that I take a morning for myself, to think and contemplate all inside my head, to compose some poetry or prose or some superfluously necessary thing. It is rare that I allow myself a few moments away, these days, to catch my breath.
I don't always know what day it is, so when I don't I make a guess. I was off by 4 days. I know some people that would really get upset by being this wrong. But it's just a number, a label, a day. Who really knows what day it actually is, and does it really matter at all? Sometimes it's nice to be so concretely wrong.
I slave another day on my research. I hope, dearly, that this won't all be in vain.
When my alarm went off this morning, and I realized it was raining, I let myself sleep in and skip my shower, knowing I'd be drenched within seconds anyway on my bike ride.
and I was.
And it was delightful. Although I later realized that becoming drenched in rain is not exactly like showering unless you are nearly naked. If you are covered in clothes, its just semi-sloshy. Biking in the rain (really, anything in the rain) is so much better than when it is dry. My gears all ran smoothly, my bike glided, even flew across the pavement and I was buoyed to the train on a hydroplane of water and slick oil. The trail in the north is blooming with all sorts of wonderful green things that make my eyes itch and nose twitch, but still I breathed deep the pure air of the country and thought, wow, I haven't really breathed in quite some time.
. . .
.
....i can't stop kissing this one's ears.....
.
I am fighting the urge to run right now. Fast, and with abandon. Run with my hair down, like the mane of a horse. Barefoot. Through grass.
The sound of rain, too. Like the sky going HUSHhhhhhhhh SHUSHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhh SSSSSSssss and the POURrrrrrrrr and GRrrrrRumble of thunder.
Today, on the train, I had so many interesting thoughts. Even though my actions are mundane, and my job at times unfulfilling, my mind is jumping into waterfalls, and gazing up at tall tall trees and my feet scrambling across a forest floor, my fingers feeling twigs and scratchy things.
I purposely hit every puddle at full speed to and from work today, on my bike.
Now I sit at my desk in my room, and devote the rest of my night to finishing up my storyboards for my research. My window is open and the cars hiss when they drive by. A mother just beat the crap out of her young son on the sidewalk and yelled at him when he cried. A helicopter is buzzing overhead and people are shouting at yellow cabs weaving through the streets....
... I love the city, every last bit. But it won't be long until I leave.
1. He was amazing, took his time to explain everything once he found out I was all about medical art and procedures. 2. Had a sign in his office that said "just be nice"
This is one of my figure class drawings. Sometimes it is so easy to forget that art makes me happy, so much happier than so many things, makes me feel complete, and settles my mind. It's easy to forget, with so many other stresses, so many other people telling me I can't do it, that it will never happen. That I will never be... _______.
So many dissenters!
just be nice.
I will make it my personal goal this week to encourage, everyone I cross paths with, to do their deepest desire, to accomplish their utmost goal. If someone has a vision, why not encourage them, no matter how unreal it is? You never know where that vision may lead. Also, you never know what they are capable of. I know I perform better under encouragement, and many times surprise myself, just because someone encouraged me.
Also, I know the dangers and risks of dreaming big and falling short, or realizing that what I thought I wanted I never really did want after all... well, at least not more than something else. Talking about wanting to be a doctor, and realizing I love art more than any desire to be a doctor. Deciding these things- to pursue medicine, then art, was easy; the follow-through is wicked hard. The deep pain of letting go of one dream... even if for another... that is something I am glad I experienced. I am glad I tried, and glad I, in essence, failed. That is something that shouldn't be denied anyone.
What about this, what if we all encouraged each other, what more could humanity be capable of? I have a feeling it would be a lot more than we know.
It is hot in Chicago. I love it, the sun that burns to my core.
I just deleted a huge long rant about politicians not thinking before they act or speak, and while it angers me, I don't really want to add to the anger and criticism surrounding the topic, so I'll just let it go. However, the Bachelorette episode tonight will not get away so easily. I mean, come on. Humans can be so mean to each other. How did we get in such a place that we'd break someone's heart for an opportunity to promote yourself? How small can you get?
