore?" they will say, and unsubscribe me from their aggregators or just stop clicking on my entries on the front page of Urbanhonking because they're sick to death of the word "Overarching," which was such an interesting and versatile word before I hijacked it and rode it into the ground.
Well, it's hot out. Too hot to think and too hot to accomplish anything of real substance. Much too hot to read dense economics texts or even consider finally polishing off that seemingly neverending math book, let alone going anywhere near finance. The mind wanders. Today my loftiest goal was to read as much of The Economist as possible. These days I flip to the back and start with the business section because, well, that's what MBA students are supposed to do, and something had to be done about the fact that I am generally lacking in reading motivation by the time I get there. I was a bit disheartened to discover half a page devoted to a story headlined "Custody Battle: German dollmaker dithers in the global tug of love," which began thus: "Who will end up holding the baby: macho Japanese Power Rangers, or teenage Bratz from California? Either way, after several years of losses and other shenanigans, Zapf Creation - a toy firm from sleepy northern Bavaria best known for Baby Annabell and other realistic dolls - needs a strong parent."
Yes, pray tell, who will get custody of Baby Annabell? The piece goes on to discuss the ins and outs of potential buyouts, takeovers and stakeholder concerns and returns. Moments like these I begin to fret about sitting in classrooms poring over case studies of doll companies pretending to have an opinion on who should get custody of Baby Annabell, because it sure ain't going to make the least bit of difference in the way this overheating globe turns. It reminds me of a quote I came across in an economics blog the other day. Ready for a string of references? It's from The Economist's View blog (which is fantastic, actually, if you're interested in economics) quoting Ben Stein in the New York Times reflecting on Philip Roth's "American Pastoral" and paraphrasing Hart Crane (so don't say I never give you any links):
"How the hell did everything go so wrong in this country? How did we stop giving a damn about our neighbors and viewing this ... brief wink between eternity and eternity (to paraphrase the great Hart Crane), as mostly a chance to make money off a nameless, faceless Other?"
Amen to that, Mr Stein. On good days I'm incredibly inspired by all the great things happening in the world; beautiful development projects, social entrepreneurship, rebel economists burning the IMF and World Bank's intellectual houses down (read: William Easterly), microfinance and rural enterprise and all kinds of amazing business ventures that make the world a better place, or at least do their thing from the heart and make people happy without screwing anything up. Reading about those things I get excited about my MBA and the doors it might open. And then I'm faced with half a page on Baby Annabell and the realization that this is the substance of MBA programs; it's Baby Annabell I'll likely be studying, not that really cool company where traumatized Bosnian women put their nervous knitting habits to use and start bringing in some income to make up for the financial gap left by their murdered husbands and sons.
But you never know. We'll see.
Anyway, less than motivated by the case of Baby Annabell and haunted by the urge to incessantly indulge my interweb addiction, I threw the magazine in a bag and wandered off across town to get a tofu burger at my favorite expat-friendly vegetarian-friendly hangout. Along the way I saw the most unenthusiastic protest ever in the history of humankind. It looked like this:
What you see above is probably the entire Jewish community in this city protesting Hizbullah's attacks on Israel. I wish it were video. They looked so purposeless, as though perhaps they were just waving signs while waiting for the crosswalk light to turn green, or holding onto them until the real protesters got back from the bathroom or something. No passion, no indignance - hell, no one even knew the words to the songs or chants they were trying to get going. Truly, you could hear one guy singing, maybe two or three more joining in when they got to the chorus, and everyone else stood around looking confused. Now, to be fair to the local Jewish community, they're probably pretty new at this. The Jewish population was wiped out of this part of the world with frightening efficiency during WWII, and then the commies rolled in and oppressed religions of all kinds (opiate of the masses and all), so Eastern Europeans are only just beginning to bounce back spiritually. But local Jewish brothers and sisters, I have to say: if you can't rile up a little more pizazz than we saw today, especially in the face of such controversial international affairs, your energy might be more efficiently applied to writing letters to the editor or something. Or maybe rehearse before you try this again. You know, practice the songs a little. Look up a few simple chants on the internet.
Moving along down to the square, I decided to attempt to get a couple decent shots of The Architecture. I suck at taking pictures of buildings. I actually suck at taking pictures of most things, but can usually find a way to fake it and make something look interesting. Buildings aren't quite as flexible in that regard. And when you're in a historic part of a tourist-friendly town, people are always walking in front of the camera. Especially packs of drunken British and Irish men. As I waited for the space directly in front of me to clear so I didn't end up with a big drunk head in the middle of the shot, a stag group ambled past. Somehow they'd latched onto a woman and one of the blokes was giving it the ultra earnest, "I respect women. I respect women." I couldn't help but raise a sisterly eyebrow in her direction. She didn't notice (maybe she was buying it?) but one of the other boys did. "What are you looking at?" he said. Then: "Want to get a drink sometime?" Those guys will try it on with anything that moves.
Then they got out of the way and I took this picture to share with you. See how pretty the buildings are in this part of the world? You should come visit sometime.
Finally, on the way home, I captured one last "Sculpture Grande" for all y'all. Here it is, "Twelve Letters," by the School of Intermedia Studies. explanation below.
"This project is the result of the group work of several artists led by a prominent Eastern European visual artist, Milan Knizak. This is a natural form of message for those who want to understand, or just a new form of bench for the others. From above, the letters form an inscription: 'umeni je za nic' (art is for nothing)."
Rafael Mahdavi, "Gate For The Wind"
Posted by: lucie
"Surrealistic and poetic, this piece exemplifies the permanent wish of the artist to transform reality by means of imagination. Suggesting that the wind can come to cross through these tiny shapes and void inner volumes, is nothing else than an invitation to the viewer to feel part of the intangible and unexpected presence of the wind."
stalking you on myspace
Posted by: lucie
Pete's romantic relationships have never been exactly slow and steady. The pattern generally goes something like this: feigned disinterest, melodramatic realization/declaration of love, several weeks of passionate romance and spending every waking moment with the new girl of his dreams - you know, the fun part - and then the Pete Brain kicks in. A dark unease, a sense of anxiety, that trapped feeling, some serious paranoia and jealousy and ultimately the impulse to bolt. "I'm using this girl the way I used to use drugs and alcohol," he'll say, justifying the bailout to himself as a righteous move toward self-realization and honest living.
He's having a hard time shaking the new one, though. She's always sounded a bit dangerous to me - recently divorced, recently sober, recently all kinds of other things, but then Pete's always liked a little bit of the crazy. I don't think he could relate to a girl who didn't have it. And they seem to work well together; great friends for a long time before they finally admitted the attraction, they talk about everything under the sun and actually enjoy each other's company outside the bedroom. Usually when Pete finds a new Perfect Girl he drops off the face of the earth, but not so with this one; we see photos of them at the park, at galleries, at shows, just participating in life together. It's been beautiful to watch. But we're at the freakout stage now, as evidenced by last night's iChat:
pete: my relationship with my girlfriend is driving me crazy.
me: uh oh.
pete: i'm getting incredibly jealous and paranoid. last night i went through the browser history for like an hour after she used the computer - looked at every myspace page she'd looked at, etc. i even read her email once.
me: uh oh. that's out of order.
pete: but she changed her password a few weeks ago.
me: do you have any reason not to trust her?
pete: i don't know.
me: i mean, have you seen any evidence that she might be doing anything wrong? are these ideas coming from anywhere besides your own head?
pete: maybe i'm projecting. maybe i'm worried about her doing the things i kind of want to do.
me: okay, well, that might be a good insight.
pete: is it normal to still be attracted to other people?
me: totally normal.
pete: as long as i don't do anything about it?
me: thoughts don't count. thoughts are just thoughts. only intentions and actions count.
pete: okay. maybe i just don't know how to do a relationship and i have to learn.
me: maybe.
pete: but sometimes it seems like when it gets to this point there is nothing to do but bail.
me: pete, how do you actually feel about this girl? not the situation but the actual girl?
pete: i think i love the shit out of her.
me: okay, then most of this is normal. falling in love is scary. you're supposed to freak out. there is no dignity in love.
pete: no, no there isn't.
me: just quit stalking her on myspace.
