The Fairy and The Businessman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Halloween’s come and gone, and I still clearly remember last year’s eager trick-or-treater angling for another fistful of candy.

“Do you mind if I take another?” she asked with conviction.

Hers was a simple yet clever costume: a pair of fairy wings much too large for her frame, and matching eye shadow, plus a smear of you’re-far-too-young-for-that-color lipstick.  She was the older of the trick-or-treating duo – and as I looked over her diminutive companion, I realized they looked far too much alike to be anything other than sisters.

Her hand was already reaching for candy bowl, after rooting through with swift, practiced thoroughness to retrieve two handfuls of the treats that she preferred – the first for little sister, the second for her.  I was indignant yet amused: this winged sprite, no more than 8 or 9 at best, knew exactly what she wanted.  She treated herself to as much as she could scoop up, single-handedly.  It was no more than others had taken, and no less than I expected.

She smiled with her lips and watched carefully with her eyes – and came in for another handful during my moment of hesitation.  Another two, actually: another one for her younger sister, and then for herself.  All the while a smile, and perfunctory expressions of thanks.

I stood there staring, wondering whether I was indignant at her presumption, or in awe of her deft negotiation.  Both, I decided.

A neighbor who witnessed the entire encounter remarked that “those people” came into our neighborhoods because “they” couldn’t get candy in their own neighborhood.  My retort was that at least she dressed up and asked politely for what she wanted, and got it.   There were costume-less teenagers from our neighborhood who simply held out trash bags, zombie-like, with an expectation of candy.  I half-wished I had turned away: shouldn’t I get the treat of seeing a costume, no matter how haphazard or simple?

And I still had enough candy for the evening – just  far less than I expected.  If everything my neighbor perceived about this little girl were true, then she was doing her best for first her sibling then herself with the best tools and circumstances she had – and doing so with a certain panache.  In the end, I reflected that the only problem I had with the situation was her precocious panache.  I didn’t expect such social dexterity in a child so young.

If she wields it well, she’ll go far.

***

A month ago, I found myself in a crowded security line, waiting to take a plane home.  Ahead of me was a woman: short, neatly attired, with no sense of glamor.  She looked careworn, yet stood ramrod straight.  Behind me was a businessman: at least 6 foot in his height, suited, cool demeanor.

We each emptied our belongings into bins and onto the conveyer, and the woman ahead of me and I moved back a few steps to take our turn through the detectors.  The businessman moved straight to the detector, and went through, after a brief backward glance at the line.  It seemed in that moment he realized that he’d jumped a line that he was unaware of: a quirk of his eyebrow acknowledged us, as if in apology.

But he went through.  And no one stopped him – not the woman in front of me, and not I.  It only struck me after he went through that perhaps I could have done the same.  And yet, my politeness and social consciousness kicks in.

***

For context, understand that each of these situations lasted at most 30 seconds.  They’re mere moments in time, hardly enough for the average person to react and redirect the course of situation, especially where strangers one will never encounter again are involved in interaction.

What I will remember about the airport a year from now is that the businessman went through anyway, with a spur-of-the-moment, implied apology.  What I will remember about the young trick-or-treater is her boldness.   Each presumed, with a certain politeness and poise.

Social conditioning and thought-leaders suggest that I will remember the trick-or-treater long after I forget the businessman because of her gender, her race, her age.  He’ll be admired for doing as he should; she’ll be lucky if she’s not judged as grasping and aggressive.

Despair, Deliberation

There’s too much noise of my own choosing – as in, I am choosing distraction in all its forms.  Deliberately.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By lo.re.n.zo.

What I need is quiet for my mind and soul, and activity for my body.  I choose exactly the opposite – safe, and easy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Jinho.Jung

Finding and holding my threshold of courage takes continual practice – daily, every moment – to repeatedly overcome, and gaining the momentum of deliberation.

Watering Hole

Going to the public pool with my family was the beginning of my weekend, rain or shine, snow or sun.  It was socialization with built-in barriers: whether floating on my back or diving deep, my family was close by, and I was left to my thoughts in the depths.

Friday evening swims came to an end when Dad noticed the families dwindling, and the number of unattended teenagers showing up.  They were mostly good kids, but he couldn’t help but notice the boys’ horseplay, and the girls dry as a bone, draped over their towels without any other modest covering.