Blah.
Feeling negative towards humanity today. Sometimes it's just too much.
I read recently that our brains are not wired for multi-tasking. We just cannot handle it.
I am the QUEEN of multi-tasking. When I cook, I usually cook the dessert, dinner, and a side dish all at once. Fast paced. I can't handle interruptions, and I fly around the kitchen, using my whole body- my feet to close a cupboard, one hand to reach one way to grab a bowl while the other adjusts the oven temperature. I have at least 5 browser windows open at all times whenever I'm on the internet. If I gchat, it's with at least 3 people at once. I have 8 scrabble games going on right now. My activities- all varied, from dance to volleyball to French to ceramics. A million things, all at once, all at a whirl.
Today I tried desperately. to. stop. One thing at a time, I kept reminding myself. I am listening to my body, and turning in early on a Friday night, despite an uncommon number of invitations to go out (my friend just called to say Matt Damon was sitting across from her at a sushi place!) tonight. But no, I must sleep. My body needs rest. One thing at a time.
Patience.
Confidence.
It requires confidence in my decisions to decide to do one thing only. Patience to see it through to the end. Multitasking is easy. This, is not. The fear of missing out is strong when you do one thing at a time. And, to be honest, I am missing out right now. At this very moment. On several things. But with my attention constantly split, I will never be more than mediocre. And mediocre is frustratingly less than my full potential.
So, enough. No more multitasking. I am going to saunter. To pedal leisurely. To embrace experiences, wholly. To learn, deeply. To give someone my complete undivided, rested, focused attention, instead of fractions of myself.
I strongly suspect that given half a chance, even a quarter of a chance, I could adapt to living completely outside. Provided there were hot springs. Because there is nothing like a hot bath. I love the outdoors. Wholly.
A few things from my sleep-deprived red- eye flighted- body before I drift to sleep for 10 hours and forget...
I hope I always will put personal comfort aside for adventure.
I hope that no matter how long it takes, I will stop fearing and start jumping.
I don't want to forget the sound of a thousand bees humming into their flowers or the sound of the absence of cars. I never want to forget the vista of the ocean and mountains from a mountaintop, or the splash of freezing cold water from a tall rainbowy waterfall at my back.
I never want to forget the stars, splattered across the inky heavens with perfectly placed aplomb.
I want the memories of the past four days to soak into my core and reside there, to create a deep, rich mulch for my soul.
There is no healing like being surrounded by friends, old friends, friends who laugh and laugh and laugh with you...
and dance with you, and hike with you, and get lost with you, and drink with you, and eat with you, and ask ridiculous questions and pose impossible ideas with you, who clothe and feed and love you.
1. I could not be more excited to go to LA tomorrow even though I am finding it extremely difficult to pack everything into my purse.
2. I have bike muscles. I realized today it does not hurt my legs anymore to bike, no matter how fast I go. And I go fast, and steer with my legs and hips. The only thing that slows me down is my bike and my breath. whoo! 3 full months of biking 40 min each day. That's all it took...
3. I signed up for a Warrior Race with a friend this weekend. It's 3 miles long, in September. Should be fun. When I get back from LA, triathlon training starts, and I mean it this time. Although I won't have the comfort of a gym anymore... sad. I suspended my account for the summer. It was spoiling me anyway. Time to toughen up! I can't believe I trained for last year's tri all through the winter outside...
4. Two other things are starting in June- beach volleyball and swing dance classes. And continuing with ballet. I'm excited. Really wish I worked in the city, though. oh well.
5. This is all about me and not enough about you, so what exercising activities are you looking forward to this summer?
So.... may I just publicly confess here (which maybe isn't so public) my love for Imogen Heap?
