May 14, 2023

Credo che ciò che può cambiare la vita esista sempre al di fuori di noi.

with cherry blossoms @ the brooklyn botanic garden

In Other Words/In Altre Parole
By Jhumpa Lahiri

Vorrei scrivere questo “review” en italiano. 

Temo di aver dimenticato quasi tutto quello che ho imparato quando studiavo l'italiano e abitavo in Italia ma l'unica cosa che posso fare è provare di nuovo— studiando, leggendo libri, ascoltando podcasts, guardando film, viaggiando in Italia, etcetera.

In Altre Parole è pieno di metafore che mi hanno colpito. Ciò che ha fatto Jhumpa Lahiri con sua vita e con questo libro è un esempio di coraggio forte che mi ispira. A volte mi sento triste, pensando a tutto il tempo che ho perso in questi anni—durante la pandemia particolarmente—ma poi, imparo di esperienze come la sua, e ricordo che non è troppo tardi per riscoprire me stesso e di fare tutto che desidero.

I would like to write this “review” in Italian. I fear I've forgotten almost everything I learned when studying Italian and living in Italy but the only thing I can do is try again—studying, reading books, listening to podcasts, watching movies, traveling in Italy, etcetera. In Altre Parole is full of metaphors that moved me. What Jhumpa Lahiri did with her life and with this book is an example of a willful courage that inspires me. Sometimes I feel sad, thinking about all the time I've lost over the years—particularly during the pandemic—but then, I learn from experiences like hers, and I remember it's not too late to rediscover myself and do everything I desire.

———

"Credo che ciò che può cambiare la vita esista sempre al di fuori di noi."
I believe that what can change our life is always outside of us.
(p. 42)

"Cosa significa una parola? E una vita? Mi pare, alla fine, la stessa cosa. Come una parola può avere tante dimensioni, tante sfumature, una tale complessità, così una persona, una vita. La lingua è lo specchio, la metafora principale. Perché in fondo il significato di una parola, così come quello di una persona, è qualcosa di smisurato, di ineffabile."
What does a word mean? And a life? In the end, it seems to me, the same thing. Just as a word can have many dimensions, many nuances, great complexity, so, too, can a person, a life. Language is the mirror, the principal metaphor. Because ultimately the meaning of a word, like that of a person, is boundless, ineffabile.
(p. 86)
(I read most of this book out loud to myself.)

"Perché mi interessa, da adulta, da scrittrice, questa nuova relazione con l'imperfezione? Cosa mi offre? Direi una chiarezza sbalorditiva, una consapevolezza più profonda di me stessa. L'imperfezione dà lo spunto all'invenzione, all'immaginazione, alla creatività. Stimola. Più mi sento imperfetta, più mi sento viva.
Why, as an adult, as a writer, am I interested in this new relationship with imperfection? What does it offer me? I would say a stunning clarity, a more profound self-awareness. Imperfection inspires invention, imagination, creativity. It stimulates. The more I feel imperfect, the more I feel alive.
(p.  112)

"Sono una scrittrice: mi identifico a fondo con la lingua, lavoro con essa. Eppure il muro mi tiene a distanza, mi separa. Il muro è qualcosa di inevitabile. Mi circonda ovonque vada, per cui mi chiedo se forse il muro non sia io.
Scrivo per rompere il muro, per esprimermi in modo puro. Quando scrivo non c'entra il mio aspetto, il mio nome. Vengo ascoltata senza essere vista, senza pregiudizi, senza filtro. Sono invisibile. Divento le mie parole, e le parole diventano me."
I'm a writer: I identify myself completely with language, I work with it. And yet the wall keeps me at a distance, separates me. The wall is inevitable. It surrounds me wherever I go, so that I wonder if perhaps the wall is me. I write in order to break down the wall, to express myself in a pure way. When I write, my appearance, my name have nothing to do with it. I am heard without being seen, without prejudices, without a filter. I am invisible. I become my words, and the words become me.
(p. 142)

