Write on a Full Stomach

This was my summer of loss. It seems that I could not escape it. Loss was everywhere. I found some peace by immersing myself in dance. It was time to figure out what the difference between the meringue and salsa is, how to make a Western two-step look believable, and finally how to make the Bhangra your friend. I learned some tough lessons, like the fact that I am not nearly jaunty enough for swing, nor am I as enthralled with tango as I once thought (after one too many close embrace tangos.)I was relieved to realize that I have been dancing something closely resembling the meringue quite naturally since the age of five. To me it was a nameless hip sway that would just seem to seep out of my child frame and later it would prove to be a wondrous gift that would let me slip into tribal dance lines around the world without much of an effort.

In this summer of loss, I also had to face the fact that far too many other facets of my personality had been lost in an entirely different kind of shuffle. I had lost quite a bit of myself in the ever present pressures to be too much of a teammate, or more specifically, a support system for others. So what to do? I holed myself up and put myself in a self imposed quarantine of sorts. A lock down that would help me to remember the self that ended up on the bench somewhere along the way. Many got mad at me for looking after myself, as they had grown very accustomed to not being supportive when I very much needed someone not to crinkle their nose when I discovered something I loved or may have been good at. I didn't hear anyone say "good for you," well, except for me. I said "good for me" sometimes when I let myself focus on what my lost dreams are. I had surrounded myself with cutthroat competitors that had given up on their dreams, so they were not too happy to learn of my return to mine. What can I say, it happens to us all at times.

I could blame NYC, my food allergies or the struggle to live your artistic dreams that may be overwhelming at times. It could be the fact that I weaned myself off coffee, soy, wheat and dairy in a knockdown drag out battle to figure out what I should be eating. I could blame my shyness, the %$^%ing Starbucks monkey that was very hard to shake, maybe the excessive number of over 100 degree days in this NYC summer, or possibly blame myself for not being a better judge of character, or simply the fact that I see so much potential in others that I overlook the shortcomings that they possess. But then again, I could just blame no one and nothing and move along with things, and so I have.

The hard thing is really focusing on your dreams when you haven't really been able to fully explore that option in sometime, if ever. Coming to New York put me in a survivalist mode, but it appears that I have become too adept at handling crisis and as a result I have selected jobs and relationships that all involved crisis management of some kind. I have developed the bad habit of helping others too much, and if I step back and really take a good look, I don't find many others offering the same reliable nurturing advice. So what is the result? The well runs dry, and instead of waiting for rain, you must build a new well.

Today's wet,cool weather brings out my creative spirit and the urge to cook has returned (as expected) along with the urge to write. Food and creativity are one for me. As I write tonight, I munch down a steamy bowl of vegan coconut curry using every color vegetable in the farmer's market. From yellow wax beans, to purple eggplant, red peppers and green and orange heirloom tomatoes. It was so rich and tempting that I let the eggplant overcook and become a rich stew and forgot all about cooking the rice, just eating the buttery curry like porridge.

So, it is with a very full belly that I write tonight, just before hoping off to the market-yes shopping after 8 on a Sunday in NYC- to complete my gluten free peach mystery desert. I feel rested, nourished and calmed by the weekend of creativity and reflection. I have made the time to upload two submissions for a video festival, revisited some chapters in Jackie Battenfield's, The Artist's Guide, edited some videos that I can now see in a new light, added a few of my murals to my website (while reminding myself that I am a muralist) and redesigned/ordered some new business cards (reflecting the fact that I remembered that I am a muralist.) Overall, a very grounding weekend of creativity that will prepare me for yet another week on a Federal Grand Jury and so much more...

What do we do with what we have learned?

Upon a recent viewing of The Peabody Museum’s Oceanic collection, it struck me that I need to do something more with the knowledge that I have gained. As I peered into case after case, I realized that I could make many of those artifacts myself. Mine would be less refined than a master's work, but I know the essence of the making, learned and lived in the boats, beaches and jungles of many places. After spending fifteen years in and out of isolated island villages, I have acquired a layman's knowledge in the making of artifacts. From mat weaving, tapa pounding, harpoon carving, costume creation, seed work, feather work, pottery, fish hook carving…the list goes on and on. But here I sit upon the fair isle of Manhattan wearing the most unlikely face for the keeper of traditional knowledge.