Jan Moravek, "Flowers"
Posted by: lucie
"Flowers are for the author something like a Garden paradise, something like a want of life, a symbol of wish, an expression of human needs. They should represent sensuality, generosity, versatility and they should show deadness of humans' society. Their purpose is to personify that for human's so favourite characteristics like a lie, enviousness etc. but even those characteristics, which a few people knows therefore it probably doesn't make sense to mention it..."
(Sometimes the explanations / translations are a little bit weird. Interpretations, anyone?)
complications
Posted by: lucie
There's one city that features strongly in one of my previous lives, if you will, and when someone calls from there and says "I have something to tell you," a list of names immediately starts scrolling through my head on repeat. As it spins I pick out the people who have grown up a bit - the ones I've seen looking a bit healthier since those heady days of reckless clubbing abandon - and then begin sifting through the rest, crafting possible scenarios. You know, the people who never quite knew when to leave the party, metaphorically speaking. Back in the days when I made something of a career out of clubbing, I spent a lot of time in that circle. We had some indescribably euphoric times - priceless times. We also witnessed some frightening close calls. Never amongst our inner circle - what, us? amateurs like that? we knew what we were doing - but in our midst, on our dancefloor and before our eyes.
So when someone calls from this particular city I brace for bad news and wonder if it was Jamie, who seemed to be ever deeper into his little psychedelic, then paranoid, world and slowly peeled off; or Andrew, who thought he had everyone convinced that he left the party at the party but never did; or Tracey, who just... was always out of control and still seems to be front and center in the scene. Well, it wasn't one of the usual suspects last time, and it isn't one of the usual suspects this time either. Funny how that goes.
It's disorienting to be informed of the death of a person you haven't seen in years and may never have seen again even if their life hadn't been cut tragically short. Somehow it seems inappropriate to mourn the loss when, for all practical purposes, someone has been lost to you for a very long time. One moment they were out there somewhere, thousands of miles away, their comings and goings evidenced by photos and livejournal entries and third-hand stories, and now they are not. One day there was a chance you'd bump into them again someday, today there are no such odds. Your thoughts go to mutual friends who will feel the loss much closer to home, you contemplate the fragility of life, the way it can simply, quietly end, and then you go on with your day. How do you process that?
So there's not a whole lot to say here. But I'd like to take the opportunity to make a little public service announcement to anyone who might benefit from hearing it: there is a time and a place in life for partying like self-congratulatory badass rock stars. Have a blast. But for god's sake, outgrow it when it's time. Look around you. Are your friends moving on, pulling themselves up, getting on with their comparatively sober lives? Is everyone around you five years younger? Are you the only one left at the club when the lights come on, exposing the disgusting floors and the ugliness of the cheap, two-dimensional decor that looked so smooth when it was bathed in red and blue light?
It may be that you should have gone home hours ago. So listen: go. Go home. Go home, make a cup of tea, turn the music off and just sit at your kitchen table in silence for a little while. Take a hard look at your life and, with all love and due respect, grow up. Do it while you still can; before misfortune robs you of the opportunity. Drugs are for kids.
Mark Titchner, "We Are All Immortal"
Posted by: lucie
"'We are all immortal' is the famous sentence from British Pop Art that Mark Titchner introduces in the new context of the visually saturated modern cities to ironically remind us of the end of our dreams. As an eye-catching billboard the questions perception and ideas, this work combines the aesthetics of pop art and advertising, blending art with the commonplace."
Note: This looks more like a poster grande than a sculpture grande to me, but I don't make the rules.
Dear dad
Posted by: lucie
I emailed my dad yesterday. The message began, "Well, I guess this not talking thing has gone on long enough."
It's been roughly three years, I guess. Maybe more like four. I'm not sure. To me it never felt like we were "on non-speaking terms" - we just didn't happen to be speaking. Nothing to speak about. But to him I know it's felt like the brick wall silent treatment, and despite the fact that it was never my intention to make him suffer, I guess I've done so long enough.
Ours has long been an up and down relationship, peppered with instances of me storming out of restaurants and leaving him at the table, him blowing up and calling me nasty names, me crying to my stunned friends, overwhelming family scenes, him telling my sisters outlandish stories about me behind my back, and a hell of a lot of blame and anger on both sides.
It wasn't always this way. Growing up I'd say I was actually his favorite daughter (we are three). He's a businessman through and through, my dad, and my memories of time alone with him seem to involve transmissions of strategy and management thinking. I was the smart, ambitious, competitive tough one. I told him when I grew up I was going to start a company, and that my company was going to buy his company. He thought that was pretty cool.
I'm not sure whether my parents' marriage always sucked, or whether he always drank quite so much (probably yes to both, not that it matters), but there seemed to be a steady progression of anger and booze through the years. By the time I was in high school he usually had a couple martinis down the hatch within an hour of arriving home, and the temper flared pretty regularly. There were bizarre incidents of seemingly mindless aggression, like the time he burst into my bedroom and announced that he and my mother were considering putting me in a foster home because I was too difficult to deal with. That's the kind of thing you get when you add up insecurity, booze, control freakiness and a big corporate power trip, and that's pretty much how it's been ever since.
Things kicked off hard when my mom finally decided to throw in the towel. He became best friends with a 36 year old hustler with a sportscar (commonly referred to by yours truly as his "mid-life crisis friend"); they'd get drunk and race down Highway 23. My younger sister and I stayed with him a few days a week and he'd leave money in the kitchen for takeout, go out drinking and stumble in at midnight. One night he stayed out so late I sincerely believed he was dead. As the animosity over the divorce grew, the manipulation kicked into high gear and we got into that classic scenario of dad trying to turn the kids against mom. It worked on my sisters; they didn't speak to my mother for five years. I wanted nothing to do with it. Rule number one with my dad: it's truly his way or the highway. So it was looking like the highway for me, against my will. Over the years I gradually ceased to receive invitations to come over for Christmas, my sisters stopped talking to me, my dad started calling me "dropout" instead of Lucie, and all the rest of it. I tried to improve things but no one wanted any of it, so I moved 3000 miles away and left it behind.
We never went long without talking; he'd be in my part of the country once in a while and we'd attempt a dinner, sometimes making it to the end, often not, but always arguing. Having convinced my sisters that I was an evil, manipulative drug dealer who mistreated him terribly, he then set to work blaming me for my nonexistent relationships with them. The pressure of each other's company was so strong as to necessitate consumption of many glasses of wine, which in turn escalated the arguing. Things we could talk about: business, career. Things we couldn't talk about: the past, the future, the family, values, ethics or the meaning of life. It always got into bad territory.