On Italian, English and Bengalese in her life:
"Penso che questo triangolo sia una specie di cornice. E che questa cornice contenga il mio autoritratto. La cornice mi definisce, ma cosa contiene?
Per tutta la mia vita ho volute vedere, dentro la cornice, qualcosa di specifico. Volevo che dentro la cornice ci fosse uno specchio capace di riflettere un'immagine precisa, nitida. Volevo vedere una persona integra anziché frammentata. Ma questa persona non c'era. Per colpa della mia doppia identità vedevo solo oscillazione, distorsione, dissimulazione. Vedevo qualcosa di ibrido, di sfocato, di sempre confuso.
Penso che non poter vedere un'immagine specifica dentro la cornice sia il rovello della mia vita. L'assenza dell'immagine che cercavo mi pesa. Ho paura che lo specchio non rifletta altro che un vuoto, che non rifletta nulla.
Vengo da questo vuoto, da questa incertezza. Credo che il vuota sia la mia origine e anche il mio destino. Da questo vuoto, da tutta questa incertezza, viene l'impulso creativo. L'impulso di riempire la cornice."
I think that this triangle is a kind of frame. And that the frame contains my self-portrait. The frame defines me, but what does it contain? 
All my life I wanted to see, in the frame, something specific. I wanted a mirror to exist inside the frame that would reflect a precise, sharp image. I wanted to see a whole person, not a fragmented one. But that person wasn't there. Because of my double identity I saw only fluctuation, distortion, dissimulation. I saw something hybrid, out of focus, always jumbled.
I think that not being able to see a specific image in the fame is the torment of my life. The absence of the image I was seeking distresses me. I'm afraid that the mirror reflects only a void, that it reflects nothing. 
I come from that void, from that uncertainty. I think that the void is my origin and also my destiny. From that void, from all that uncertainty, comes the creative impulse.
The impulse to fill the frame.
(p. 157)

"Credo che il potere dell'arte sia il potere di svegliarci, di colpirci fino in fondo, di cambiarci. Cosa cerchiamo leggendo un romanzo, guardando un film, ascoltando un brano di musica? Cerchiamo qualcosa che ci sposti, di cui non eravamo consapevoli, prima. Vogliamo trasformaci, così come il capolavoro di Ovidio ha trasformato me."
I think that the power of art is the power to wake us up, strike us to our depths, change us. What are we searching for when we read a novel, see a film, listen to a piece of music? We are searching, through a work of art, for something that alters us, that we weren't aware of before. We want to transform ourselves, just as Ovid's masterwork transformed me.
(p. 170)

"Si protrebbe dire che il meccanismo metamorfico sia l'unico elemento della vita che non cambia mai. Il percorso di ogni individuo, di ogni Paese, di ogni epoca storica, dell'universo intero e tutto ciò che contiene, non è altro che una serie di mutamenti, a volte sottili, a volte profondi, senza i quali resteremmo fermi. I momenti di transizione, in cui qualcosa si tramuta, costituiscono la spina dorsale di tutti noi. Che siano una salvezza o una perdita, sono i momenti che tendiamo a ricordare. Danno un'ossatura alla nostra esistenza. Quasi tutto il resto è oblio."
One could say that the mechanism of metamorphosis is the only element of life that never changes. The journey of every individual, every country, every historical epoch, of the entire universe and all it contains, is nothing but a series of changes, at times subtle, at times deep, without which we would stand still. The moment of transition, in which something changes, constitute the backbone of all of us. Whether they are a salvation or a loss, they are moments we tend to remember. They give a structure to our existence. Almost all the rest is oblivion.
(p. 171)

"Credevo, quando ho cominciato a scrivere, che fosse più virtuoso parlare degli altri. Temevo che la materia autobiografica fosse di minor valore creativo, perfino una forma di pigrizia da parte mia. Temevo che fosse egocentrico raccontare le proprie esperienze. 
In questo libro io sono, per la prima volta, la protagonista. Non c'è nemmeno un pizzico di un altro. Appaio sulle pagine in prima persona, e parlo francamente di me stessa. Un po' come la serie di Nudi Blu di Matisse, figure femminili tagliate, raggruppate, mi sento spoglia in questo libro, appicciata ad una nuova lingua, disgregata."
When I began to write, I thought that it was more virtuous to talk about others. I was afraid that autobiographical material was of less creative value, even a form of laziness on my part. I was afraid that it was egocentric to relate one's own experiences. In this book I am the protagonist for the first time. There is not even a hint of another. I appear on the page in the first person, and speak frankly about myself. A little like Matisse's "Blue Nudes," groups of cutout, reassembled female figures, I feel naked in this book, pasted to a new language, disjointed.
(p. 214)

February 12, 2023

How much—how little—is within our power.

 

December 2022

Envelope Poems 
By Emily Dickinson

Picked this one up on a whim during a gift shop visit, a gift for me. I'm gravitating towards poems in the winter and letting the words blanket me with comfort. Emily's envelope poems also remind me of my post-it note poems,  and more recently, my aqua-note poems & scribblings, capturing all the musings that fall with the shower downpour.

In this short life 
that only lasts an hour
merely
How much — how little —
is within our power.

January 29, 2023

Recommendations for Repair

1/1/23

I asked Instagram for recommendationsstories, in any form, about repair. Suggestions could be very broad dealing with any and all kinds of reparations: in communities, structures, systems, relationships, self. Stories about broken dreams & changed patterns. Stories about items that have been repaired, healed or reconstructed in a dazzling or revelatory way. Stories about repairing a way of thinking, of being. Repair from an injury or an experience. Stories with levity and positivity. Stories about healing. 