Last year her song "Wait it Out" really got to me- as she dared to sing about that space in time between the life-altering event and the time when you heal from it. That space in time that everyone tries to forget that you actually need to live through and it seems like everyone but you forgets that something happened, and you are left, inevitably, to deal with the wretched hollow.
Everybody says time heals everything but what of the wretched hollow? The endless in between are we just going to wait it out?
And then today on my bike commute I was sick of all my playlists, so I decided to listen to all my songs alphabetically and started with my favorite letter, the letter H (for obvious reasons) (I embrace my narcissism), and her song Half-Life was first on, a song that I hadn't really listened to before, but with just me and the bike, I actually listened to it for the first time.
Got a schedule to stick to. Got a world to keep sweet. It's so much to everyone all the time. Will you ever slow down? Will I ever come first? The universe contracts to sigh...
It's a half life, With you as my quarterback. A daft life.
Oh, Imogen.
ps. I mean, who can write a whole song with a metaphor of carbon dating? dating!?! augh! brilliant. I am inspired to create.
pps. is it just me or do all the bachelors on the Bachelorette look the same?
pss. TWO DAYS until SHEN, TOM, KIM AND MATT time!!! and the start of my lustrous Hollywood career.
ppsss. Did you hear that guy on the Bachelorette say he wasn't that attracted to her? ugh. man baby.
pppsss. Also I love that butcher from Jersey. And why are all these guys crussshhhhed when they are let go? They just met the chica. ugh. man babies.
Sometimes, the lake looks like the Caribbean. Today I laid in the sand and watched the clouds with a good friend for about an hour. It's just good to sit, sometimes, and observe one thing until I am saturated with it, and know it well, so well, that it seems like I can predict it's next color or movement.
Sometimes this saturation is needed more than anything else, and at that moment in time, all that I need, all I demand of myself, is to simply exist.
1. I no longer have this unquenchable desire to create things, and while I have a mental list of paintings, sculptures, jewelry, and drawings I want to do, I no longer get longings to do them. This concerns me.
3. Today was such a crabby day, I wouldn't be surprised if crabs followed me around all day long. Or I left a trail of crabs everywhere I went. Also, all day long I have been imagining amusing things like crabs following me around or a slip n' slide in our office parking lot. The crabbiness is due to my achingly painful lack of sleep. I wish, I really do, that I could live on 6 hours of sleep.
4. How do you stay creatively fresh while working full-time in a semi-creative position? Any suggestions would be helpful, I'm worried about this lull...
This is the song that made me want to learn French (last October):
Such a sexy language!
Je m'appelle Heidi, et tois? That is as far as I've gotten so far listening to it for 20-40 min a day on my bike rides, and maybe once or twice at work. I listen to the same lesson until I've absorbed most of it and then I move on. Once and awhile I'll go back and listen to a previous lesson and learn something I didn't pick up on before. More than once I've been surprised by another biker coming up behind me when I'm concentrating on the perfect pronunciation out loud. I am officially that crazy French biker.
I put my gym membership on hold for three months beginning June first so I'm trying to go there every day until June, if nothing else than to use the hot tub. SO relaxing. I can run outside now and soon I'll be able to swim in the lake, plus beach volleyball is starting and I'm really starting to get into ballet seriously again, and swing classes will be starting up too. Plus, I never really used the gym...
Sometimes I wish it would snow, just once, and it can even be gone the next day and back up to 80 degrees. Winter is so scrumptious.
I am buckling down on my research- making strides, about to make great strides. I had some great ideas and breakthroughs this week about possible stories to incorporate, and I can't wait to storyboard them out. Even though my fingers itch to start drawing, I am forcing myself to think through the entire scenario before I start storyboarding in order to better organize my vision. Patience!
Models are coming through from China at work- the models I made last year should be ready for production in a month or two. Exciting times! I can't wait to get the first painted prototype from China. In the meantime, we are brainstorming and throwing out a million ideas, and I got the go-ahead on all of my latest ideas, which is good and bad in a way. So I'm starting to sculpt this week and it's so good to be back sculpting, as much as I do love concepting. I was starting to get burned out thinking up of idea after idea.