When I wandered off to Eastern Europe the relationship was reduced to email, which improved things. No booze, plenty of time for the emotions to cool off. We were reaching a smalltalky equilibrium. Over the years my sisters came to realize what a mess he'd created and apologized for believing the stories and allowing themselves to be manipulated. They'd continued to live their lives largely under his close watch and envied my independence, applauded my strength. Things calmed down so much I even managed to go home one Christmas and deal with everyone at once.
Oops.
The equilibrium we'd found, my dad and I, was a bit too fragile for that. It existed in a vacuum, one-on-one, over email, sober. Real life was not to be so simple. I had my boyfriend with me, he had his new wife (ugh), there was too much wine, and an argument inevitably ensued. On our own we could have dealt with it, but with our partners there it escalated. I said something he didn't like, he blew up about it, kicked into one of his temper tantrums, exaggerated and manipulated my statement and handed it back to me. I said he'd taken me out of context and he tried to get my boyfriend on his side.
dad: No, that's not what you said. You said it such and such a way.
me: I most certainly did not.
dad: You absolutely did. Everyone heard you. (to boyfriend) Didn't she say it that way, Ryan?
me (to boyfriend): Don't answer that. (to dad) Do not try to involve Ryan in this.
dad's wife: You're both acting like children!
me: Who are you, my mother?
dad: Don't you dare talk to her that way!
(stand up, throw napkin on table, exit stage right)
And that's the scene, pretty much. I waited outside the restaurant while they ate. Ryan apparently came looking for me but couldn't find me and was forced to endure dinner with my father and his ridiculous wife. Yes, yes, the whole thing was incredibly childish, but that's just how we do in my family. We piled into the car together, the wife informed my father and I that we both "just needed to grow up" (this is a woman I've spent less than a cumulative week with), and we quit talking again.
She was right, of course - we did both need to grow up (though I can't imagine what could be more wrong than opening her big mouth to say so). We were acting like children; always have. But honestly, my boyfriend was like my life preserver in the choppy waters of family relations, the one little bit of safety I had to cling to. When he tried to take that away from me (and of course he did, because he'll always go straight for the soft spots), I just saw red. It was all over.
So that was it. A few Christmases ago now. After years of painstaking, tentative walking-on-eggshells work to try and cultivate a completely unsatisfying but at least not traumatic relationship, the whole thing blew up. And it just didn't seem worth it to try anymore. He and his wife immediately got on the phone to my sisters and filled them with stories of how evil both I and my boyfriend had been, how we'd wanted to drink all their wine and eat all their food and go to expensive restaurants and use and abuse them, then treat them badly, etc etc. The sisters were smart enough not to get sucked into it this time. Things quieted down and I went on with my life as if he didn't exist... and it was so nice. Just so peaceful without that element of aggressive, alcoholic, narcissistic power-freaky dad in my world.
It was so nice it just rolled on for years. I didn't miss him. I still don't really miss him; I just don't like having the bad energy there. Dealing with him will be harder than ignoring him, I'm sure, not to mention dealing with his, um, outspoken wife. But it's been years. It puts my sisters in an awkward position, it causes unnecessary stress, and while it's not so hard on me I know it pains him not to be in touch. He doesn't talk smack about me anymore, my little sister informed me when she came to visit; he just gently asks what I'm up to. That's what made me crack. Now I'm the one being mean.
And then there are these Buddhist teachings and this meditation practice and all this contemplation of love and compassion and peace, which have been opening my heart and making it awfully hard to hold a grudge. And the pictures that show him looking visibly older, reminding me how much time has passed. And there's the fact that I'm about to turn thirty, and for god's sake, when will I grow up enough to deal with my family members, no matter how nasty and aggressive and provocational they can be? I don't want to turn thirty with this cloud over my head.
It's just time. So I emailed. I guess this non-speaking stuff has gone on long enough. Here's a life update. Ryan and I broke up after a year in England, I stayed another year to continue my job until my visa expired and then went off for some adventures. Spent a month in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal, saw more of Nepal and India, then came back to Eastern Europe to work at the paper and plan my next move. I applied to business school before I left; in the UK they let a few people in each year without undergraduate degrees. I got accepted, so I'm going. Think I'll work for an NGO or non-profit when I get out; been reading a lot about poverty, development and the involvement of the private sector in tackling social problems. Did another Buddhist retreat in June. Studying math and econ in preparation for the MBA, moving again in a month. Sorry our relationship failed again that Christmas. Maybe we can do better. How are you?
Ales Vesely, "Kaddish"
Posted by: lucie
"A vast, torn monumental piece of exploding metal and iron, stands Kaddish. Like the harsh language of the liturgical Kaddish - the Jewish prayer for the dead - the monument is exclamatory and radiant. There is anguish in its stressed, disintegrating mass and dry, spiny texture. But the rhetorical content is balanced by exuberant self-confidence and sheer aesthetic daring."
Jiri Mercak, "Searching"
Posted by: lucie
"We will always need an old heart. The anthropomorphic metallic figure speaks about a technified future with a new mankind trying to preserve their identity through past traditions and stories."
towel = in
Posted by: lucie
Screw this! Do you know how great it is to eat food? Words can't even begin to describe how amazing it feels to ingest solids after a week of spicy lemonade and laxative tea. Yeah yeah, I said ten days, but yesterday and today it just got to be a bit much. My mind was really not functioning properly anymore. I think I would have had to be on a slow IV drip of maple syrup to keep my blood sugar at a workable level. The spaciness and head rushes got too exasperating, so I thought about it for a day and then rebelled and at some fruit. That's right, fruit! I went nuts! I had a banana and a nectarine for dinner tonight, and then life was beautiful again and numbers made sense.
Sometimes you don't realize how half-alive you've felt until you begin to feel fully alive again, if you know what I mean. I'm glad I did the Master Cleanser; it felt cleansing and all. Just... not for ten days, I guess, at least not in the summer, not when I'm trying to study and preparing to move. I was drinking more of the lemonade each day and feeling like it wore off more and more quickly. By yesterday evening it had begun to turn the corner from a feeling of righteous hunger to a feeling of unhealthiness. It's tough to know when to bail on something like this; I get caught in a circle of "but I'm not going to do it just to prove something / but I'm not going to wuss out / but I'm not going to keep doing it when it feels unhealthy just for the sake of not wussing out / but maybe that's just a justification for wussing out" etc.
In any case, fruit won. Tomorrow will be a fruit day as well, I think, and then back to the world of real food. It'll be nice to have real calories and an actual balanced diet and fully functioning brain again as I have to move out of my flat in a week.
Tonight I floated, positively floated, filled with the energy of beautiful, beautiful fruit, down to the island and watched "Match Point" outside. Fun to watch, but damn that Woody Allen is a cynical bastard, and the one particularly violent scene (no spoilers here but if you've seen it you'll know what I'm talking about) deeply disturbed me. I'm getting more and more sensitive to violence in films these days; when I look around, no one else's mouth is hanging open.
