Vintage Stillness

June 2, 2013.

I have been wearing stillness inside out. It feels like I bought it from a thrift store. Vintage stillness. “How has that worked for you so far?”  Sunday wants to know even though Sunday knows the answer.

Sunday always has an answer.

I got highlights, ever so light and few, for my hair, the authentication stamp for residing in California.  I want to think I like California more now. Residing in California I am reminded that so much of how we live now—anywhere—is simply a choosing between lesser evils. How can that be when earth is a slice of heaven? Do we continue to choose in heaven too? Peace or peace…as the devil takes your order.

I spoke to one of my dear aunts who lives in New York City and visits California like I too used to. She said, “Very few people understand that New York City is comprised of small villages. One always misses the village.”

Yesterday makes it 6 months of living here. Six months has felt like six lifetimes. Words of Seneca, perspiration on the forehead of my thinking:  “Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”

Yes, if being on earth is indeed some life sentence, then I resolve on making decisions that are not easy, borrowing others’ patience as I wasn’t born with much, sticking both hands inside the mouth of some grand comfort zone and stretching experiences so far wide open that I define new zones. How’s that for making each day feel like a brand new one? Not easy but certainly not boring.

During this supposedly short time, a month ago, there was a very clear and solid opportunity to return back to New York City. I knew it wasn’t time yet.  Meanwhile, I am looking for an extra pair of lungs to breathe better in California.

I am certain that all cities and towns have their shortcomings. It is only when our reality is exposed to a cities’ dysfunctions to the extent that sustaining a healthy livelihood becomes nearly impossible do we ever calculate the pros and cons. For example, someone who seldom rides the subway in New York City “can live with” the unpunctual “A” or “C” trains. Similarly, a person who seldom leaves his neighborhood in Los Angeles or San Francisco  “can live with” the insane traffic. In many ways, all that is great about any city is based on the reporting from those who continue to find the benefits despite the negatives.

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There are three books I began reading six months ago. Rowling, Dickens, Helprin. I haven’t gone beyond the first thirty pages in any of them.  Not that I utilize Kindle, but this article is noteworthy, “Your average Kindle reader is a creature caught in permanent adolescence, but yearning to improve.” What if it is true fewer and fewer people are reading? But that isn’t accurate.

I took this certification exam the other day and one of the reading comprehension and critical analysis questions in it was based on a passage which went something like this: Ever since I learned how to read it has become an addiction. I can’t stop reading. I read everything my eyes fall upon. I read labels on cereal boxes to comic strips to instructions. Reading has taken over my life. I collect newspaper clippings even if I don’t have time to read but somehow I always make the time to read. I am not sure why then I just don’t see the big picture despite reading everything.

 

I had an 8th grade student tell me, “I also want to write a book. I want to write about my life. I have endured so much unfairness!”

“I think you should,” I replied trying my best to take what he considers as unfair seriously.

“My mom says it is really hard work writing a book. But then why are there so many writers?”

“That’s a very good question. Maybe everyone just wants to tell his or her story. Like you,” I replied.

“Maybe,” he replied. Then added confidently, “But I don’t think so.”

 

Maybe we are all reading and writing more than any other time in history and we are all missing the big picture. A new kind of illiteracy?

 

I told my mother how could I expect others to read when I am not reading as much. I used to read a book a week when I was in middle school. I would read any and everything that was in the public library in the neighborhood. My favorite part would be to find a “fix,” that one book which made you lose track of time. I attribute my current relationship with time—almost non-existent—to those “fixes.” Perhaps after so much reading a person hits some kind of ‘full’ on the consciousness tank and thereafter he or she is compelled to pour words out instead of take them in.

My mother replied, “Your job is to write. Don’t worry with the reading. Yours or others.”

All I know about the power of love is because of my mother’s love. It is bold. It is peaceful. I can literally walk through fire unscathed because of her love. Even when not literally then this: the burns from living heal as if I am the phoenix and the fire. I think with the love like that you always know what’s important and most powerful.

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It’s June 2nd. I am certain so much of the world’s angst exists because of the Gregorian calendar. Whoever decided to change the New Year from March to January in 1752 certainly had some personal and political agenda! Julian Calendar. Roman Calendar.   How can they forget about the moon? Never forget about the moon.

It has been a long 2012 indeed and it is finally a new year.

I wrote a short complaint two months ago to the Universe and the god of Money. There was only stillness from the Universe and the god of Money replied, “You don’t need more money. You want more time.”

In stillness time expands and you realize you are the one who created the god of Money.

I leave you with this passage I came across:

The magazine headlines, as well as the visual images, push the notion of invulnerability. We are told we can ‘empower’ ourselves. We read about ‘sexual power,’ ‘the power of being thin,’ ‘the power of being fit,’ ‘the power of personal charisma.’ Nowhere in all this talk of ‘power’ is the admission that sometimes we might feel a lack of power or a need to find a power greater than ourselves. In the slick world, spirituality is either marginalized or sensationalized. ~ Julia Cameron, Some People Say That…God is No Laughing Matter.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with every one being a writer as long as he or she can see the big picture.

2 responses to “Vintage Stillness”

  1. I am always amazed at how time flies when you don’t pay attention to it
    today your words of stillness moved me again, and I remember now without any other distractions
    why….the way you dance with words, is inspiring…. I can see the little you devouring books
    and it makes me smile… and your Mom… well lets just say you paint her in such a beautiful loving light , and that too makes my heart smile.
    Books didn’t come into my life till much later in my adolescence , I spent my time playing, climbing, running, imagining, believing in other worlds, and escaping , wasn’t till my father, who was a huge reader, he like you devoured books, in fact he read every encyclopaedia in the house, and when I asked him why, he said he just wanted to know ….anyway I picked up Broca’s Brain by Carl Sagan and he laughed and said I wouldn’t understand it… I couldn’t let him tell me what to do !! especially with a book…..well he was right and I was wrong, man did it hurt my brain, constantly having to go find reference books and dictionaries and that was just the first couple of pages LOL
    I thankfully had a big laugh with my dad once I admitted defeat with that book and that the beginning of my love with how fast a book can take me places.

    I sit here in Ballingeary County Cork Ireland in the stillness of this bank holiday
    in the garden of the 300 year old cottage I’ve rented, by myself, with the meadowlarks
    singing, the sheep baaaing in the back field, the swallows zooming over head, and I take a deep
    breath and truly feel stillness, and I’ve been feeling it alot this year more so than I ever have
    and your words by Senaca move me and remind me how easy it is for me to feel this stillness
    because I have arrived at living truly in this moment.

    “Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”

    wild it actually begun the day I met this wild and wonderfully wacky client, who is very very anal about records and we were trying to arrange a dinner date, so we each got out appointment books, both held together with elastics , crammed full of other things , and I started laughing, I saw in that moment how alike we are in certain ways, but what was liberating was that at the end of each day she ripped the page out and threw it away, and I kept all of them and in fact I still had every year, and when I asked her she answered, “why would I keep it, that day is done ?” it changed me

    basking in the stillness you share, I am grateful
    have a wonderful day Annnie and keep writing
    we are listening and reading
    :~)

  2. Tish says:

    Cassandra Wilson said it best, “You mooooooove me.” I loved, loved, LOVED this post. I giggled to myself when I read about how we never stop reading. I, too, have three books sitting on my nightstand that have barely been touched although I’ve managed to read every other thing I can get in eye ball length. I read the Sky Mall magazine for Pete’s sake! Always love hearing about your mama as well. She’s one of those powers we should all go looking for…

    Thanks for sharing AQS…as always.