"Everyone wants to be young and skinny. This is awful. Curves are marvelous. Wrinkles are hypnotizing. Why not just be happy with who you are?" - Alber Elbaz
I really dislike it when people say, "Everything happens for a reason."
They're usually trying to be profound (or smug, or lazy), but that's like saying, "Everything is composed of matter."
So what?! How is that supposed to be of any real comfort or significance at this moment?
When someone says that, all I hear is a less honest variation of, "I have no idea what the possible explanation could be for why this happened." And also possibly, "I'm actually just comforting myself that this recent traumatic event is not a sign that life is more unpredictable than I would like to admit. So let's turn off our brains now, as insurance." Or maybe even, "You must somehow deserve whatever happened."
My intention is not to be negative or fatalistic - it's simply to be realistic, awake. Because life is unpredictable and unfair, so pretending it's not seems like ignoring half of what the experience of living is about! Like walking through life without peripheral vision, or something... wouldn't you miss a lot? A dismissive, "Everything happens for a reason," seems to chalk adversity up to some whim of the gods that we don't need to concern our little selves about. It absolves us of any responsibility (or opportunity) to recognize the significance of this experience for ourselves, personally.
No, we can't necessarily divine the cause of any particular event, but we do have the opportunity to choose to define what it means for us. And if we don't do that, we're just sleepwalking, aren't we? Nobody wants to experience pain, but we know that from time to time it's unavoidable. So if, from time to time, experiencing pain is part of what it means to be alive - why not try to get something out of it? Because, dammit, if I have to suffer, I might as well look for some kind of bloody value in the experience...
I vastly prefer how the heroic Augusten Burroughs looks at it.
His wise words (possibly because they are hard-won?) really are comforting.
[Emphasis mine.]
"Heal is a television word. It's satisfying to see somebody who has gone through adversity and come out the other side, healed. That's almost word for word, how they might introduce a segment on healing on a talk show. 'Come out the other side.' Like a tunnel. But here's the thing: there are some things in life from which you do not heal. The tunnel never ends. There is no other side of it.
...
This is among the oldest, deepest, most primal truths: the facts of life may be, at times, unbearably painful. But the core, the bones of life are generous beyond all reason or belief. Those things that ought to kill us do not. This should be taken as encouragement to continue.
...
Because all of us are made not only of what we have but of what we lost. And loss is not a subtraction. As an experience, it is an addition. Even when we lose a leg or an arm, there's not less of us but more. Human experience weighs more than human tissue."
I think this insightful quote applies just as accurately to life as to acting... My friend B and I had this conversation once about how we screw things up when we care about them too much. It's cringe-worthy and funny, 'cuz it's true. I think there's definite credence to the notion that self-consciousness infects the purity of the creative process, or even the natural fluidity of relationships. I myself am certainly most poised, most zen, when my focus is entirely on an activity or another person. When self awareness creeps in, part of your attention naturally splits off, and then your focus/poise/creativity (whatever you want to call it) fragments, and your ability be a vessel for greatness is radically diminished.
I've mentioned photographer Christian Kettiger's great work beforehere.
Friday, 12 October 2012
“It's much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change and friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody.
...Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Because it's okay to feel things. I was really there. And that was enough...”
"A friend who dies, it's something of you who dies..." - Gustav Flaubert
Jenna Adams
I just lost a dear friend. And Flaubert's was the quote that most closely expressed how I feel. It seems unjust for his life to end so young, there's just no making sense of it. My heart hurts for his family. I still can't truly reconcile it - the idea that he's no longer physically here with us; that our wish for longer with him can't make it so.
He was warm, protective, smart, and really generous - with a hilariously dark sense of humour. He somehow managed to be silly and quietly dignified at the same time. Our friendship got off to an amusing start when we met at a party where (after a few drinks) I accidentally tried to introduce him to his sister. He was one of those rare souls with whom you could have fun while doing absolutely nothing. I felt understood by him, and it's very hard to accept that he is gone.
As soon as he told me his diagnosis (esophageal cancer), it seemed like I instantly knew his time was very short (because deep down he knew, I think), but it's still hard to believe it could happen this quickly. It was a beautiful sunny morning a week ago when the news came that he had died - the last day of summer, in fact. For a second the cheery weather seemed at odds with the knot of grief in my throat. But after I cried for a few minutes, I had the sensation that the weather was warm... like him. I had a little thought, like, "Maybe his spirit is in the sunbeams now?" and that seemed fitting.
His self-deprecating sense of humour was still present in his emails from the hospital at the beginning of summer when he first received his diagnosis - he said, "...as you can tell there is plenty of feeling sorry for myself, but the idea will be that if my time is limited to enjoy it as much as I can." And... "I'm not a maudlin person, but sometimes you have to let go. I just want you to know how important you've been to me, I've enjoyed every moment I've spent with you."
Those words of his are a gift, and I want to keep them in mind, and honour them moving forward.
And think happily of the memories...
So, I've been thinking... Platitudes like "everything happens for a reason" don't seem comforting, they seem vague and reductive and trite. I don't know if I'll ever see a reason for Steve to suffer and leave us so young. Instead, I prefer the matter-of-fact way that novelist Kurt Vonnegut describes the difficult things we mortals wrestle with. He doesn't try to explain the inexplicable, he simply says, "...And so it goes."(Slaughterhouse-Five) That feels more right to me. Sometimes being alive means hurting an awful lot, and there's just no pretty way of saying it.