It's funny, the whole island movie thing - very budget. The film reel is probably third-hand and definitely scratchy, the projection people don't focus it quite properly, the screen is polluted with marks and patches, the sound periodically cuts out (tonight the film reel even fell off the projector, delaying continuation of the entertainment for about five minutes), and the house music spilling out of the dance clubs on the other side of the river makes an odd soundtrack. But people are in good spirits, the beer flows, the mosquitos get fed and we all have a good time.
Walking home I contemplated food - not what kind I would eat the day after tomorrow and how good it would taste, but just how lucky we all are to have so much of it. I know this goes without saying, but with so many people starving out there it really is a miracle to be able to hit the grocery store with cash in your pocket and take home bags full of anything you could possibly want. It's something I've tried to give more day-to-day consideration in these last months. Waiting for takeout at the restaurant down the street, impatiently thinking snarky thoughts to myself about how long it could possibly take to assemble a salad, and then stopping to consider how many people will have to wait a week for that much food.
At Plum Village, eating was a really deep practice. At the beginning of each meal before we took a bite, we contemplated the food: looked at it as a gift from the whole universe, an ambassador from the entire planet come to nourish our bodies. Thought about the farmers, the truck drivers, the cooks and everyone else who'd had a hand in bringing it to our plate, the food as a symbol of the interconnectedness of all things. Food comes to life when you look at it that way. The colors actually become deeper and more vibrant right before your eyes. You can almost see it breathe.
Anyway, I suspect I've written enough about food (or lack thereof) for a while.
Closer to home, passing through one of the main city squares, I perused some of the exhibitions in this year's "Sculpture Grande" exhibition. Those "iron men" photos I posted earlier are from last year's. This is an annual, international display of sculptures that are, you know, grande - which is fancy Western European talk for "big"! I look forward to capturing this year's entrants on the digital camera and sharing the love.
ironmen
Posted by: lucie
Master cleanser day 6
Posted by: lucie
Man, I just don't know about these people who do the Master Cleanser and claim to be full of energy. With less than 100 calories per glass of spicy lemonade, and drinking 6-12 of them a day, what kind of freak would be bouncing off the walls? Not me, I can tell you that much.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that hard - compared to last time I'm positively sailing through this (a change I like to chalk up to the cultivation of deep inner strength, though it may actually be down to remembering to drink the stuff often enough), but it's not exactly a party over here. I keep hitting the math book full of energy after a glass of the stuff, then an hour later find myself calculating something as ingenius as 8 + 7 = 13, pausing to gaze at this statement with some confusion and then writing "brain stopped working" in the margin next to it before setting off to juice some more lemons. It happens so fast.
Today I've found myself craving a good old fashioned cheesey American easy-listening station. Comfort music, I guess, as there is no comfort food to be had. Like K103, for the Portlanders among us. In fact, such was my craving that I actually got the old K103 jingle in my head. It went "K one oh three... K one oh threeeeeee, it's special to be with you - K one oh threeeeeeeeeeee!" Do they still have that? Is anyone out there confident enough in their hipster cred to admit to hearing K103 once in a while, maybe even deliberately? I challenge you to out yourselves.
I'll start: there are at least three Eagles songs I still listen to on a regular basis, and I'll defend that practice to the death.
Rebecca is in the States for her best friend's wedding, which is, for some bizarre reason, pirate-themed. Not just pirate-themed, but pirate-themed and in Florida. Tom went to Canada a couple months ago. Those were pretty much the only two people I ever wanted to hang out with on a regular basis, so it's getting a bit solitary over here. Which is fine, really - I like solitude these days. Tonight I was going to take my fine self down to the island, sit outside in the fresh evening air and watch "Me and You and Everyone We Know," but it's threatening to rain.
If I could eat anything right now, I'd eat some bread from the Italian restaurant down the street, a bowl of oatmeal with soy milk and apples and salty peanuts, lots of fresh fruit, a Magnum dark chocolate ice cream bar and a plate of pasta with some kind of herby, garlicky cream sauce. All at once, because I'd be so excited. Then I guess I'd throw up.
That's all I have to share right now, I'm afraid. Hemingway may have had profound thoughts on an empty stomach, but mine are pretty ordinary. Time to whip up some more cleansing concoction.
Oh no, wait : today I discovered Geekcorps: Promoting stability and prosperity in the developing world through information and communication technology. Geekcorps' international technology experts teach communities how to be digitally independent: able to create and expand private enterprise with innovative, appropriate and affordable information and communication technologies.
Rad.
Bathroom fixture tree
Posted by: lucie
Sorry if that last entry bored you - it was one for the socially conscious business types. I realize it was a bit dry; that's why I was going to pad it out with lots of thoughtful remarks about the book, its vision, a few examples from the pages, and how its message is being received in the business community (as gauged by my own readings of The Economist, Businessweek, etc). It just all went wrong. I wrote a paragraph and deleted it, wrote another paragraph and deleted it. There were witty reflections in my head - seriously. They just wouldn't come out. That's when I realized my brain was slowly grinding to a halt.
Tip to anyone who decides to do the Master Cleanse - don't forget to drink the stuff regularly. You're supposed to quaff 6-12 twelve ounce glasses of it a day. I forgot it was quite that much (those are big glasses!) and have been averaging about four, which explains why I had become more or less incoherent. You can bounce back pretty quickly; maple syrup on an empty stomach hits the bloodstream faster than... than... oh screw it, insert your own drug analogy here. It just burns off at an equally alarming rate, so you basically have to top the tank up constantly. So that's my excuse for being boring.
Apparently Hemingway wrote in Moveable Feast (which I have not read, but Becks has, hence I get my Papa facts from her) that he had very profound thoughts when he didn't eat. Though he also said that later on, they didn't seem so deep. Makes one wonder whether it comes down to an inability to think as deeply when well fed or the illusion of depth when hungry. All I know is my IQ has dropped a few points in the last few days and math ain't as easy as it used to be. Am I making any sense? If not, I'm sorry.
Anyway, luckily for me, I have something to offer besides my disjointed thoughts. Today on my walk to the video-and-expat-junk-food-store (the place that sells maple syrup) I encountered this big funky piece of art. Please enjoy it as I did.
added July 24:
David Oppenheim, "Aerial Water Closets"
"This group of tree-like sculptures made of iron, and whose branches, leaves and flowers are such strange elements as water closets, toilets, lavoratories and sinks, is emblematic of Dennis Oppenheim's irony toward nature and urban life, a humoristic and surprising claim of attention that reminds us how little space is left for nature in our cities."
Book of the week: Capitalism at the Crossroads
Posted by: lucie
Capitalism at the Crossroads: The unlimited business opportunities in solving the world's most difficult problems (amazon.com link) - by Stuart L Hart, SC Johnson Chair of Sustainable Global Enterprise and Professor of Management at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management
"This book takes the contrarian's view that business--more than either government or civil society--is uniquely equipped, at this point in history, to lead us toward a sustainable world in the years ahead. Properly focused, the profit motive can accelerate (not inhibit) the transformation toward global sustainability, with nonprofits, governments, and multilateral agencies all playing crucial roles as collaborators."
"As we embark upon the new century, business has emerged as the most powerful institution on the planet. Seven hundred years ago, it was religion; the world's cathedrals, mosques and temples stand as testimony to the primacy of organized religion in the world at that time. Two hundred years ago, it was the state; no tour would be complete without visits to the impressive palaces, capitol buildings, and governmental complexes of the world that remind us of how centrally important government was in the age of enlightenment. Today the most powerful institution in the world is business: Witness the office towers, banks and commercial centers that dominate today's largest cities. Although no one denies the continuing and critical importance of government, religion, and civil society, there can be little doubt that commerce has become the dominant institution...
