wanted: savory characters

I love public transport! I really really do!  Not only is it convenient and a great way to contribute to a cleaner environment, but it also affords the opportunity to encounter savory characters.  And I think savory is a perfect way to describe the offbeat, the colorful, the unconventional, the peculiar, don’t you?  Savory = flavorful, interesting.

My favorite time of day to take the subway or ride the bus is at night or in the early hours of morning.  That’s when the really interesting people come out. During my usual transit time, I tend to see a homogenous mass, a sea of sullen faces, a train full of zombies.  This is Bob.  Bob hates his job.  It shows. Still, every morning and each evening, I try to find that one interesting person in the car, the one that makes the ride worthwhile, the one that has a story written on his face, in the slump of her shoulders, in the lines on his hands, in the Lays bag of chips that she eats every night at 5pm.

And every so often, sure enough, someone stands out in the crowd and catches my attention.  I sneak peeks at them, I scan them with my peripheral vision, I wonder about them and create stories in my head.  At times like that, I wish I was 4 years old again, before we were told it’s not polite to stare and it’s not safe to talk to strangers. Because that little girl? That four year old in me?  She would probably point and ask what that scar is on his cheek and what’s in his briefcase and does he like toast with peanut butter and bananas?  But we’re all in our adult bubbles and though some are thin and transparent like dish soap suds, others are made of impenetrable titanium alloy.

And then, the other morning…

She wore a coat two sizes too big and a soupçon of bench hair.  He wore a flannel shirt with tattoo sleeves and work boots with holes in them.   They stood out in comparison to the commuters heading downtown in corporate attire. He looked like a badass motha… but he held her tight.  He held her close.  He held her softly. And it looked like the most soothing place in the world to rest a weary head, that flannel shirt, that badass chest.  There was no kissing, no making out, just two tired people holding each other up almost as if they had nothing left but each other.  All I saw was love. Love is love regardless of the clothes you wear.

And then I glimpsed upon the following passage in the book being read by the guy standing beside me (that’s another thing I do, inconspicuously read other people’s books on the subway and pluck sentences from them, then walk away, like a thief of words.).

The passage was ”le court espace de la vie, telle que vous la concevez en ce moment…“

Loose translation: “the brief space/time that is life… as you conceive it at this moment…“

Since I just happened to be conceiving life as love, I thought… maybe this is it. Maybe we’re just here to love each other.  Love knows no color, no price, no social class, no sexual preference, no status, no age.  It is the one thing that every single person on this planet holds in their heart.  The one constant.  So maybe it’s all there is to it. And maybe it’s hokey but I’m pretty sure the meaning of life isn’t money so it might as well be love.

They got off at Berry station and I wanted the story to last just a little longer. But their love lingered, like a perfume long after someone has left the room, like the smell of his pillow after he’s gone… and I took it with me when I left. You don’t waste love like that. You take it, you recycle it, you pass it on in the form of a smile to the next savory character you meet… or one of the zombies, because zombies need love too.  We all do.

P.S. Happy Halloween weekend everyone!  Get out there and have fun.  If there was ever a time to be a savory character… this is it!

urban exploration and the beauty in imperfection

Here I am, once again, with fingers poised on these little black keys, waiting for words to flow.  But I feel like a leaky faucet.  Drip, drip, drip, drought.  I haven’t really been present on this blog for quite awhile.  And it’s not for lack of stories, it’s not that the ink is crusty at the bottom of the pot.  The cup runneth over with ink, people.  I think it has more to do with the quest for perfection, which, as we all know, is where words go to die.  So I stop myself short or I write and reread and edit a post ad nauseum so that all that is left is bare bones, osteoporosis of prose cracking under the pressure.