Something about my nature allowed me into the lineage. I appear completely harmless, I am fearless, athletic, and in their eyes, completely lost. So I become adopted quite readily, and then promptly put to work. My pied piper personality type keeps me in good company in all times, and my young consorts allow me to add amateur linguist to my skill set. I can say niceties to appease all of the tribal elders just in case they stopped by to check on my fern frond costume.

Not only am I a ready gatherer, but I have also been known to display remarkable hunting tendencies. In the past I have displayed underwater harpooning skills, the ability to make a woven grass harness for carrying land crabs back to the village (so they are unable to break your fingers) I can bring a rock fish up a 350ft cliff face without teenage seagulls getting it, I can hold a stone to my chest and plunge to the bottom of the sea to collect clams- without busting my lungs-and so many more useful skills. But what do I do with this knowledge here?

As artists our lives and our work are so intertwined. But right now I feel like there is a great rift between my daily life here in New York and the knowledge filled, more traditional life that I naturally return to when I get away from this place. Artists are not always known for their adventuring ways. Society views artists as urban dwellers, subway riders, cafe sitters. I even know one New York artist who proudly backs this social view by claiming that he will not travel to any place where you cannot buy a proper cappuccino. During my transit to the museum, my seat mate turned to me and said, “so you made it all the way to Boston all by yourself?” Knowing that he had already learned that I was travelling from New York, I decided to let that one go. I made really big eyes and blinked them twice before responding, “I sure did” as I quietly began carving a harpoon.

Seven Days

1

I spent my hours below Mercury's winged feet,

where champagne and blue blood flow from

the veins of Statuario Venatato,

cut and faced to see its own image like Narcissus at the pool.

Wing tipped collars flutter like doves in a Charleston stolen from the time when Robber Barron's autographed the stairswith a monogram rather than ink on the page,

to prove that they owned everything including the letter.

2

An Ecuadorian shoe shine in the heart of Hell's Kitchen

in high chairs with old boys now taller with a woman in their midst.

Catching their hair cuts and coffees between trains.

I later polish crystal for their flock on terraces high above Fifth.

while the sun sinks deep into the Hudson;

their inner fires stoked with Red Label.

They speak of paperless offices while clutching cocktail napkins like butterflies in their fists.

They return as Pale Male to their mate in waiting,

talons clutching Chardonnay rather than sticks.

3

Under fire beneath Magnolia's blush falling

in courtyards where lawyers in training study laptops

while I learn the sky.

Filing past slipping on nature,

leaving tread marks in petal flesh.

I shop for genres on a park bench dressed in

shirt sleeves and tie.

My prose is too formless for a poem,

To rambling for essay, reminding me of

a onetime professor with the crisis of mid-life

taking students as suitors and pen as witness to shame.

4

Spring announces itself in midtown at midday.

Women wave Victoria's secret bags as flags of surrender

to men who tip hardhats like stagecoach dandies.

A chandelier waiting curbside in a Rubbermaid tub,

lying as a victim to spring cleaning.

Bronze arms reaching through rainbows of its own creation.

5

The waiter trades uniform from black

to royal blue to desert camouflage

because he got the call that officers are needed in the desert.

War pays better than pouring Cosmos for office girls.

He says he's got nothing to loose.

By day his battle is for custody in courtrooms

where he walks the line of contempt.

I think of a country so proud of it's neutrality,

but whose soldiers shoot wives when they turn to go.

6

Bartenders speak of The Towers like a wound

that bleeds upon the glassware.

Pushing hi balls into order in hopes that they will

cover the hole in the sky.

The Albanian is blinded to beauty

even though it surrounds him.

Like leaning into poems, too close to decipher

when your eyes blur words into one.

So he leaves to go hunting without checking

to find that his net was already full.

7

My Booker is asking if I need assistance

with the situation that I left behind.

His mentioned connections to friends

who know how to handle these things.

I skate to the Pope but instead join the Tibetans

in hopes that that He would understand.

I am passed by a nun on a Schwinn who flies

like an angel through the helicopters of Riverside Park.