Annie Q Syed

September 5th.

Harvest months. Love like loving New York. Marco Rojas. A peek into Emerson’s “Over-Soul.”

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

New York City inhaled the Sun and exhaled crackling heat to its fullest this past week before simmering into Fall. A magical dragon. The best few months when New York, New York is at her finest are here. The City is a marvel this time of the year: street fairs, divine weather, lush bronze, yellows, greens paint leaves everywhere and the air—the cool aloe vera  breeze—almost demands a stillness.  September comes with a fire but one that doesn’t burn and instead cooks just at the right temperature.  Harvest all you have sown in the prior months.

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August 22nd.

labels. madness which can derail you. “the feeling YOU get, I get first.” real artists know a secret. “1 in 5 people are mad.”

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

Last night my neighborhood was pumping with life. This morning it is sleeping like a baby. It partied too hard. It’s 1:30 p.m. and it is still drowsy.

There are articles and articles upon New York City. Some about specific neighborhoods, others about restaurants, others about the politics behind everything, and then some. They all say something different. They all say the same thing.

There is a fight over building a damn mosque in New York City. There is a flood in Pakistan. Haiti is still in shambles. I met a guy last night who told me there are parts of New Orleans which look as if Katrina happened last night.

Our collective humanity trembles but we’ll be okay as long as we dare to resolve the fight within.

Last week I dealt with a swarm of labels from various sources manufactured to contain me. Confident. Insecure. Talkative. Quiet. Conservative. Wild. Charming. Detached. Egotistical. Humble. “Nothing like a photograph.”  The way I am is being analyzed. My writings are being identified with others before me. All flattering, I suppose. Not to me.

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August 8th.

Heart beats—literally. To create with conviction. For a lifestyle?  For your clients? Line between self-exploration & self-indulgence? What’s the point of art? Of being strong?

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

Stillness is palpable through practice.

I was not expecting to write this from L.A. but instead from my parents’ ranch house in the village. Yet, here I am and, moreover, ready to depart for my beloved New York City in the evening. Life is unexpected sometimes, stillness is not. It remains a coating around all havoc. You are and are not of the moment.

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My list is inspired after having read and digested Martha Beck’s astute and insightful list. You can read the elaborated version here, but in sum she suggests unlearning the following life lessons:

1. Problems are bad.
2. It’s important to stay happy.
3. I’m irreparably damaged by my past.
4. Working hard leads to success.
5. Success is the opposite of failure.
6. It matters what people think of me.
7. We should think rationally about our decisions.
8. The pretty girls get all the good stuff.
9. If all my wishes came true right now, life would be perfect.
10. Loss is terrible.

Building on the aforementioned, I am unlearning:

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Preface to Nectar of the Ordinary stories.

I am not even sure if anyone besides the people to whom these stories belong will read what follows in the collection. Maybe even they won’t.  My sentences together serve as a frame to hold a snap shot of their element’s thumbprint on our big blue marble.  A statement persistently orbits my peripheral consciousness as I begin to write. Over a decade ago, more years than I want to count specifically, a Literature professor in college tirelessly told the students in his class, every time staring directly at me (perhaps unintentionally each time), that all writers have an audience in mind and most importantly they write because they must. As I already stated, I don’t have any particular audience in mind.  However, I know with more certainty than I have yet to know anything else that I must place these stories on a tangible medium instead of thought-provoking conversations over dinner and drinks with other soul-diggers that dissipate ever too quickly, leaving the longing for another fix to find our way around our selves. A dim flicker shines through the fractured spaces in these living apparitions’ tales, serving as a guide to tread upon expansive realms deep within ourselves where we are afraid to venture alone.

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