"It seems clear that environmental deterioration, global terrorism and geopolitical meltdown all wait in the wings if business fails to step up to the challenge. The United States, the lone superpower in the world today, is mired in a parochial and counterproductive struggle between two outmoded ideologies: liberal versus conservative. Tragically, neither is appropriate for the challenges that lie ahead. We desperately need a third way, one premised on a combination of global interdependence, sustainability, and local self-reliance. Commerce may be the only institution with the resources, capabilities and global reach to make it happen."
guess what? I'm hungry
Posted by: lucie
Hey, big shocker. It's day two of the Master Cleanser and I'm mildly fantasizing about everything from oatmeal to salad with goatcheese and candied walnuts to chocolate. But I swear, I swear, nothing but spicy lemonade, mint tea and laxative tea is making it past these lips.
Last time I did this (five years ago) I was a half-assed faster. For starters, I only managed about six days, and then I didn't do the proper 'coming off the fast' plan but instead went straight for the pancakes or pizza or something. I also cheated twice, sneaking a piece of bread. But none of that this time around! Oh no! I have deep inner strength and I'm going to prove it if it's the last thing I do. I'm in it for the full ten days, plus the eleventh and twelfth days wherein one just drinks orange juice, and the thirteenth day: orange juice for breakfast, fruit for lunch and fruit or raw veggies for dinner. I swear I'm not kidding.
Cayenne pepper and Paprika are practically the same thing, as it turns out. And the expat store did have maple syrup. Things work out one way or another.
So the downsides so far are: hunger, slightly achey head, slightly crampy stomach, more than a little bit spacey. Upside: Did you ever notice how much time you spend shopping for food, preparing food and eating food? Let alone going to the gym to burn off food? Seriously, take those things out of your day/week and the hours just keep unfolding in front of you forever and ever. Want to get more done? Quit eating. Lucie's words of wisdom for the day.
Here's a site with more info about the Master Cleanser, including many excerpts from the book.
Lockout
Posted by: lucie
Last time I got locked out I actually cried. I'd just returned from the gym with a head of wet hair, four bags of groceries, a gym bag and a briefcase, climbed the two sets of stairs that led to my flat and been denied at the door. It was a mysterious mishap as I'd never used that particular lock before; with the top floor all to myself, securing the one at the bottom of the stairs had always been sufficient. I didn't actually carry a key to the door to my flat. I didn't even close it half the time. Well, a door doesn't have to be locked to keep you stuck on one side of it or the other, it seems. The latch can just throw in the towel one day, rendering it unopenable.
Shoulders laden with bag and briefcase straps, plastic grocery bags straining against reddening fingers, I turned the doorknob and pushed. Nothing happened. Tried again; nothing. I peeled the layers of baggage from my limbs, set the load down and glared confrontationally at the offending hunk of wood. Turned the handle and threw my hip against it. Nothing. Swore at it. It did not react. Looked at my keys, looked at the door, cursed its useless existence, grumbled something about how I really didn't need this, pouted, took a couple of running steps and threw myself violently against it with a vague, ill-considered wish to break it down. No such luck.
So I sat down on the stairs and burst into childish tears. Looking back, I'm not entirely sure why it seemed like such an issue. I had my car keys, plenty of food and my mobile phone, not to mention several pubs (with bathrooms) and shops downstairs. No plans for the evening, no rush, and hey - I was fully clothed. Not a big deal. All I had to do was go borrow a phonebook, call a locksmith, wait to be let in and take a small hit to the wallet (I think it was about 20 pounds and an hour wait, all told)... which is exactly what I did. You know, as soon as I finished my self-pitying temper tantrum.
Fast forward to the present moment: enjoying some tea and opera in the internet cafe / tea house below my flat, where it looks like I'll be hanging out for at least two hours. I have no food (which is okay, because I'm fasting), no phone (slightly problematic as I'm supposed to be on my way to Rebecca's house), no money (but they're kindly giving me mint tea - allowed on the fast - and internet access on credit until I reconnect with my wallet), and no shoes. Well, what can you do? No sense getting tragic about it.
Besides, it was my own fault this time. There I was enjoying my cozy Sunday, trying to get my head around all this Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, possible impending WWIII business, and I thought wow, it sure would be nice if The Economist had landed in my mailbox yesterday, because The Economist is just so good at breaking stuff down. I pulled out the drawer where I keep my mail key only to behold, nestled next to it, my spare set of keys. Well, since they're there, I figured, I'll just take them instead of spending 30 seconds looking around for the first set of keys. What a time-saver! Off I went, mailbox key and spare flat keys in hand. I did notice my first set of keys hanging out of the auto-locking door as I passed through it, but suffered an unfortunate failure of the ability to put two and two together.
And that's basically how I ended up shoeless, moneyless and Economistless (hadn't arrived yet, I'm afraid) in the internet cafe downstairs. Oh, I tried to get my Macguyver on. They gave me access to their tool drawer and I picked through various bits of metal in search of the perfect utensil with which to ingeniously push the key through the other side of the door, but no luck. So we called a locksmith and I settled down at a PC. It seems locksmiths have better things to do on Sundays than respond promptly to locked-out airheads in distress, so I guess it's going to be a while.
I've been meaning to spend some time down here anyway. Nice tea house. And there are worse things to do on a Sunday afternoon.
Master Cleanser
Posted by: lucie
That's right, The Master Cleanser! People get so excited when you bring this up. "The spicy lemonade thing?" they say, and launch into a story about how they did it, or a friend of theirs did it, or how they would never do it. I've done it before and I can tell you this: it hurts. Well, for the first four days. And one should always have a toilet nearby when one is master cleansing. I don't think I'd do it while working or attending school, for instance. But if you've got the luxury of some time at home, it's well worth it.
For the uninitiated, a bit of background info: this is a ten-day fast (with a 3-4 day plan for gradually getting back onto solid foods) wherein one consumes nothing but a spicy lemonade concoction comprising distilled water, lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. Oh, and laxative tea. And, um, salt water to flush things out. I'll be honest with you - I couldn't stomach the salt water last time. I'll give it another go this time, but salt water is pretty disgusting.
The purpose is to dislodge all that nasty stuff in your intestines, cleaning loads of toxins and clogginess out of your body. It works. I can testify to this on the grounds that, when I did it last time, stuff kept coming out, shall we say, even though no stuff was going in. That's my basic math. But beyond that, it has a certain spiritual cleansing quality. Last time I had crazy dreams and filled two notebooks with thoughts, ideas and recollections. It felt productive in more ways than one. So I'm excited to do it again.
If you're going to try it, I'd strongly recommend ordering the 50-page pamphlet (aptly entitled "The Master Cleanser") by its creator Stanley Burroughs. I read it back in the day, so this time the main challenge is simply to find the ingredients I need for the fast. To recap, these are:
lotsa lemons
distilled water
cayenne pepper
grade b maple syrup
laxative tea
So far I've found the lemons and the laxative tea. Maple syrup? They don't really get into it over here. That's alright, I figure, as the main reason for the maple syrup is to provide a few calories and some vitamins and minerals. Generally one doesn't take any vitamins during this fast, but I will probably break that rule and pop a multivitamin in the morning to make sure all my bases are covered. So no big worries on the maple syrup if I can't find any (last attempt will be to go to one of the expat outlets that rents English-language videos and sells such delicacies as peanut butter, macaroni & cheese, brownie mix and other such treats one doesn't find in the local shops - they may have something). Distilled water? I don't think it's going to happen. If the organic health foods store doesn't sell it, I'm probably out of luck. Looks like it's going to have to be Brita-filtered. You take what you can get.
