 Photo by Sabel Blanco from Pexels I don't really have a favorite cocktail, although I suppose I've had a long-term love affair with the classic gin and tonic. It's my trusty, go-to beverage of choice, especially for social contexts where drinks are DIY. (After all, who besides the truly committed can remember the detailed measurements for a complicated 10-ingredient specialty drink?)
But one drink more than any other makes me happy -- and it has nothing to do with its taste or hipness. It's the mimosa. Of course, mimosas do have a lovely, bright and crisp taste -- at least if the champagne has been well-chosen and the orange juice is freshly squeezed. However, the reason mimosas make me happy is that I only ever drink them in the morning (actually, does anyone drink them anytime besides the morning??). Sure, I will occasionally have some other brunch cocktail. For instance, a Bloody Mary. But, as the name suggests, it's the kind of morning cocktail you opt for after a night of heavy binge drinking. Really it's a hangover drink, isn't it? So, like Pavlov's dog, I've been conditioned to associate feeling bad with Bloody Marys. In contrast, mimosas are feel-good, day-time drinks -- like "Sunday brunch with friends" drinks. Mimosas are light and airy, like laughter and good times. Truly, a refreshing experience. In this time of COVID-19 lock down though, I haven't had a mimosa. I've had plenty of boxed wine and gin... with some occasional tequila or rum to change things up. What makes me sad though is not the absence of juicy champagne (after all, I could just make one...) but the lack of context in which to enjoy such a drink. Going through the ritual of having a mimosa, but minus the atmosphere and emotion of relaxation among loved ones and friends out on holiday (even if just a regular weekend), well, it just isn't the same. It would feel like I was trying too hard to create the right sentiment; it would feel fake, I fear. Rather than fake my fun times with mimosas, I'll keep on waiting for the real thing. In the meantime, I've enjoyed this little reverie, although it really isn't better than the real thing. [Queue up U2 here!]
0 Comments
 Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels I started this blog partly because I felt I needed a way to awaken my creative spirit with free form, stream-of-consciousness writing before I could endure the strict requirements of more formal writing.
I used to have a what I called "a poetic journal." In it, I would write not so much about the facts of life (what happened, where, when, with whom, etc.) but rather the emotional experience. For example, here's a poem I wrote two decades ago: Kiss me, solemn. Touch me, blessed. Hold me, sacred. Treat me as a fairy tale. Give me your hand. Take my love. Return me not my love, but yours, sincere. Grant my wish with yours. Complete me, tonight. Lay beside me, solemn. Rest with me, peace. In case you couldn't have guessed it: I was a love-struck teenager at the time I wrote that. That's what I mean by poetic journaling. Apparently, I'm not the only one inclined to poetic journaling. Actually, I still have this poetic journal -- but it has sat unused for several years. I suppose that is not unusual. Sometimes a few years pass between writings. Then I'll go on a writing binge and write 20 poems. Then, nothing. Silence. Often for years. Perhaps I got this tendency from my mom. She's an amateur painter. I think she's very good, but she would be far better if she painted on a regular basis. Instead, like my poetry-writing, she binges. She's had maybe three periods of productivity in her life. She has to wait for inspiration and motivation -- and then, once the muse has arrived, she is able to catch it and hold on to it for several months. Eventually the muse wriggles free and she simply can't lure it to come back. Nor do I think she really tries. I want to try to lure my muse to reside with me. Coax my muse to share mental, emotional, and spiritual space with me indefinitely. I imagine the intellectual adventures we might have! So, like an unrequited lover who tries to look like they are living an exciting life by going out and doing exciting things, I must look like I am a real writer to draw back the attention of my muse. If I write with daily fervor (or near daily fervor...) then perhaps my muse will return and linger. Perhaps in enacting a writer's life, I will come to live it. So this blog is a space to beckon my muse -- to show it that I am here, building the habits of excellence and creative productivity. After all, one is only a writer if one writes. There is no other definition.  Photo by Ksenia Chernaya from Pexels Although a bit of a latecomer to the minimalist, de-cluttering trend, I've been trying to clean out "junk" and simplify my surroundings. I've read numerous blogs with advice about how to do this. Mostly they all say similar things. I won't rehash those here (but for a list of minimalist blogs, see here).