But... my friend was brave. So I will try to be, too. Rather than be maudlin, I can try to think about the last lessons he leaves with me...
And I guess it's this: for all of us, our time is limited. We don't know what that limit is, but we do know our time on this Earthly playground is finite. I don't want to lose focus on what really matters - which is, in fact, very little. Our relationships with other people are important, and not a lot else. Not our egos, or our reputations, or our accomplishments. I want to try to do right by the people and situations that are entrusted to my temporary care, and to try to leave more of a positive trail than a negative one in my wake. When dealing with people, I will ask myself, as Suze Orman suggests, not only 'is it true?', but also 'is it kind?', and 'is it necessary?'
There's no making sense of his passing. But I can accept that a lot of things are out of my control, and moving forward, I will try to sweat them far, far less...
And of those things that are in my control, my goal will be simply to leave anything in at least as good a condition as I inherited it. To realize that whatever small gifts or talents I have are not mine, but mine to share.
Most of all, I want to savour the present moment and have more fun with it. I want to really suck the juice out of this lemon while I can - and then leave with no regrets.
Jenna Adams
I can aim for less anxiety and distraction and fear, and more curiosity and engagement and kindness. And I intend to keep laughing. A lot. Laughter is like a little portal to heaven, where my friend doesn't seem so far away.
On that note, this traditional Scottish & Irish folk song sung by Ed Sheeran feels like a suitable tribute... (An early version of the poem is sometimes attributed to Sir Alex Boswell.)
The Parting Glass
Of all the money that e'er I had I've spent it in good company And all the harm that e'er I've done Alas it was to none but me And all I've done for want of wit To memory now I can't recall So fill to me the parting glass Good night and joy be with you all
Of all the comrades that e'er I had They are sorry for my going away And all the sweethearts that e'er I had They would wish me one more day to stay But since it falls unto my lot That I should rise and you should not I'll gently rise and I'll softly call Good night and joy be with you all
A man may drink and not be drunk A man may fight and not be slain A man may court a pretty girl And perhaps be welcomed back again But since it has so ordered been By a time to rise and a time to fall Come fill to me the parting glass Goodnight and joy be with you all Goodnight and joy be with you all
Jenna Adams
Cheers to you, Steve. You were important to me too.
"What we have once enjoyed, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us." - Helen Keller
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
"About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm." -Kurt Vonnegut
Israel Shenker/New York Times Co./Getty Images
There's my man, Kurt Vonnegut, once again telling it just like it is...
“Look at that sea, girls--all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds.”
- L.M. Montgomery
via leroidesreines
Busted: whenever I'm caught staring out a window or blankly into space, I'm secretly daydreaming I'm in the picture above - sparkly-eyed out on the sparkly sea...
Lake Erie, Port Dover, Ontario, Canada Jenna Adams
Ever dream about escaping for the day? Whenever I daydream about a little escape, my thoughts always gravitate to the water. It calls to me.
Lake Erie, Port Stanley, Ontario, Canada Jenna Adams
Pacific Ocean, Oregon coastline, USA Jenna Adams
I feel a sense of serenity when I'm near the sea or a lake, that is unmatched by anything else.
Pacific Ocean, Point Arena, California, USA Jenna Adams
Lake Michigan, South Haven, Michigan, USA Jenna Adams
I'm a watery soul: it doesn't matter if I'm zipping in a motorboat with friends, lazily floating on a raft feeding ducks with a sweetheart, or just bobbing in the waves smelling the salt on my skin and feeling it twist through my hair...
...I get a sense of rejuvenation in my spirit... Just from looking at it.
Lake Ontario, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada Jenna Adams
Huddling around a campfire on the beach with buddies, talking and laughing and listening to the magnificent roar of the sea in the dark, is my idea of heaven.
Lake Michigan, South Haven, Michigan, USA Jenna Adams
Lake Okanagan, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
Lake Superior, Ashland, Wisconson, USA Jenna Adams
Scientists say that we're 2/3 water, so maybe this feeling I have is just nature calling to itself?
Sturgeon River, St. Albert, Alberta, Canada Jenna Adams
"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea." - Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
Pacific Ocean, Malibu, California, USA Jenna Adams
Water reflects the sky and the clouds and the moods of the weather. Like our souls, it absorbs and dissolves, it darkens, and refreshes.
Pacific Ocean, Gualala, California, USA Jenna Adams
It sparkles at one point and churns and crashes the next. It is both supremely flexible and unyielding. It's the universal solvent, simultaneously wielding the power to kill, and to provide the absolute essence of life.
Lake Michigan, South Haven, Michigan, USA Brad Ballantyne
“hark, now hear the sailors cry,
smell the sea, and feel the sky
let your soul & spirit fly, into the mystic...”
- Van Morrison
Atlantic Ocean, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada Jenna Adams
Forget slowly decomposing in the cold ground - when I die, just put me in a canoe, light it on fire, and push me out into the inky dark. I'll quickly dissolve back into the minerals that will one day make up someone else's tears.
Lake Michigan, South Haven, Michigan, USA Jenna Adams