But cayenne pepper - which helps loosen the, uh, stuff in your intestines - seriously, should this be hard to find? It's amazing what kind of items turn into wild goose chases in this city. Like brown wrapping paper for mailing packages, to take a random example - I spent a half a day looking for it once, to no avail. The little things you take for granted in your home country can really lead to confusion and lost time in expatland. I need cayenne pepper, people. Cayenne pepper or bust. I'm willing to substitute honey or some other kind of syrup for the maple syrup, and to do this thing without the purity (and tastelessness) of distilled water. I'm sure it'll still produce good results. But the cayenne pepper, well, I don't know of any substitutes, and when you've only got one ingredient right out of four, that's pretty ghetto. Fifty percent is not exactly fantastic either, but I'll take it.
In other news, silk posted a comment on my park photos entry that made me realize it was hard to see the little naked sprinkler dude, so I'm posting this slightly zoomier version because he's too cute not to see. Please enjoy it as I scour the city in search of cayenne pepper.
oh good heavens
Posted by: lucie
Don't worry, Overarching isn't turning into an amateur photo blog. It's just that the city was so beautiful I wanted to share as much of it as possible. Seriously, if you're ever in this corner of the world, drop a little comment so I can email you with suggested travel destinations. There are cities you've hardly ever heard of that secretly have an absolutely magical vibe, while some of the standard destinations are nearly impossible to feel (like Vienna, if you ask me. Beautiful city, but it just doesn't register).
Well, dear readers, I have news. It seems I signed up for an MBA program that begins in September. This may ring a bell with you, but I'd mostly forgotten about it. The last thing I remember is being in the South of France listening to Zen teachings, breathing in, breathing out, contemplating blooming lotuses, that kind of thing. Then something about a cathedral in Bordeaux, a brief return to my current hometown and an impulsive Balkan roadtrip, I think, but I can't be sure as I've been floating around with my light, happy head high in the summer clouds. Life has been far too good to me.
A well-needed reality check arrived the other day in the form of a CD-Rom overflowing with information about schedules, immunizations, housing, induction week activities, key dates and the like. They tell me this thing is just around the corner. Can you believe it? Here I've been leisurely reading my books, doing my math, gallavanting around taking pictures of things and running off to the Balkans, daydreaming about the distant future, and apparently there are less than two months left before I become an MBA student. I know, I was just as stunned as you are.
Off I went to the British embassy for my visa (seems like I was there just yesterday), over to the Easyjet site to book my return to the funny island nation, then back to the present moment to gaze around my flat, home for just two more weeks (making it a grand total of seven months), after which I shall transfer my existence to Rebecca's house to dog-and-house-sit while she visits the States.
Life looks a little bit like this now:
Now til end of July: reading, math, meditation, reading, math, meditation, scaling down personal possessions as much as possible, packing up the flat, moving my stuff over to Becks' house and entering another month-plus phase of homelessness
August: dogsitting, housesitting, reading, math, meditation, figuring out how to ship my stuff over to the UK without spending a stupid amount of money
September 2 - back over to the funny island nation to rendezvous with Anna!
September 4ish, hopefully - move into student accommodation, figure out the lay of the land, go suit shopping (I guess), get a haircut, as in: when a professional cuts your hair, not when you cut it yourself with the scissors of your swiss army knife (as I have been doing for this entire calendar year - I highly recommend it; makes one feel like such a badass)
September 11 - off and running.
My James fantasies came to an abrupt halt yesterday. I realized just how much I'd been entertaining myself with the whole thing and remembered that this is exactly what happens to a girl like me when she has too much free time. With more big life changes just ahead, the question of Whether or Not James and I Will Get Married And Have Three Smart Adorable Children shrunk to about 1/10 of its previous size. The question of Whether James And I Will See Each Other Soon or Ever Again diminished to nearly nothing. Oddly enough, he's now hinting at a visit again. Well, my friends, we shall let him hint. He does this from time to time, I suggest dates and the whole thing quietly fades away. A girl has to keep a bit of dignity intact, which is to say I'm not inviting him again unless he hints a lot harder. Jeesh, I'm a smart girl, a nice girl, an independent and ambitious girl, I'm down with the Buddha and I'm even mama approved now - time for him to figure out whether I'm the girl of his dreams or not. I have other things to think about. I'm going to business school, you know.
While I'm jumping abruptly from topic to topic, can we talk about this blog for a second? Don't worry, I'm not going to go another "Who is Lucie" trip or anything, but the readership has grown and... well, I've started looking at the stats and been a bit taken aback to see how many people are reading this thing. And I'm getting to grips with the fact that true anonymity is pretty much impossible. Last week I emailed Brian about how great the Plum Village retreat was. The next day I looked at my site stats and could see that he'd googled Plum Village with some other search terms upon receiving my email and inadvertently found his way to Overarching. He didn't seem to have realized he knew the author, because he only read one entry. In a way it's reassuring, because he actually knows (or I told him once upon a time, anyway) that I have a blog, and he really should have put two and two together. He didn't, but it was an eerie illustration of just how easy it would be for people to stumble upon my semi-anonymous internet space.
It's just a matter of time before someone does, I think. So while I do not intend to send embossed invitations to my friends and family members to come to Overarching for a peek inside my head, I think it might be wise to begin a program of mild self-censorship in preparation for that day. Just mild.
Not that it should be so hard. Because honestly, it does feel like I've turned a bit of a corner in life. Things feel calmer over here in general. Sure, bit of an overblown fantasy about a boy I hardly know, and I don't suppose I'd like him seeing it (not until we're engaged, because at that point it stops beings psycho, right? In retrospect, it's romantic, and "I always knew," right? Kidding), but I don't anticipate any more boozed up extended weekends or flings. You never know, of course, but I think a lot of the madness in the early Overarching days might just come down to post-breakup rebellion. And did I mention I quit drinking? That's certainly going to take the scandal factor down a few notches.
Where it goes from here, well, I'm just as curious as anyone. We'll take it as it comes.
Okay, just one more shot from the roadtrip:
These four young girls were sitting on this bench, gazing at the fountain, for at least five minutes (possibly longer, I don't know, I left), without saying a word. It made a really deep impression. I couldn't help but think how unlikely it would be to witness that kind of scene in America. Or anywhere, really. It was a beautiful silence.
fancy cemetary photos
Posted by: lucie
market photos
Posted by: lucie
park photos
Posted by: lucie
cathedral photos
Posted by: lucie
A word of Zen
Posted by: lucie
"In another well-known episode Nan-Chuan, the teacher of Chao-Chou, returned to his monastery one day to find some of his monks quarreling about a cat sitting in front of them. Presumably they were arguing about whether the cat, like a dog, also has Buddha-nature. Sizing up the situation at once and taking advantage of the occasion to bring home to them the truth they were obscuring, Nan-Chuan suddenly seized the cat, held it aloft and demanded, 'One of you monks, give me a word of Zen! If you can I will spare the life of this cat - otherwise I will cut it in two!' No one knew what to say, so Nan-Chuan boldly cut the cat in two (not really, though; he merely went through the motions of doing so; 'cutting the cat' makes the episode more vivid and dramatic).