My friends delivered. 
  • Finding Me by Viola Davis 
  • The Wreckage of My Presence by Casey Wilson 
  • The Old Place by Bobby Finger
  • Welcome Home by Najwa Zebian
  • One Night on the Island by Josie Silver
  • Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner 
  • Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey by Florence Williams
  • Intimations by Zadie Smith 
  • Atomic Habits by James Clear
  • Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
  • Happy to be Here Podcast by Vivian Nuñez
  • How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon 
  • You Made a Fool of Death with your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi 
  • Dream Out Loud: The Sneakerhead’s Path to Redemption by Rikki Mendias and Wendy Adamson
  • Mango & Peppercorns: A Memoir of Food, an Unlikely Family and the American Dream by Tung Nguyen, Katherine Manning and Lyn Nguyen
  • Pan de limón con semillas de amapola by Cristina Campos
  • Due sirene in un bicchiere by Federica Brunini
  • The Banshees of Inisherin
  • Spiderman: No Way Home
  • Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons
  • The Grand Budapest Hotel
  • Ecclesiastes, the Dao de Jing, and the Mandukya Upanishad (together)
My recommendation (and current read) -> Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May. 


January 15, 2023

She has been unearthed.




Beautiful Country
By Qian Julie Wang

As determined as I feel to read 50 new books this year, I keep thinking about the books I listened to and loved last year. I'd like to revisit them, this time as hard copies with a pencil in hand to underline all of my favorite sentences. 

"Beautiful Country" is one; "Olga Dies Dreaming" and "Ghosts" are two others.

I started "Beautiful Country," read by the author, just before my trip to Thailand last April and I took it with me. I listened to the final chapter on our road trip to the island of Koh Chang and got teary while identifying with the emotion of Qian reaching out to her younger self. Many of us still walk with our littler selves within hoping to be acknowledged and freed.

As waves of peace washed over me on Koh Chang, I could feel I was at a turning point. That everything would soon change. I felt confident I'd leave my job within the year but I didn't yet know how. I only knew what awaited me would allow my current self to unfurl and help younger me—bright, joyful, fearless—rise above the heavier parts I carry. More on that some other time, but for now, I am so thankful to Qian and the permission slip her words formed.

"From then on, the little girl makes her home in my shadows, even as I make the move back to New York City to work in a top law firm. I know she is there, watching as I play my assigned role in my gilded American Dream, living my empty Manhattan life full of all the food and clothes and things I could ever want. You cannot know that some things are not enough until you have them. 
At first, I act like she doesn't exist. I try to kick dirt over her in my mind again. But it is too late: she has been unearthed. 
It comes to me clearest in the first seconds of every morning. Upon opening my eyes, I forget who I am and how I've come to chase this life. And then I see her in the corner of my bedroom, still scared, still starving. I look past her and out the window, my mind roaming beyond the Hudson River and into Jersey City, through the door of the condominium unit where Ma Ma and Ba Ba now live, apparently free and safe, but really behind bars wrought from trauma. And then I slide forward in time and see myself many decades older, hair gray and skin loose, behind those same bars myself, the little girl still cowering next to me.
I repeat the judge's words. It has become a daily morning practice, but this time, after almost a year, I feel the lies slip away through the weave of my mantra. My muscles lose a tightness I did not know they have been carrying, and against the backdrop of my truths I am at long last free to admit: I am tired. I am so very tired of running and hiding, but I have done it for so long, I don't know how to stop. I don't know how to do anything else. It is all I am: defining myself against illegality while stitching it into my veins. The judge's words are my blanket nest, and in its snug embrace I rediscover a safety I knew once, long, long ago.
I turn back to the window and see for the first time the little girl cast aglow against the light of the waking sun. And then I try something new. I look that wise little girl in the eyes and reach my hand out for hers."(pp. 296-7)

January 01, 2023

On giving in to the enchanting promise and possibility of a new year.


photos by Carol Guerrero

I admit to giving in to the enchanting promise and possibility of a new year. Today, I will gift myself flowers.

On the day after my 33rd birthday, I did a photoshoot themed to "Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches," to commemorate reaching a period in my life I've been dreaming about for years. It wasn't a perfect experience but it still felt momentous. We ended, serendipitously, near Strawberry Fields.

