Annie Q Syed » relating

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:58:42 +0000

February 5th, 2012.

The super bowl of social media and creativity.

I woke up thinking about Wednesday this morning. As if Wednesday was a person I knew.

This last Wednesday was a chaotic morning and no amount of breathing was going to lift me out of the mushroom of frenzy.

Usually calm and steady, on Wednesday morning I was agitated and hyper sensitive to noise. I always try to see what is the longest amount of time I can go without plugging into music with my headphones. This time even music didn’t help. People rushing to some grand nowhere. I joined them to head to one of the most dilapidated parts of New York City. Poverty has a smell ...

A Still Sunday Night

annie — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:54:21 +0000

January 29, 2011.

Stillness bypassed my Sunday morning like a breeze you don’t notice because you are out of breath. Except I was in deep sleep breathing. I woke up long after stillness had closed its canteen. Although I realize Stillness is everywhere and available anytime and it is up to us to reach into the hive and retrieve any amount of nectar, certain moments feel like a red carpet walk to the doorway of Stillness. Sunday mornings are such a walk. After noon the zone is narrow even if you are a devout Stillness practioner.

I gave myself permission to sleep in and allow the body to recover. Everything about the status quo seems contrary to how we ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:38:33 +0000

January 22nd 2012.

Biko. Coltrane. My father. Coleridge. Marquez.

Writing when you are under the weather is like talking in your sleep. Nothing makes sense; it all makes sense.

It is a Steve Biko kind of Sunday: “I write what I like.”

New York City is under the weather too. It snowed yesterday.

I read a post by a talented photographer in Finland, Annika Ruohonen, this morning titled “January in Finland.” So this is Finland in January I said aloud without realizing. Maybe my heavy head thought I was using “inside” voices when I was not. I tried leaving a short comment but due to computer glitches, password itches, the comment was lost as was the moment ...

Still Sundays: Shakti and Ibn Sina

annie — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:57:49 +0000

It is a new year after all.

Makes me wonder about all those other “new” years. I never felt they were new per se so it wasn’t that I got duped the last decade with the habitual hype at the end of the year. It is just that I couldn’t participate as authentically as I would have liked because I knew better in my bones. But this year is finally new.

new | n(y)oō |

adjective

1. not existing before; made, introduced, or discovered recently or now for the first time

2. already existing but seen, experienced, or acquired recently or now for the first time

3. just beginning and regarded as better than what went before

The word new ...

A Still Sunday, particularly today.

annie — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:21:51 +0000

December 25, 2011.

on criticism, on friendships come & gone, Keats & soul-making.

New York City is asleep although I have been awake for some time.

Silence is that music where we become instruments.

I have never experienced Stillness and silence this grand in New York City as this Sunday.

This is my first Christmas holiday and New Year’s Eve in New York City despite having lived here for over a decade. Usually I have always been “home” this time of the year, whatever that has meant: sometimes Lahore, other times Johannesburg or Durban, most often a farmhouse, my parents’, in California.

Last night I experienced New York City in a whole new manner. I understood why it is ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 22:24:53 +0000

December 18, 2011.

Herman Hesse’s Demian. “Tug on Anything at all…” A fortune-teller who could tell all but one thing.

It’s not easy to leave New York City. A stranger-friend, an Italian Ph.D. student, must return to Italy tomorrow as her yearlong fellowship is finally over. And she is not ready. I don’t think those who come to New York City for anything but an idea can ever leave that idea behind. At worst we carry that idea that is New York City with us wherever we go. At best, we return again. And again.

Love is a hard idea to give up.

What will she miss the most, I asked her? She held back tears and replied, The ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:07:18 +0000

December 11, 2011.

What is art without vision, then?; Symmetry Breaking; Darren K. Woods on his passion for opera; Music to My Ears.

I was immersed in life to my fullest capacity the last two Sundays. Every cell felt like a sponge for Stillness, joy, love, warmth, observations, growth…

There comes a point when living and experiencing catch a momentum faster than one can share through any medium. I believe that’s when the real challenge begins for one who has decided to undertake being an artist.

We are all creative (some more talented or innately gifted than others); however, not all are artists.

Art without vision is creative stimulation for pleasure. In order to have a vision you have ...

Occupy Stillness. Viktor Frankl: the challenge of potential meaning to fulfill

annie — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 19:41:54 +0000

November 20, 2011.

Still Sundays.

The New York City skyline never gets old.

I am getting older; I like it.

Love too never gets old.

This month is over, this year is over, my obsession with time, truth, and love continues.

What do I want to be when I grow up? A writer? A doctor? A teacher? A lawyer? A writer? This time I get to decide how I want to be, not who based on what.

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People have recurring dreams. I don’t.

My latest obsession is putting into words this “recent” dream: I am in a field of teal colored dragonflies. They are everywhere. The field is on the edge of a horizon or so ...

“Fartists”, Light triumphs, Grow!Grow!Grow!

annie — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 19:46:28 +0000

Still Sundays.

November 13, 2011.

Stillness is a guardian angel.