"That evening Chao-Chou, who had also been away, returned. Nan-Chuan told him what happened and asked, 'Suppose you had been there. What would you have done?' Without a word Chao Chou took off his slippers, put them on his head and walked out of the room. 'If only you had been there,' said Nan-Chuan admiringly, 'you would have saved the life of the cat.' "
- Philip Kapleau, in the introduction to Thich Nhat Hanh's Zen Keys
My new boyfriend
Posted by: lucie
I fell for him when I heard him play "My Way" on the accordian. How's a girl to resist?
Home again home again
Posted by: lucie
I'm spoiled rotten from too much travelling. You'd think I had 2 months to live or something, not just two months before business school. But who could pass up a trip down South for just a 50 euro contribution to the gas fund? I mean, would you?
I hope you wouldn't, because it was gorgeous down there. You must visit the former Yugoslavia, all of you. Visit in summer when the sun is shining, the fruit and flower markets are open and the cities are quiet because half the population has wandered off to cottages. Soak up the parks and free folk music concerts and museums. I realize most of you aren't anywhere near the Balkans, but you know, if you're ever in Europe and want to go somewhere a little more original than Paris or London... drop lucie a line.
Bordeaux was nice, but this was perfect. Walking around the old city, laying in parks reading books, looking over the main city square from my hotel room window, seeing a folk music concert, going to the modern art museum, eating ice cream, watching old ladies sell fruit and flowers and hand-spun yarn in the markets in the square, lounging in the botanical gardens, visiting a beautiful old cemetary where people visit their late relatives every day (big thing over there, I'm told)... taking lots of pictures, thinking and relaxing a lot. It was just gorgeous. I can't think of a better place to hang out alone.
Well, mostly alone. I did have some social time with James' mother! What an eerily small world it turns out to be sometimes. Here I am emailing this guy I met in Nepal, living in Eastern Europe, then someone offers me a ride down to the Balkans and next thing I know I'm hanging out with his mom. She was lovely - a very smart, funny woman with lots of thoughts and ideas to share. We had coffee on the square, chatted, wandered around town (she played tour guide for a bit, which was very sweet), then meandered back down to where we began. She bought me an ice cream and we discussed everything from America to education to travel to the inconvenience of falling in love with people from other countries (with regard to her husband and my ex).
No embarrassing stories, but thats okay. It's so interesting hanging out with someone's parent without them there - you get a tremendous insight into where they're coming from, even when you're told very little directly. Though we did talk about him, of course, and his sister. Mom is justifiably proud of them. She told me about how she always pushed them to travel, see the world, experience as much of life as possible. They've both done it, and a hell of a lot of academic learning on top of it. Quite an accomplished family - you get the sense they're all very independent, strong characters, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.
She didn't know much about me, which is fair enough as I knew next to nothing about her, but she wasn't shy about asking where I'd come from and where I'd met her son (I was nervously trying to avoid revealing that I knew nothing about her). Though she did say, "James tells me you are in touch almost daily," and I said yeah, we are emailing a lot... we seem to think about a lot of the same things. I left out the part about how one of the things I think about is how we should live happily ever after with our three adorable children. I dunno, I'm not sure that's really something I think about her son. It's just this fantasy storyline I have about some fantasy person based on him. How close that fantasy person is to the actual James is the big bazillion dollar question. But anyway, I digress.
As we finished our chat about the perils of international love, she said "It isn't going to be easy for you to find someone, especially if you go back to the States," which smarted for a second - until she followed it up with a comment about how I'd seen a lot of the world and would want to be with someone who had a similarly broad world view (aha, a compliment). I shrugged it off and said you know, women my age get all freaked out about timelines, like we're supposed to meet the man of our dreams by next year so we can get married in another two years and then start having babies another year later. And it's just silly, because that's when you start acting desperate. I figure if I'm not with someone I really like by the time I hit 35, then I'll lower my standards. 'Til then I'm holding out. She nodded approvingly and said that yes, I should hold out. Then she reached for her wallet. "Want to see a picture of James with hair?" she said (he shaved it off at the monastery - cold showers, couldn't be bothered to shampoo), and pulled out a passport photo. Maybe I'm reading too much into the timing there, but I had the sense the idea of him and me might have crossed her mind.
Maybe I'm just being a dumb girl, and anyway, whether it did or didn't, he's still in Canada, and he has his own mind, by the way, and I don't know what goes on in it.
Anyway, it was really lovely. She was easy to talk to and we had no shortage of conversation topics because, well, we're women. Women can always find things to discuss over coffee, no matter what countries they're from. That's just the way it is. I emailed James and asked him to convey my gratitude once again for her generosity of time, coffee, ice cream, historical facts and conversation. "My mom really enjoyed meeting you," he wrote back. " 'She's so nice, she's so pretty,' she must have said ten times." (!)
So, mom-approved. And I have a new friend in the Balkans.
Cool as I'm trying to sound, the whole James idea did kind of tap dance all over my poor little neurons while I was down there. I mean, going from this frequent email contact to actually hanging out with his mother, visiting the cemetary where members of his family are buried, eating his favorite chocolates, watching his hometown sunsets, I really couldn't help but think about him... well, hell, the whole time. It was pretty intense. Or maybe thinking isn't the right word. Maybe I was just feeling all kinds of goofy infatuated feelings about someone I haven't seen in seven months. Someone I genuinely think, in my more loved-up moments, could seriously be the guy for me - and then the next moment I think the previous thought was the dumbest thought I've ever thought. But while I was down there, in his town, meeting his mom, I just got all swept away in the goofiness. Thoroughly swept away. So I went to the park and sat for a long while just feeling goofy. Fountain in front of me, beautiful view of the moon over the train station to my right.
For a good hour I sat there just allowing the goofiness to run my head, and then I slowly began to pull it back together. Because really, that level of goofiness is not going to do anyone any good. A fantasy is fine, it's fun and exciting, but believing in it is really not fine. James... who knows. It's probably safe to say he shares this silly fantasy to some extent or he wouldn't email so much, but that's not transferrable to real life. In real life, we thus far have no plans to meet and - and and - don't even know what we would feel for each other if we did. We may never see each other again. Must cool out.
So I collected my mind and cooled out (it got a lot easier when I returned home, to be fair). We're cool. I'm as free as a little turtle swimming in the clouds.
Summer jobs
Posted by: lucie
Put the Balkans on your 'to visit' list
Posted by: lucie
(updated with photos July 11)
This trip was an excellent idea, even if it did take 8 hours to drive down and my travel companion, who I am only now comfortable admitting I'd never actually met (he was just some random expat guy who posted to an email list that he had room in his car for a Balkan trip if anyone wanted to chip in for gas. He seemed nice over email so I figured what the heck. Becks had his phone and license plate numbers just in case I mysteriously disappeared), liked to listen to lots of psychedelic rock, old Genesis, Tool and similar at extraordinarily high volumes while singing along and playing 'air drums.'