I'm reflecting on another year of learning, growing, loving, hurting, messing up, excelling, of good and bad and big decisions. Appreciative for it all. I never pick a theme for the new year but I thought this time I might, and the first word that kept surfacing from my mind's depths was Repair. I didn't like it because it inherently indicates some brokenness and it doesn't sound sparkly or profound, but it is persistent and it's stuck. As it marinates, the more it feels a reflection of some thrilling deep work ahead and a fitting conduit to the expansive and exploratory 2023 I've been working towards. I am a little nervous, but also confident and hopeful. And ready as hell.

I didn't reach my goal of reading 25 books in 2022, but I doubled the goal for 2023 anyway. I think I can do it. And even if I don't, the win is that I'll be reading more robustly and intentionally this year. 

June 19, 2022

But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry.

 


Flare
By Mary Oliver

Today's a hard day for me but instead of succumb to too much sorrow, I intend to spend the day outdoors. I know Mary Oliver would approve and—speaking of—there's a poem I encountered earlier this year, while making my way through Devotions, that stunned me. A new one I'd never read before that I immediately felt in my bones.

Full read in its whole perfect splendor, here

And it starts with, "Welcome to the silly, comforting poem."

"5.
My mother was the blue wisteria,
my mother
was the mossy stream out being the house,
my mother, alas, alas,
did not always love her life,
heavier than iron it was
as she carried it in her arms, from room to room,
oh, unforgettable!

I bury her 
in a box
in the earth
and turn away.
My father
was a demon of frustrated dreams,
was a breaker of trust, 
was a poor, thin boy with bad luck.
He followed God, there being no one else 
he could talk to;
he swaggered before God, there being no one else
who would listen.
Listen,
this was his life.
I bury it in the earth.
I sweep the closets.
I leave the house.

6.
I mention them now, 
I will not mention them again.

It is not lack of love
nor lack of sorrow.
But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry.

I give them—one, two, three, four—the kiss of courtesy,
of sweet thanks,
of anger, of good luck in the deep earth.
May they sleep well. May they soften.

But I will not give them the kiss of complicity.
I will not give them the responsibility for my life.

7.
Did you know that the ant has a tongue
with which to gather in all that it can
of sweetness?
Did you know that?

8.
The poem is not the world.
It isn't even the first page of the world.
But the poem wants to flower, like a flower.
It knows that much.

It wants to open itself,
like the door of a little temple,
so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,
and less yourself than part of everything."

And towards the end,

"A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of the world
and the responsibilities of your life.

Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.

In the glare of your mind, be modest.
And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling."

June 12, 2022

This year, was I competent? Did I referee my whims or elaborate on them? Did I express gratitude? Feel the potency of night?

 




Too Much and Not the Mood
By Durga Chew-Bose


"What new habits did I develop to cut myself off from the world? When will I learn that those habits are, it's possible, delimiting me from innocuous connections. Someone to sit next to on a couch too small, flipping the pages of a book too big, where the pages graze my sweater's stomach, and I can't pin why, but the whole small-big ratio of pages grazing my sweater creates an impression of secrecy.
Someone to wish well before his trip to Tokyo; to call when I can't sleep. To share a bowl of blanched almonds with, sitting on stools—small again too—that force my knees to bend at right angles, which feels somehow athletic. Which is, by nature, suggestive. 
Someone to provoke me; to watch Game 7 with; to accompany to a gallery where I don't care for the art , but oh, how I love being in the vicinity of someone I confide in daily, whose posture is indistinguishable, even under the lumpy mass of her winter coat, her scarf, the infantilizing fit of her boots. When will I learn? Nobody knows you're thinking of him, of her, of our walk along the Thames, eight years ago I think it was, after seeing Peter Doig's white canoe at the Tate, unless you call or write and say so."
(p. 76)

"This year, was I competent? Did I referee my whims or elaborate on them? Did I express gratitude? Feel the potency of night? Accept an offer to stay over without reciting the many excuses I use to screen my doubts?"
(pp. 76-7)

oof so much to relate to & unpack here.
"I was, back then, a decade or so away from clocking my brownness, from taking notice of its veiled prominence in my life. I wasn't so much blind to it, but uninvolved in it. Emotionless about it. I was a brown daughter too inclined by whiteness to appreciate that being a daughter extends beyond the home. That it's a furtherance. That my parents were handsome, strong, willing. Adaptable. Selfless. Brilliant. Beautiful. I was too busy troubling myself with what I thought was pretty.
So I cloistered my brownness. I wasn't yet ready to scrutinize my weird, even toxic, relationship to the exclusionary appeal of these older white girls. To their ubiquity. To their immunity. I was coaxed by my stewed and crummy and, invisible to me, feeling of inferiority. In turn, I praised these girls for the faintest reasons."
(pp. 102-3)

"I am sick for those years when I was paying attention without purpose. When I was arranging stories free of import, and when my imagination could draw courage instead of warrant that I stay in."
(p. 122)