Still Sundays
June 20th.
If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the first paragraph. Thanks.
New York City has not been as rainy or hot as she is known to get around this time of the year. Last night she was more in her element. I took a sip of water from the thick humidity guarding the intervals of breeze by sticking my tongue out in the air. Twice. It’s not the same as feeling snow on your tongue.
The other day, rushing down the steps of the subway station to catch the train, I nearly ran over this young adult–eleven to thirteen years old (I am not very good at guessing children’s ages any longer: they all dress and act older than I can ever recall, yet they need adult guidance on an unprecedented level)–because she was so engrossed in reading a book that she didn’t know where she was walking! That made my afternoon. Some teacher, parent, adult, or an omniscient force, had gotten something very big right. I know too well from when I used to teach that reading alone is not sufficient for critical thinking but it’s definitely a start.
Some nights ago I toyed with a brainwave that nearly electrocuted my sanity: what if I abandon writing like I did my interest in photography?! I had a small love affair with photography from 2004 to 2005. Before I could even call myself as much as an amateur I had to focus my energies in law school instead of learning about cameras. I calmed down after my mind flipped through the mugshots of myself during the last decade of my life: I have been writing ever since I could hold a pencil, just like I could read before I started formal schooling. Writing is not a hobby, a phase, or a luxurious indulgence, or a conscious learning experience–its everything else which has been. Just took a bit longer than it should have to realize that everything else must revolve around breathing writing. This is not to take away from other equally significant requirements for living a functional life. But as Marco Rojas–one of my favorite yoga instructors–says during class: if you are not breathing, you are going to die. It matters not how beautifully you hold a pose or do a miraculous balance–if you are not breathing you are not in.
There are people I have ‘met’ via twitter that share the same urgency as I do: create or perish. Independent record label makers, independent movie makers, self-publishing, to what.ever.it.takes but create they must. The rest of life must oblige around that–not easily and definitely not without many sacrifices–but somehow you must do what makes you feel alive. That’s what keeps me going when my brain is about to splatter like mercury. I could list their names here but I think everyone knows at least one such person via twitter or in their circle of family or friends. For every one person “doing his or her best” to live his or her most authentic life there are at least five others around them who will remain restless until they too start to integrate. That makes me happy. Change is possible.
I have finally given myself the permission to overdoes on world cup matches. I don’t recall feeling so guilty or adjusting my schedule as much during the last world cup in 2006. But that was in South Africa and it was just understood that the course of life for a month will revolve around the matches. Interesting the way our environment influences about what we do and don’t feel guilty.
Wishing my father a very happy father’s day. He has taught us that we must pay it forward or else his sacrifices, hard work, and everything else he has provided interrupts the natural flow of evolution. Because life matters only in relation to others. It is hard to teach your children values, especially if you have had a tumultuous experience relating to your children, but he has triumphed. We will always respect him and be grateful for the values he has taught us.
Wishing all men who try to be better men and fathers than their fathers a happy father’s day. And to all the mothers too, who work harder than necessary for the fathers that never were, even when they are right there, happy father’s day to them too.
The City is awake and has stirred the stillness.
Football is on. Italy is not playing like it should. Every moment is new, no matter how similar.
~a.q.s.
Man, as enjoyable to read as the New York Times Magazine. Don’t forget the little people (like me, hint, hint sans subtlety) when you’re a big famous author.
As I head into a circumstance which will cause me to question myself – a situation that will cause my heart to twist with apprehension – I tuck your words there as a reminder “… one person “doing his or her best” to live his or her most authentic life…” and allow an outward breath that says, “oh… that’s right… that’s what I am doing!”
Gratitude and high-fives!
as.
always.
a word.
a phrase.
of yours.
hits
me hard and makes
me sit back and…
well…
sigh.
change, my friend, is indeed
possible.
~A
Oh yes!
Have also (tortured myself) toyed with the idea of my writing interest waning off. Whenever another passion/job/person has ‘stolen’ me from writing, I’ve panicked that I’ve perhaps fallen out of love with the art-form..
Now – still embracing the fact that I will probably write as long as I can even if might not always take form as expected. After all, not too long ago I would never have imagined myself writing online the way I do.
The less I worry that writing is a phase, the more confident I become as a writer, but also as a ‘breather’, or as your-amazing-sounding yoga teacher would say, someone who is in.