That being said, on days where the frozen wind in New York City feels like the wrathy breathing of some evil gods, I do yell aloud, forgetting all I know about seasons, climate, and weather, “God you can’t be real! Because no one in his or her right mind would actually create a day this cold!”

Yet so far November feels like early spring. Will March then be like early winter? Maybe winter has never been that long after all? Climate change is changing.

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What do I know without a doubt this Sunday morning as this calendar year is almost over?

Light triumphs. Again and again ...

to really understand is divine

annie — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 22:37:50 +0000

Still Sundays.

November 6th.

No matter how many times I write about New York City it is not enough. Not enough for me and not enough for those who just don’t see what I see.

Rage is a bull and I am a champion rider who neither tires easily nor plans on retiring. At best I can tame the beast with humor. But I find cynicism easy and eventually boring; therefore, I take whatever it is that I don’t understand by the horns: the spleen wants to spit.

That being said I never write when I am angry. I can create a fury of words that can dissolve the deads’ bones, but actually write?—never. I don’t even “journal” such thoughts ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:02:55 +0000

October 30th.

Enjoying New York City despite the winters. Truth. Social Media and this Age of Inspiration.

The day before yesterday was a golden Fall day in New York City: sunny, bright, crisp, and filled with sunbeams shooting around every other autumn leave.

Yesterday winter came unannounced like an unexpected cavity that really should be no surprise. The snowstorm was not pretty: the sleet a constant sleazy nose drip. The snow was only “pure, pretty, and white” here and there, perhaps to create a fantasy of loveliness for those who are not here via photos taken from mobile devices. Sometimes we are able to alter our reality only if someone else believes our perception of it. If you had ...

The Granny Who Knew Time.

annie — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:56:53 +0000

Still Sundays.

October 23rd.

This Sunday I want to share Stillness with another all day long. I’ll take Stillness in any form but it is some fiesta when there is two (or more) to honor the muchness of nothing but together.

When we were growing up and even now when we all gather at our parents’ farmhouse Stillness serves as a blanket as well as a straw. In the hours of the morning everyone sits in the living room to have meaningless conversations—”No one really wears socks that color with a suit!”—to a profound statement thrown into the living-room air like a boomerang: “One can’t truly articulate actual self-realization.”

It’s as if the morning Stillness over the holidays and Sundays ...

Love, like New York City, is an Idea…

annie — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 17:21:00 +0000

Still Sundays.

October 16th.

I am writing from a new place this Sunday morning.

When you say something like that in New York City, you more often than not mean it quite literally.

I am not in my own neighborhood or even inside my apartment. I am in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood around 44th and 9th avenue. I don’t live here; I had to return my rental car this morning around the corner. When I woke up this morning I almost forgot I had even rented a car to go out of the City to attend a wedding this weekend. The only reason I remembered is because I realized I am out of tea and coffee and maybe I ...

self-existing magic of things

annie — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 16:49:44 +0000

Still Sundays

October 9th.

Filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky on “self-existing magic of things” and more. Your talent is a body. Marc Jacobs on innovation.

I find myself intellectually incapable to accept any of the etymologies offered behind “Indian Summer” and google’s curation of history doesn’t satisfy.

October is a solid indigo night, made for returning and leaving at the same time.

Autumn in New York is the muse for so many jazz compositions because only music can capture an indigo night.

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Yesterday I saw a film by Nathaniel Dorsky who has been making and exhibiting films within the avant-garde tradition since 1964. His works have bee shown internationally in museums and theatres and are in the ...

To balance upside down in the dark

annie — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 16:49:57 +0000

Long before the yoga studio where I have to be a member in order to attend Marco Rojas’s classes hopped on board with “blindfolded yoga” as the newest yoga trend, Marco used to teach yoga with eyes closed. He began this because one particular time during class he had a sight-impaired student. Marco decided that we should all experience the poses with our eyes closed.

The first time I experienced yoga with my eyes closed, I cheated. I didn’t trust myself. What if I was on someone else’s mat? What if I fell? What if I was doing everything wrong? Out of respect for Marco I stopped peeking and shut my eyes for good, and because I trusted him as ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 16:40:56 +0000

September 18th

Although there is much to be written this Sunday morning, yarns of thoughts are spinning by themselves around the needle of stillness, I just want to observe and gather some more.

It has been a very full week, more eventful than my typical weeks, and although Sunday puts it together, however fragmented, I am going to need much more time for this week.

Next Sunday I will wake up earlier than I did today to feel Stillness exhale on my skin instead of my gasping for it this morning. Today I slept in Stillness and awoke to the sudden announcement that it is cold and Autumn has arrived although the colors of Fall haven’t quite made it yet.

...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 15:11:40 +0000

September 11th

You have to be very alive to dream new dreams; Mama: relationships like buying a house; Whitman.

It can never be just “September 11th” in New York City again like another September 9th or April 9th or whatever other date that comes by every year. This date now means many things to many different people. But history is filled with such dates. Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day is just another day “when something awful and atrocious” happened to most, but to a few it remains as fresh as September 11th is to some of us. Soon another generation will come for whom September 11th will mean differently than it does to us now.