We never went swimming once I came of age, and I always thought it was because I had too much school work.  I never did enjoy a pool or beach party, after those Fridays.  Pool games, burgers and beer, and basking on a towel or in the water was fun – but what I really needed were compatriots who enjoyed the quiet gurgle of the underwater view, or the blue of the sky, endless as I watched from my float.

Slow Motion

In our fast-paced life, I wonder if recreational rail excursions will gain popularity – such as the cross-country Amtrak trek Meg Keene recently embarked upon to promote her first published work (she shared the last leg of it with her husband, and they both enjoyed the experience.)

Travel by train’s never been America’s thing – road trips have.  Train journeys are more European, and even Asian – in fact it’s said that third-class rail travel is the only way to really experience India.

It’s a gem of brilliance that Bhi Bhiman chose Samuel Jeffrey’s point of view – primarily, from a train berth’s window, occasionally run in slow motion – to accompany the plaintive melody of his ballad Gutternsipe. It’s not at all how you would experience a train journey: picking up speed, scenery and people eventually pass you by.  And it’s not at all India, where time doesn’t stop.  

Perhaps that’s why it’s an important backdrop to this song – without any sense of home, Bhiman seems to find it in the moments in between a boy skipping along an empty line and each stroke of a the sweep’s broom.

“The Luxury of Slowness”

I have watched Tishani Doshi‘s TEDxPalermo talk at least once every day ever since my dance guru shared it with me – and each time, I’ve watched it two to three times in succession. (This has been going on for about a week now.)

Every time I review it, different elements of the speech move me (to emotion – and there’s very little in art or thought that does so). I wonder:

Is slowness the last real luxury we have left, as Doshi states?
Is touching time even possible?
(Would touching time be full Realization, or perhaps just the beginning of Release?)

One particular idea Doshi emphasizes is the idea of exploration during the slower tempo of classical Indian music: the vilambit, during which no lyrics are sung, only sounds of a raga‘s particular ascendance and descendance of sounds.

Which reminds me of a time during my childhood when I learned and practiced such music. With repetition came an eventual flow of practice, especially during alaap (introduction to the raga). Singing an introduction to the classical key signature was a time that I grew to relish: unbound by a beat (which I paradoxically loved, reverberating as it did from a tabla), my mind and heart connected, soared. I sang with abandon and feeling, which are their own ornaments.

Doshi concludes with the thought that if we learn to inhabit slowness, we can make the most of our own crescendos. Early morning practice sessions and weekend lessons with a well-sung alaap formed many a connection between random bits of information floating around mind, and brought clarity and purpose to replace any bit of doubt.

The mornings I that I awakened just a bit earlier than my alarm for an extra-long practice session before school, I went even deeper within myself with those connections and clarity. The day to follow was always like honey: a slow, measured pour, accelerating into smooth certainties.

Contentment

In a recent essay titled “The Joy of Quiet” travel writer Pico Iyer finds contentment through focus – some might call it (self)absorption:

Nothing makes me feel better — calmer, clearer and happier — than being in one place, absorbed in a book, a conversation, a piece of music. It’s actually something deeper than mere happiness: it’s joy, which the monk David Steindl-Rast describes as “that kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.”

…it’s only by having some distance from the world that you can see it whole, and understand what you should be doing with it.

A Quiet Place

The place to find is within yourself. The athlete…in top form has a quiet place within himself, and it’s around this, somehow, that his action occurs…this is true in dance as well. There’s a center of quietness within, which has to be known and held.

“The Power of Myth,” by Joseph Campbell

 

 

Food for Thought and Wanderlust

I’m in transit today, after a much-needed weekend away from home, visiting good friends.  As much as I have come to love where I live (much like Jane Friedman loves her adopted home town of Cincinnati, Ohio), there are days and weeks when I’m just done with it, and feel the need to escape.

 

   road trip by breahn

The friend I visited this weekend has stated there’s a naturally occurring bacteria in our gut that secretes a substance that gives us itchy feet, the yearning to seek far-flung places and novel experiences.  Really, it’s just about nutritional deficiencies and the bacteria’s attempt to get more of whatever it needs by pushing us out of our usual milieu.

