Sporadic neurotic awareness is what I’ve developed over the course of this semester. There was weightlessness (of a freefall) beset by a landing, though I believe the landing level has risen gradually and steadily. I am grateful for this, for every time I hit my head it hurts a little less…
I recognize (and so shall you) my inability to regiment my practices, for I consider myself practicing all the time (and playing all the time). Haphazard exploration with intention—it is a way of life until it isn’t, and such a day may come, and if it does, so it will be!
April 13
My sister is here, and she notices that I’m more at ease, that I’m not so much a different person in a crowd or among friends, I’m just her crazy baby brother who loves to dance and laugh and chit chat over cupcakes and coffee. I still pause mid-sentence, but I’ve always done that; a mind must intake after an extended exhale, and like my sister’s palpitating heartbeat my breaths go from pitter patter to gggonnnngggg.
We’re off to dance tonight, but first we’re going to grab a beer, and while we drink that beer we’re going to confide in each other how hard it is to keep up a meditation practice. I’ll tell her about my blind spots and my lackluster posture and she’ll complain about the noises of London and her recent break-in and her occasional breaches of a not very strict vegetarian diet. Oh, before the beer we will sit in Central Park and feel the rocks beneath our bottoms and set a timer for thirty minutes of soaking it—Central Park, the air, New York—in.
We’re off to dance tonight, but first we’re going to grab a beer, and while we drink that beer we’re going to confide in each other how hard it is to keep up a meditation practice. I’ll tell her about my blind spots and my lackluster posture and she’ll complain about the noises of London and her recent break-in and her occasional breaches of a not very strict vegetarian diet. Oh, before the beer we will sit in Central Park and feel the rocks beneath our bottoms and set a timer for thirty minutes of soaking it—Central Park, the air, New York—in.
April 17
I’m involved with the sun, I’m such a New Englander because when it’s out I’m everywhere and when it’s nowhere I’m compacted and heavy, it’s like my legs and my chest and my arms have all been stuffed up the nose to the back of the throat and into the brain. Meatloaf head: I’m a heavy mind today.
So I sought out an underused a spot on a floor in an NYU building and spread myself thin like fat-free gravy. Body-scan time—toes, feet, legs, chest, shoulders, lips, cheeks, forehead, and scalp—ok and go!
Thank God for New York City where lying on a public floor is no more a spectacle (though much less sanitary) than sipping water from a bubbler.
So I sought out an underused a spot on a floor in an NYU building and spread myself thin like fat-free gravy. Body-scan time—toes, feet, legs, chest, shoulders, lips, cheeks, forehead, and scalp—ok and go!
Thank God for New York City where lying on a public floor is no more a spectacle (though much less sanitary) than sipping water from a bubbler.
April 7
Tongue-stick-out-head-cocked-sideways-duck-footed-teetering epiphany! To be seen, tall, ugly, bent, soft, catching the light around my own emaciated shadow: raw sensations, like a tingling up and over, an opening down and out, like wafting into sprinkler mist on hot humid days...
Recall the reason for closing my eyes on the subway: to feel unwatched, to smile unabashedly. Now consider this walk a subway ride but with eyes wide open, smiling unconditionally (without bearing teeth -- I do believe that teeth, especially ones as big as mine, are actively threatening rather than passively inviting--) and notice the difference: the former, feigning unseenness; the latter, being seen detachedly.
I was on my way to a screening of I Am Love at the MoMA, and I meandered up Sixth Avenue as one among the crowd… For once outside of my own bedroom I didn’t put forth; I just took in. This, in the moment, was a culmination of my body practice: I love you obsessively and I don’t care a bit, see me through and through and don’t you dare look at me, we are completely inseparable and just one and one and an other.
I Am Love was genius, director Luca Guadagnino’s got a beautiful mind, and Tilda Swinton’s a goddess. Moving on, I approached Easter brunch with a newfound vigor to connect.
Recall the reason for closing my eyes on the subway: to feel unwatched, to smile unabashedly. Now consider this walk a subway ride but with eyes wide open, smiling unconditionally (without bearing teeth -- I do believe that teeth, especially ones as big as mine, are actively threatening rather than passively inviting--) and notice the difference: the former, feigning unseenness; the latter, being seen detachedly.