Words with Friends is killing me. I am losing almost all my games.
A man just got out of his van outside my window and he can only be described as gesticulating wildly. I think he's on the phone.
10 days exactly to a vacation in LA!! Can't wait to see some of my favorite people on this earth. And start my modeling/acting career. (ha ha ha). I think it's about time for a little levity in my life, yes?
Somehow I feel like I should have numbered this post into a list. Oh well. Take it for what it is- a stream of conscious outpouring!! Oh heavens, and it is long, too.
Days like these the lake is every color in the rainbow and if you squint a bit you can imagine you are on some tropical island and the lake is an ocean. The lake isn't always so colorful- in winter mostly, it is all whites and beige and pristine grays. It is always surprising, always in motion, always changing. I sometimes feel bad for the people that only see it in the "good" weather. It is beautiful in every bit of weather, at every time of day.
When I pause on my runs and gasp deep for air to gaze at the lake a smile always spreads across my face. I hold back laughter, from the sheer joy of moving, running, leaping, throwing my mind into the blue expanse and watching the waves bring it back. I sometimes wonder if I look like a fool, laughing and grinning wildly as I run, passing all city people as fast as my legs will allow. I wonder, but I don't really care.
I imagine if I run fast enough with my head lifted towards the blue that maybe I will rise a bit off the ground and if I leap I will start to fly into the expanse of air and water, into the horizon, that line that blurs the longer and harder you look at it, for it.
That ever elusive horizon.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...
And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
One of the things I like about myself is my sieve-like memory. My sister is constantly reminding me of us growing up- telling me all these stories that I have no recollection of. I remember what I want, but am great at forgetting whatever I no longer wish to remember. Because of this poor memory, I don't really carry grudges- I've never really been mad at someone for very long. I just can't remember all the reasons why I was mad at them... although I do learn lessons. I've learned it is impossible to remain friends with everyone, and sometimes it is not in my best interest to remain friends. Part of my reason for writing this blog is so that I remember things that I want to remember. And what follows is something I never want to forget.
If you can't tell from my vague words in previous posts, a relationship in my life recently ended. This has never really happened to me before, and I was kind of intrigued to see how long it would take me to "get over" it and "move on." Well, I've got to tell you, it didn't take long.
I had one moment a while back where some young hipster boys on the train were talking about their band, and how they should set up their speakers, and wondering if they should wear capes, of all things, and it was hilarious and exactly the sort of thing I would have texted him, but then I realized... I had at least 5 other friends that I could text at that exact same moment and they would have enjoyed the story just as much. And then I realized, I was over him. I didn't need him. But then, you see, I never did.
So while my memory may and probably will completely forget him one day maybe 20 years from now, I will take my lessons, and cling to them dearly and use them wisely. And if he should bob to the surface of my thoughts or memories, I will simply look at him as a curiosity, and remember a relationship when I should have spoken sooner than I did, and then let it, and him, drift away... and whisper quietly to myself... never mind.
I stole a garlic chive plant from my parent's house this weekend. As I was walking home from the train station this afternoon, I named it Howard. We used to have chives growing in our garden growing up, and we would always pluck some off and eat them fresh while we were playing. Chives are my go-to herb. I know chives. Caraway? Rosemary? Sorrel? Not so much.
I'm thinking about making this blog a little more than a half-assed effort to organize my thoughts. This may include: new layout, more streamlined and grammatically correct writing, less wandering blathering posts like the last one. Maybe more lists.