Bacterium or not, I am refreshed from my weekend away.  The compelling parts of Friedman’s ode to Ohio’s foremost up-and-coming cultural center are dancing around in my mind today:

It’s a peculiar disease for us Americans, to think it a failure not to move away from what we know. As a twentysomething, I wanted nothing more than to live in Europe—where I’d stayed 6 months during a study abroad—and to be done with the uncultured and ignorant USA.

It’s like all young people to think this way—to imagine that the place where we come from is stupid and beneath everything else. Eventually you realize that all places are rather the same. Or, people are the same. You just find the right circles where you can be accepted or make a difference. The rest is just details.

It took a long time to accept that I’m a Midwesterner at heart. I want to be friendly and helpful. I’m not eager to talk about myself. I prefer a laid-back, unpretentious lifestyle. While these are not qualities unique to the Midwest, I don’t reliably encounter those environments elsewhere.

Emphases mine.

Renewal (III)

In the form of dance that I have the privilege to learn, there’s a philosophy of tension and release: various aspects of the body move in opposition to others – and yet there’s no discord in the display.

Rather, there’s the relief of overall unison: the body gliding as a whole across the bhoomi – not to mention a continual movement of those parts of the body, occupying the same space for a mere millisecond.

You might see it if you’re lucky, sitting in the audience, and choose to define it as a pause.  It’s not as important for you to see it (and if there’s too much of one…well, it shouldn’t really be there.  It’s meant to be elusive.)  It’s more important to feel it, as a dancer – and continually, not just in a moment of a routine or performance.

This state of being only comes with enough practice – studied deliberation – such that the body flows through its routine, without the brain minding it constantly.  With the body engaged, the mind’s free to make connections and associate, soar through a day’s worth of experiences, examine them, and release them.  This deconstruction continues far after the physicality of practice distracts the body and frees the mind.   There’s a depth of sleep borne of the body’s exhaustion that allows fragments of memory, flitting images, and snippets of conversation to piece together and remain if necessary, and dissipate if not.

When I awaken, after such a practice, I’m replete – and in spite of the harried day that follows, littered with the steely reflection of cars and concrete highways, the taste of bitter coffee, numbers and spreadsheets blurring together, I discover that I’m anxious to return to the floor, warm up and push through a practice, beginning with my personal warm-ups, a set of exercises, and steps both square and sinuous.  After my body’s already humming with exertion, I push it to sing, push out the day’s dross.  If I do this often and well enough, you may see the results.  I can only practice, and hope.

Source: substation.org via Margin on Pinterest

Renewal (II)

The idea of slowing down the pace of life is hardly novel: there’s entire industries devoted to explaining to you how their product or service will truly give you the space and time to relax.  Vacations, massages, and cable television usually promise us a measure of peace – and yet we come home needing a vacation from our vacation, or unable to have calmed our mind during a massage, and exhausted from watching yet another marathon of a syndicated television series rather than anything that truly engages our interest, from a myriad channels.

What I found unusual in that brief moment in which we see the lady in repose in her friend’s old apartment is not its fiction and improbability (for that’s what it is: just a scene from a movie, with an actress whose best emotion is a projection of serenity).

I think of the possibilities that scene evokes.  Does the dream vacation have to be an exhaustive tour of a place’s most famous landmarks, with people I do not know to like?  What if it were simply a stretch of days in a place that nurtures and inspires me, instead?  (Must it be a pricey all-inclusive? )  If the idea of a stranger’s impersonal, practiced touch heightens my anxiety rather than releasing calm within me, is it what I need?  And is the oblivion induced by hours of an endless television series sooth me, really?  Music does: wordless, mellifluous.  (If I really want dialogue and action, I’ll choose it – with friends, in person.)

Elements of entertainment pervade each of these activities, though – and that implies a certain threshold of engagement on my end.  I can’t passively sit there and enjoy; I must research, and understand, and pick apart a nuance until every element is dissected and exposed.

This is important to know: what brings relaxation to most only keeps me primed, at full attention, to absorb and evaluate.  I remain in a constant state of tension.  I must pursue relief – and paradoxically, my path to it is studied deliberation.

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