Super nice guy, though. Very positive. We had some interesting chats. Upon arrival at our destination, we parked the car and wandered down the street heading into the center to find some food. This is how I deeply realized the truth of Balkan Stereotype Number One: these people subsist on coffee and cigarettes. Seriously, they sit around in cafes nursing cups of coffee and smoking, and none of the cafes serve food. Not even sandwiches. We wandered hungrily for half an hour before scoring a pizza place. I'm not joking.
But wow, they sure know how to serve coffee in style! Summer here is like one big coffee-drinking marathon. Big plush chairs on the streets, people sitting for hours.
Found a lovely hotel overlooking the main square in the city, opened the windows in my room and promptly crashed for hours only to be pleasantly awoken by the sound of an accordian five floors below. The sun is shining, the coffee is flowing, the architecture is beautiful and the people here are incredibly friendly and laid back. I'm glad I came. When the accordian guy wandered off, some Hare Krishna kids took over the space to play some drums, and a group of b-boys started showing off their moves a few meters away. Cultural extravaganza!
I spoke with James' mom on the phone to arrange a coffee date before heading out to read in the park and find some dinner. She sounded friendly and excited to meet me.
"You know the main square in the city?" she asked.
"I think so," I said, looking out over said square but hesitating to mention this just in case it wasn't the main main square, which would make me look dumb. "There is a big sculpture of a man on a horse," she said. "This is the best place to meet. So, James has described you to me - " (omg wonder how he described me did he tell his mother that he thinks I am beautiful etc) - "and me, well... I am really short."
"I am really tall!"
"Okay, so we'll find each other!"
She sounds cool already. We'll have fun.
Off to Yugoville
Posted by: lucie
Armed with a little box of chocolates for James' mom, thanks to insider information from my reliable Yugo-knowlegable friends who tell me they're all gift-happy down there. "A Croat girl I met on the airport shuttle in Paris gave me chocolates," Becks informed me. "Definitely take a little gift to thank her for meeting you."
It's good to have clued-up, worldly friends. They help you impress international mamas.
Finally, a word about globalization. I'm a North American girl living in Eastern Europe heading down to the Balkans for a long weekend, where I shall have coffee with the Balkan mama of a North American boy I met in Nepal. Take that, WalMart.
Okay, hi. In realtime.
Posted by: lucie
I think I'm done with the backlog. Photos added to a couple of entries from Bordeaux, and all the retreat entries have been slapped together, unedited, with some photos. Deep apologies for the complete lack of style within them. I was too busy breathing in and breathing out to smooth out my writing, apparently. And a lot of the time I had very little to say as my brain seemed to be digesting all its thoughts and leaving very little for output. The entries in no way capture the depth of the experience, but there it is. I was enraptured the first week, emotional the second and pretty much content the third, and then it was done. The series begins here or you can just click on June 2006 over there on the right. Watch out if you're on a slow connection, though - lots of pictures.
Well, now that I've just caught up, I'm off on another adventure. Impromptu this time. A guy I know is heading down to the Balkans for a few days of business this and that, and he's got some spare room in his rental car. Guess who's riding shotgun? That's right, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow night I am heading down to the former Yugoslavia for a 4-day weekend. It's a lot of drive time for a very short visit, but a girl has to make the best of what time she has left in any given part of the world, and I don't see myself going on any Yugo jaunts from the UK once I leave Eastern Europe - do you? So three cheers for spontaneity, three more for road trips and ten big cheers for free transportation, cheap hostels and sunshine.
I'll also be getting coffee with a certain fake long distance spiritual email boyfriend's mother. Yes, she lives there, no, I didn't know or plan it - that would be freaky. But I mentioned to him that I was going and he said his mom would love to take me out for coffee. Given what I've heard about Yugo hospitality, there's a good chance I'm going to end up at his mother's house looking at his baby pictures. That would make me feel like a stalker, but I'm alright with it.
Yeah, the James thing - such a thread through the retreat. It's a nice fantasy for me. I can't help it. I was prepared to let it go after thinking he'd blown off my long, affectionate goodbye email, but then the thing you always want to think happened, but never actually happens, happened. Somehow the email got lost in transit. I know, I know, that's one of those excuses girls always like to make (maybe he didn't get the voicemail, maybe he didn't get the email, maybe he got hit by a car and is in the hospital), so I never gave it much consideration, but I guess it happens sometimes. No idea how. After the retreat there was no email from him and rather than get pissed off I suddenly realized hang on, this just isn't adding up. So I emailed and said hi, I'm out, did you get my email before I left? It seemed strange not to hear from you. And he said no, I thought it was weird not to hear from you but I figured you were busy. So we both spent three weeks thinking the other had not said bye. Tragic, ain't it? But so fortunate - it gave me the chance to back off the whole thing. I was getting a bit carried away.
I mean, I still think we should get married and everything, but... well, not next week.
Buddha goes Hollywood / Hollywood goes Buddhist
Posted by: lucie
Thich Nhat Hanh, June 2, 2006
"Yesterday we went to Bordeaux and signed books for our readers... We told them about the Cannes film festival. During the Cannes film festival, about thirty monastics announced the making of a film based on my book Old Path White Clouds. The film corporation wants to put something like $120 million into making the film. The director of the corporation has wanted to do the film for a long time.
"Yesterday someone asked us about the films that were presented in Cannes, and I confessed to him that we did not go to any film. We only spent our time doing walking meditation, sitting meditation. Many members of our Sangha in Nice and Cannes came very early to practice with us at 6 in the morning - walking meditation on the beach and sitting meditation.
"It was the first time that we monastics got a taste of the festival and met the producers, directors of studios, movie actors, and so on. Among us there were very young monastics, and after having observed the way of the film people, they told Thay that they feel very happy to be a monk, very happy to be a nun. They don't have to run after all these kinds of fame, profit, alcohol, drugs and so on. The young monastics observed the situation, and they could see the suffering of the people who are running after fame, after wealth, and so on. When they came back to Plum Village, many wrote letters to Thay sharing their perceptions and their feelings when they encountered the people at the festival.
"I announced to the press that we didn't take a cent for the rights to the book. We offered the book and also our practice, our time, to make the film, as an offering to the Buddha, to the young generation who suffers so much. And we agreed with each other that the film producer, the writers, the actors, will come to Plum Village and practice mindful walking, mindful sitting, mindful breathing, so that they will have some real peace and serenity. So that when they make the film, when they act, they don't have to pretend to be serene, they don't have to pretend to be mindful, they don't to pretend to be peaceful, they don't have to pretend to be compassionate. Because they are going to act in the role of the Buddha, Shariputra and so on. Dr Modhi and our producer, Michael Shane, agreed totally with that.
"Michael Shane wrote us this morning and proposed that Thay go to Los Angeles with the Dalai Lama in order to announce the film on September 11th. September 11 is a symbol of distress, fear and suffering. And the film team chose that day to announce to the Hollywood people about the starting of the film. They are about to have a scriptwriter that will come with Thay and work together on the text, and after that we will have the actors and others come to learn to walk, to sit, to breathe, to smile. To cultivate some compassion and understanding."
"We will make the film as a team, as a Sangha. We will cultivate the brotherhood, sisterhood, and try to live peacefully, happily, enjoying every moment of filmmaking, so that the film can convey the teaching of the Buddha as an offering to the world today, which is full of despair and violence and hate."