The lovely Jen Lee asked us during her Truth & Consequences class to think back to the last time we wrote freely and what happened to make the flow stop.  I sat on the dock with the sun casting diamonds on Squam Lake and I thought, and thought and thought, waiting for the aha moment.  And it came. It seems to me, and the irony does not escape me, that I stopped writing freely when I started blogging.  The last time I wrote with abandon was when I lived in Nelson, BC.  Granted, I was a pot smoking hippie at the time but there was also a collective sense of freedom in those mountains, an escape from the conservative corporate world, a mold sometimes so rigid that creativity feels stiffeled.  Maybe it was the marijuana, maybe it was my carefree 20’s, maybe it was a laisser faire attitude in a place where notbody expected me to have my shit together.  Or perhaps it had to do with the fact that I was spilling my guts in a cheap dollar store notebook and not online for all to see. Because you see, as much as I’d like to think that I’m writing just for me, I actually invest a lot too much energy caring about what other people think of me.

And then Kristen sent me this link and I have been obsessed with Vivian Maier ever since.  She was a street photographer from 1950-1970.  ”A French socialist, a feminist, a movie critic, and a tell-it-like-it-is type of person.  She wore a men’s jacket, men’s shoes and a large hat most of the time. She was constantly taking pictures, which she didn’t show anyone.“  She didn’t show anyone.  This, and the fact that her street photography is pure genius, struck a major chord.  This woman was not taking photos to impress or please or seek acceptance & attention.  She was doing it for the pure love of the craft.  Such should be the basis for all our creative endeavors, going back to the root of why we do it in the first place regardless of how much money it will put in our bank account or how  people will view it (good and bad). There is so much more freedom in the creative process when you can ignore the critics and let go of the perfection of it all.  Pfffferfection is what I intend to call it from now on.  Utterly overated.

So, for the sake of caboshing the head of the perfectionist beast and inspired by Ms. Maier’s work, I sifted through photos that I took this summer as I explored my fair city.   I chose those deemed not good enough to make the cut – the blurry, the overexposed, the underexposed, the crooked.  Those that represented something urban or candid or raw. And then I desaturated them because there is something about black and white that is very forgiving. Perhaps because it appears from another time so we half expect the imperfection and find beauty in it.  I encourage you to do the same.  It was a fun and liberating exercise.  Find the artistry in those shots you would normally flush in the recycle bin. I’d love to see them if you wish to share.

And on that note, I’m pressing publish.  This post is good enough.  And PS.  So are you!

lately…

I keep an inspiration folder on my desktop and a list of bookmarks about a mile long.  They’re like treasure chests collecting pretty things and every so often, I scroll down my favorites and open the folder and dip my fingers in for gems of inspiration.  Allowing my mind to wander is part of the creative process (research, people, research) and I fill the well by seeking beauty.  However, the line between research and procrastination can sometimes get blurred and I need to learn to use inspiration as fuel for action.  Discipline has never been mon point fort.

Here are a few things that have been inspiring me (or making me happy) lately.

Reading an awesome book.

Jen Zahigian’s photography is retro goodness.

Listening to this song by Scattered Trees.

This video makes me want to book a plane ticket and take off for a year.

For laughter, press here.

Apartment Therapy is, indeed, therapeutic.  Particularly this color contest.

Everything at Anthropology is the shiznit.

I cannot wait to see this movie and this one.

Black Phoenix Alchemical Lab is a feast for the olfactory sense.

On a totally nerdy level, the Google Chrome browser and its inspect element feature are rocking my world.

Loving this print.  This summer I became a cycling addict (not in the athletic sense, more as a wicked means of transportation).  My bicycle takes me everywhere in record time.  Her name is Bonanza Jellybean.  She’s like lightning.

Forts.  They’re awesome.  The last time I made a fort was on my 14th birthday.  I was supposed to go have a picnic and see a baseball game with my family but it was a miserable, gray, rainy day.  So instead, my mom, sisters and I built a fort in the living room with chairs and blankets and we had us a little picnic under there.  There’s just something about forts that is comforting.  I’m thinking perhaps I should build myself an inspiration fort this winter, a space with all my favorite things, a place to retreat to when the days get shorter.  Hmm. Fort for thought.  And there it is folks, the cheesy pun that tells me it’s time to end this post.

What is inspiring you these days?  Where do you go to find beauty?