In general it's useful advice -- especially advice on how to let go of sentimental things. However, I'm beginning to wonder if minimalists are, well, different in their sensory experience of the world. In particular, I wonder whether a photograph of a trinket I picked up in say, Bolivia, will stimulate the same depth of emotional reverie that holding the trinket does. The tactile experience of touch seems far under-appreciated by those advisors urging us to take photos of sentimental things. Marie Kondo encourages us to eliminate everything that doesn't spark joy. This is useful for reducing actual clutter and excess "stuff" -- but not for dealing with sentimental items. I don't actually want everything to spark joy, anyway. Some memories are sad or even painful. These memories are also the ones that remind me I'm alive, remind me I'm human. [Queue up the Goo Goo Dolls' classic hit...] Of course there's no need to use a thought experiment or my imagination. I could simply take photos and see whether they suffice to stir the same kind of experiential recollection that the physical item itself does... But I suspect that unless I accompany the photograph with additional information -- perhaps some text or narrative to describe the context of the object -- some richness of detail will be lost. I'm not talking about documenting some richness of detail about a cute dress I wore once to work and now doesn't fit me anymore. I'm talking about a small curio I may have bought in an indigenous village while wandering with a fellow traveler. Feeling a bit cold and chewing on coca leaves... ah, yes, those coca leaves! Purchased in liter-sized bags and "activated" with bicarbonate pieces... Maybe I don't need the tactile element to trigger these rich memories. But I probably do need the kind of contemplative pause that can come when rummaging through an old box of trinkets. I could treat photos with same degree of contemplation. And pray I do not lose my sight. For now, as long as my trinkets don't overwhelm my space like a hoader's collection, I think I'll hold on to them -- figuratively and literally.  Photo by Javon Swaby from Pexels I love this photo. It reminds me not to awfulize.
You see, everything we see -- or think we see -- is filtered through our mind's eye, our "lens." Or perhaps more aptly said, refracted through our lenses. Some days I'm wearing the proverbial rose-colored lenses, but most days I'm wearing some cracked ones. So cracked that I have a hard time seeing anything beautiful -- everything looks distorted. And on some days things look downright awful. My friend tells me that this term -- "awfulizing" -- is what they remind their clients at a drug rehab facility not to do. Don't make everything out to be as awful as it possibly could be perceived to be. Especially things that have not yet happened. Don't awfulize the future. But that's what anxiety is like for me. I'm not officially diagnosed probably because I'm a high-functioning anxious person. I get by and succeed well enough that no one notices the cracks in my lenses. No one notices the way I occasionally wobble and have to put my hand down on a table or against a wall to brace myself. So I can conceal much of my anxiety from the world. Even the quavering in my voice I can subdue if I stand like Wonder Woman long enough or dance around to Lady Gaga before speaking publicly. Or, if I can't hide away in my room to do this little routine, my last resort is a trick I've learned -- but not yet mastered -- where I can pretend I'm brilliantly confident through some kind of weird out-of-body performance (as they say, fake it 'til you make it). The truth is though that I have an awful tendency to awfulize. Especially about the past. I ruminate about how I could have done things differently -- and how a better person would have. And I worry about the future -- will I do anything differently in the future? Perhaps the worst anxiety is anxiety about anxiety: when I have another big day, will my anxiety interfere with my success? (Incidentally, I've found this is usually a sure-fire way to give my awfulizing amazing predictive power.) Now contrast this to my persona when my Anxiety Devil is not sitting on my shoulder. When my Badass persona is in charge, well, I'm a badass. No two shits about it. The fact that I can be a badass even just sometimes makes it very clear to me on a rational level that I could be a badass all of the time. But I'm not. I'm working on it though. I'm aware that sometimes I've put on the cracked lenses: these days I usually know I'm awfulizing when I'm doing it. This helps a lot because it means that I can choose to change my glasses. You know, put on that snazzy pair of tortoise-shell cat-eyes... And take a good look around without awfulizing what I see. Look around, see the world. See it as it is in all its tremendous and imperfect beauty. And be awed.  Photo: Pixabay Thanks for visiting my blog.
To be perfectly honest, I tried launching it several months ago. It failed. As in, I wrote one post. Worst of all, upon re-reading that one post, I hated it. It was contrived. Forced. Like me trying to be somebody I'm not but wish I were. [Queue up that song by Skee-Lo... I wish a was a little bit taller... I wish I was...] Yeah, I was wishing to be someone other than me. But then I died. I mean, obviously metaphorically-speaking. I died a kind of death of identity. Who I thought I had been becoming for years somehow no longer felt like the person I was nor the person I wanted to be. And yes, I was approaching midlife. So this was a midlife crisis. Amid a pandemic. Yikes. So what to do? I scrapped that old blog post -- and, in a way, I scrapped my old identity too. I was never going to fit into any of the molds that society seems to have precast and set up for us to choose from. I was going to have to go my own way. [Another song to queue up...] Of course, I already had sensed this was the case when I came up with the basic gist of the idea for this blog: on the verge of meaning. I aim to write a little each day here to give me mental breathing room to act out in public but privately. To wear a kind of costume that hides my new emerging identity as much as my past identity. The point is not necessarily to hide who I am becoming -- but to give myself space to experience that becoming in a way that is simultaneously transparent for all to see and yet hidden for no one to see. Only in this liminal space between public and private does art truly find its authenticity. At least, I think that's how my "art" can be authentic. My voice. Whether it be howling, screeching, or singing. Whether it be poetic, mundane, or profane. It'll be my voice, refracted across a prism of transformation and revelation. So, hello world. I'm still here, but different. |