Highlights from the weekend:
1. Seeing my cousin (my career-woman non-baby loving cousin) ridiculously pregnant. 2. Hanging out with my grandma, which always means sarcasm to the max. 3. Annoying my parents by only speaking French all morning. (I know maybe 7 words) 4. Eating a delicious dinner at my brother's house and spending time with my in-law's colorful and fun family last night. Picking my sister-in-law's sister's brain about Portland, where she lives, and sounds like a great city, except they don't get much snow... 5. Laying in the grass at my parent's house and letting the sun filter through my skin to my muscles, and the smell of the grass filter through my nose to my mouth, and birdsong filter through my ears to my brain, and feeling, for the first time in a long time, complete peace. 6. Wearing dresses all weekend. I love layering, but wearing just a dress and a cardigan and letting my legs go free of tights is such a joy. 7. Getting to take the Amtrak home, the most luxurious public transportation out of Chicago hands down.
I really don't like pictures of flowers, I think they are just too static to be enjoyable, but I love the color of this one so much...
Photo from Milwaukee Art Museum- can't remember the artist but look at that care in sculpting that back! Quite perfect, I hope some day to sculpt like that!!
My brother sent me this video today...
I have a tendency to pick things up, throw myself into them, and then let it fade away. Are any of you like that? Do you know what I mean? Perhaps the best example of this are my iPhone app obsessions- when I first got my phone I couldn't put down Angry Birds, then I got addicted to Plants vs Zombies (beat it twice), then TapZoo (didn't last long) then Pocket Frogs (completely pointless), then Cut the Rope, then Trade Nations, and now Words with Friends (I will win. I must win.). I got my phone in October of last year. I play these games incessantly for awhile (indeterminate) and then, get bored with them, and stop completely. Is this normal?
I think realizing this has helped me see that I do this in nearly every other area of my life as well. I've started learning guitar I can't remember how many times, I tried Russian for awhile, and flute, piano, triathlons, sculpture, painting, yoga, pilates, tried surfing, jewelry making, kayaking, track, gotten into history, medicine, ballet, religion, the classics, reading, programming, and now French. (again). Some things last for years. Some things last for days. Some things I come back to on and off. I am an expert of none of these things, but enjoy them all, still.
I'm trying to change that... for whatever reason. I enjoy picking up new things and getting a taste of them and then picking up another new thing- it's the newness that is appealing. And sure, I would like to dedicate all the time in the world to each skill, but it's just not realistic. I also like to do 1.2 million things at once. Multi-tasking? yes, please. In fact, it's the only way I operate. I don't prioritize. I like to try it all, at once. Bring it! More of it! I cannot be appeased!
But this leaves me frustrated that I don't improve at anything, frustrated that I have no time for anything, and frustrated that I have so many hobbies and so few skillz. I love to learn. But the discipline to sit and master something...
Ah well. This is who I am. I'm learning French now on the train and on my bike rides to work in Lake Bluff, where I can repeat adieu and bonjour and ca va tres bien, merci. Et toi? to myself outloud in a ridiculous French accent and no one is around to hear except for the squirrels and birds. I love it. I love learning a new language (again). I want, desperately, to master it. Will I? I hope so. I start every new thing that I learn with the naive hope that I will become an expert, that I will become a famous (or, at least, proficient) singer/songwriter/guitarplayer/artist/history buff/doctor/kayaker/ballerina/triathloner/etc, self-taught, in a few short weeks/months/years. I sincerely believe that I will be fluent(ish) in French by the time I'm 30 (1.5 years away). Otherwise, I wouldn't start at all.
Even though I realize, odds are, I won't ever get past a few words in French. I still try. I still throw myself into it, even if for a short while. I just can't live my life holding back, believing I will never master whatever I decide to start. Believing this relationship won't work out. Believing the next relationship won't work out. Believing I will never dominate at anything, or never grow past all my faults, never finish my research, or never read all of Tolstoy's works some day. I have the highest expectations for life, for everything, for everyone.
I just simply can't help it. I am brimming with hope (right now).
I think this applies somewhat to this post (although I didn't talk much about my overwhelming need to create things, along with learning things- although I feel the same about learning as I do about creating) and so I leave you with one of my favorite quotes:
"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating." Pearl S. Buck