I was on my way to a screening of I Am Love at the MoMA, and I meandered up Sixth Avenue as one among the crowd… For once outside of my own bedroom I didn’t put forth; I just took in. This, in the moment, was a culmination of my body practice: I love you obsessively and I don’t care a bit, see me through and through and don’t you dare look at me, we are completely inseparable and just one and one and an other.
I Am Love was genius, director Luca Guadagnino’s got a beautiful mind, and Tilda Swinton’s a goddess. Moving on, I approached Easter brunch with a newfound vigor to connect.
April 3
Extreme shifts from one environment to the next emphasize the peculiarities of each, like a quiet walk home after a deafening night out, like Pommes Frites' greasy counter top and its surprisingly clean bathroom.
I felt my feet much more when I stopped dancing, relished the kind of too cold breeze, appreciated my own soberness among the hair-in-face regurgitators up-chucking the come-down.
I go out, I guess, to be alone... I appreciate the awareness that immediately follows a complete lack thereof.
I felt my feet much more when I stopped dancing, relished the kind of too cold breeze, appreciated my own soberness among the hair-in-face regurgitators up-chucking the come-down.
I go out, I guess, to be alone... I appreciate the awareness that immediately follows a complete lack thereof.
April 11
What happened the other day was bigger than big, it was a story for the sidewalks (if concrete could talk!) But, per usual, I wrote a bit without saying much at all, namely the facts of a day: that a walk was to be had, that a movie was seen, that Easter Brunch was deliciously indulgent.
I once swore off immediacy as a farse, but my life (my life!) has immediately changed. I must always remember this moment, for immediacy beckons impermanence…
Today for my practice I stripped down in the mirror and smiled smiled smiled ‘til I meant it.
I once swore off immediacy as a farse, but my life (my life!) has immediately changed. I must always remember this moment, for immediacy beckons impermanence…
Today for my practice I stripped down in the mirror and smiled smiled smiled ‘til I meant it.
March 26
I don’t know what to tell you: I’m not very good at writing about the during when I just want to relate the after. Like with meditation, it is in how it affects the rest of my day that meditation can be evaluated and endured, even if the practice of it is more often than not cacophonous and testing.
Suppleness of the body to ready me for tension, relaxation, endurance and reaction--let's keep stretching!
Suppleness of the body to ready me for tension, relaxation, endurance and reaction--let's keep stretching!
March 13
I think I’m getting sick again, so it hurts my head to go upside down. I wonder if it's a good kind of hurt or if the headache once it arrives won't go away. I will lie on my back and try to feel the earth move; maybe it'll help to synchronize the spin of my head to that of the world, on an axis of north to south so that at least something is tethered and constant.
March 22
The brewing of stove-top coffee requires attentive stillness: I cannot do anything but watch and wait, for even leaving the burner on ten seconds too long can bitter an entire brew, and that's coffee wasted, and that's extra time spent. Three minutes of coffee-meditation, it's like walking meditation except the movement is in keeping the eyes open; glazed-over blurry-eyes perceive patterns much more clearly and flames become wildly entertaining. I would never notice before how even the slightest breath can affect the most steadfast blue of a burning gas stove.
March 9
I used to hate running, now I’m fascinated by it; the subtle sensations of a body scan can be as impressive as the throbbing of a heart (,the panting of a breath,) but the two are completely different; even if one is blind to the tingling of circulation (at rest), a full-on sprint will force his disparate parts into dialogue, and he will feel painfully whole again.
Today I listened to my body, and it whispered RUN, so I sprinted at 9:55 PM from Houston and 1st Ave. to Panya Bakery at E. 9th street and 3rd ave to catch their half-off-baked-goods-special. They close at 10. I arrived in a whirlwind of sweat and clothes (my lungs caught the wind, it left my lungs in gales, a salty gust through Panya's sweet-smelling interior) and I felt radiant.
Today I listened to my body, and it whispered RUN, so I sprinted at 9:55 PM from Houston and 1st Ave. to Panya Bakery at E. 9th street and 3rd ave to catch their half-off-baked-goods-special. They close at 10. I arrived in a whirlwind of sweat and clothes (my lungs caught the wind, it left my lungs in gales, a salty gust through Panya's sweet-smelling interior) and I felt radiant.
March 3
I’ve developed a trick, I’ve come upon a personal-body-truth, that when I physically exert myself (ten pushups even) the pangs of hunger subside and my cells wheeze for water. Did I mention I’m always hungry and constantly must remind myself to hydrate?
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