When will death mean the ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:00:43 +0000

August 21, 2011.

Normal is another world phenomenon; Helping the exceptions stand out for all of us in ANY form is art; From the memory box: desert sky and Wilma Rudolph. The foremost task of education.

Stillness is a flower that doesn’t always have a fragrance. Or perhaps the perfume is sans alcohol so one has to be really sober to take it all in. Similar to a real yoga practice, what comes forth is not always bliss but gunk. But if you allow some space and don’t hold on, the gunk slides away, and real bliss doesn’t always feel like happiness but it surely feels like freedom.

Today’s Sunday is some shy rapture. It’s raining everywhere it seems, including ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 18:58:40 +0000

August 14th.

“The present is the whole of the past concentrated.” ~ Iqbal; Bernard Shaw on Tolstoy’s “What is Art”?; opinions about opinions; Anders, the homeless man in London, on books.

I awoke this Sunday morning in some rainforest. The rain, glossy chandeliers, was falling without crashing. It took me a minute to realize I was in New York City.

It was nice to take a break from putting thoughts on the braille made of words last Sunday. Does Stillness too take a break? No, I don’t think so. We do. It’s hard to swim in peace: no sharks of conflict that actually bite, no shore of tomorrow, no ship of yesterday, how long can you stay afloat ...

“The Beauty Myth”

annie — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 20:24:55 +0000

Mama says it is to men’s advantage to recognize the reservoir of strength that is a woman (regardless of a man’s sexual preference). But in order to achieve this, she says, it demands a lot of deconstruction which begins by looking beyond a woman’s physical appearance and a man’s attachments to conscious and unconscious roles she is supposed to play. But that deconstruction can begin only when a woman is able to see herself beyond her physical appearance. She also says that unfortunately the stereotypes that exist about women exist because majority of the women are not strong enough to break them. If you look a certain way, you must be flirtatious. If you have ambition, you must be needy ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 16:38:03 +0000

July 31st.

Misunderstood dreams shape-shift return to sleep in cities like Prague. Happy Birthday to my mother. Stillness is some Doppler effect.

It’s July 31st and it is my mother’s birthday.

I read this year’s July came with an extra offering: one more Sunday. I also learned that this will not happen again for some 800 or so years. I checked the facts on this. Such a combination occurs far more often than every 800 years. The last occurrence was in July 2005. The next one will be in July 2016. It might as well be accurate though. Yesterday feels like years ago.

Who keeps track of Sundays besides those who are harvesters of Stillness? No moment seems to return ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 18:30:38 +0000

An old Czech proverb: He who looks, finds. Loretta from AT&T. Bridges are made for crossing. “Lies About Love” by D.H. Lawrence.

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I just lost everything I had written.

For the second time.

The first time was very early in the morning—the wake-up sky was still coddling the night—when I decided to not actually write down the thoughts that were downloading through Stillness. I was a sleepyhead in awe of the magnitude of Stillness looking out my window on equally sleepy Prague streets. But streets in Prague are always sleepy, waking up from a different time.

I had enjoyed the iceskateflow of thoughts zigzagging harmoniously, words leading an orchestra of thoughts in some perfect synchronization that was ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 11:00:59 +0000

It’s Sunday morning and I am writing from a small village near the Sovinec Castle. Owl’s Nest. That’s what Sovinec means in Czech. Sovinec is near a city called Olomouc. Yesterday we first traveled two and a half hours southeast of Prague to Brno and then north to Olomouc. We are quite east of Prague now. Olomouc is made of agricultural landscape where the sky is a moody painter and the earth is a palette. Capture that, lens. Feeling is a lens.

Usually when I write on Sunday mornings I feel Stillness offers Christmas presents for unwrapping—let’s see what’s under that tree of thought that grew so tall in one week? Some Sunday mornings I indeed feel as if I ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 11:26:23 +0000

From London.

I haven’t been in London long enough to specifically share what stillness of London on a Sunday morning tastes like.

However, there was lots of stillness in North London this morning that brought the following:

Something beyond evil. Spirals of Transmutation. Integration is the most demanding creative process.

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The best compliment I have ever received about my writing is: ‘it can raise the dead.’ It is also the most unsettling thing I have heard about my writing. When the living are more dead than those gone, one better know how to dance with goblins, ghouls, and dybuks—a specialized demon who attaches himself to scholars! I can’t two-step or waltz with another. I am a solo-performer ...

Just a small note to note a year of Still Stundays

annie — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 16:17:02 +0000

June 5th

Last year around this time, June 6th, I wrote:

I have never been able to articulate the stillness of a Sunday. Those quiet hours of the early morning before a city, town, or village takes a big yawn and stretches itself into your routine which may include bills, laundry, emails, phone calls, errands, groceries, etc.

These mornings are especially unique in New York because the City doesn’t sleep but she just takes naps. And the longest naps are on Sunday mornings. [...] Some mornings I simply wrap the stillness of a Sunday morning around a pen and put fragments on a paper.

I have been asked by a few people to share more of my own thoughts ...