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| Click the photo above to read this awesome article by Sarah Hepola. |
Some of my favorite quotes:
Showing posts with label brooklyn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brooklyn. Show all posts
Thursday, September 6, 2012
I Am In Love With This Article
Some of my favorite quotes:
Friday, August 31, 2012
One Year!
Wow, August flew by! As summer always does, it seemed race to a finish. And before you know it, here we are: August 31st.
August 31st is actually the one-year anniversary of my last day at my job in Brooklyn. I can't believe a whole year has passed! Though I miss the people I worked with back in Brooklyn, I feel really good about where I am as a writer and an artist these days.
Writing means I spend a lot of time alone in my new office, which of course is my house. On this anniversary of leaving my cool (populated) Brooklyn office and taking up in my solitary little cabin, I thought I'd share a few pictures of the details of my new space.
Hope you enjoyed a few of the details of my "office"!
August 31st is actually the one-year anniversary of my last day at my job in Brooklyn. I can't believe a whole year has passed! Though I miss the people I worked with back in Brooklyn, I feel really good about where I am as a writer and an artist these days.
Writing means I spend a lot of time alone in my new office, which of course is my house. On this anniversary of leaving my cool (populated) Brooklyn office and taking up in my solitary little cabin, I thought I'd share a few pictures of the details of my new space.
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| I've taken to shutting off my computer for hour increments and using notebooks to write. There's no Facebook to click on in notebooks! I feel like being away from the computer really lets me dig into whatever thought I'm chasing. |
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| When I'm using my desk for notebook writing, my computer hangs out on an old diner chair I got in Brooklyn, which sits next to my desk. I also keep a calendar on there - it's hand-carved prints by a Vermont artist. |
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| I have always been really into to-do lists, and I realized recently that being able to see all of the tasks I have for my various pursuits as once helps me organize myself. I have personal writing, client writing, blog writing, and wedding planning tasks on here. Oh, and a few pictures of Murgy! |
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| Hanging above my desk are several photos my dad took in college. I love this one of my mom. |
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| I call these guys "Blocky and Buddha". Buddha's actually on a necklace. I bought these at 'Gallery in The Woods' in Brattleboro. When I bought them, the woman at the front said that the two artists are actually best friends and they'd be excited that their art was bought together. It got me thinking about all of my artists friends that inspire me, and about how art is so collaborative. Blocky sits on my desk as a reminder. |
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| Most days I enjoy working outside for at least a bit. Garret and I got this purple chair for free on the side of a road. It's really comfortable and weird and I love it. Next to it is an old kitchen chair, a box full of my cards, pens & pencils, and an awesome owl painting our friends Evan & Crystal gave us. |
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| Evan and Crystal got this owl painting while they were living in Montana, and then it hung in their home in Atlanta for a while. They gave it to us as a housewarming gift for our new home here. I love it. |
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| Some plants that sit on a little wooden table in the "outdoor office". |
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| Though I usually need to write in complete silence, the windchime outside is soothing and beautiful. I got this for Garret for his birthday. His house in Buffalo was next to a house with windchimes, and the sound of them became somewhat of a reminder of home for both of us. So, we got one in this home, too. |
Hope you enjoyed a few of the details of my "office"!
Sunday, May 6, 2012
A Shifting Focus (Part 1)
May means we're eight months in to our 'adventure'. In a large sense, we came here following an impulse that was telling us to change our lives and to shift our focus within those lives. Eight months later, I can say with confidence that my focus is much different than it once was. I don't know that I'm ready to put into words what my focus was, wasn't, is, or isn't... but I've nevertheless felt a major shift in my energies and my idea of "who I am" or "what I do".
Impulses, of course, can be big and small. The impulse to leave the city and move to the mountains of VT was, needless to say, a big leap. I've since coming here, though, learned to follow smaller impulses as well. I think (though, I'm projecting - hindsight is always...edited) that in the city I had let myself believe I was so 'busy' that I'd often have a fleeting artistic thought and it would usually be chased with "I'll do that when I have time." Sometimes if I was lucky, I scribbled it down in a notebook for when I did have time. But of course, when you aren't remembering to have time, it's easy not to. We all know that.
We do literally have a lot more time now than we did then. But I think that I could have had time then too had I wanted it. It's more a mindset that I've melted into now that I simply wasn't prepared for then. And it's certainly been a gradual process, this "shift in focus" I feel like I'm experiencing. I came here buzzing with the energy (or lack thereof) of commuting to and from work, walking no less than a block to get something if I needed it, and trying to catch express trains. You can relax and enjoy a walk to work, you can even enjoy a subway ride; I just wasn't, and because of it I was always "rushing" for no apparent reason.
And when we first got here, I was mimicking city life in the woods. I was breaking up my time very specifically, working essentially 9-5, just in my house. I put work before home even though work was at home. I took business calls on Sundays. I somehow managed to be stressed about time even though I had a lot of it. There was something in my wiring that told me time was something to be concerned about.
By late October, a month and a half in, I was (very slowly) starting to realize that it was "okay" to take time on something if I wanted it. Or to not force time on something if it wasn't clicking at that very moment. To just stop what I was doing and finish that later, so long as I really did finish it. But I remember, very clearly, the day I first actually forced myself into really stopping because I felt like I had to. It was November 16th, the day after my brother's birthday, and I had just finished my first full-length book project as a freelancer (which I had approached with a very "must work 8 hours a day and be stressed from time to time" mentality).
A mentor of mine passed away that day, and I was crushed and isolated (isolated in a good way). Had I been in a position to, I know what I would have done: I'd have gone to a few stores, taken a busy walk, taken a subway ride. I'd have been "alone and thinking" but I wouldn't have been alone. Here, we live in a neighborhood without anyone even in it. Garret was home but he was working. I was just sitting in my home office. I was alone enough that I couldn't easily get out of it and... I actually had to process my feelings. I got the phone call that he had passed around 9:30 am and by noon, I was sitting in my home office in a daze. But could I really just sit there?
I promise you that at a time, I could not have just sat there. From the circumstances of everyday life and from my own inability to commit to it. But the truth is that here, I have no schedule that I need to stick to here. Just one that I usually do stick to. Somehow I willed myself to really do it. I sat, and I let whatever was going to happen, happen. I thought a lot. I cried. I sat and wondered and felt confused and weird. And then, around four - four hours after I'd started just... sitting... I had an impulse. Of course, the sitting had been an impulse too, but this was an artistic impulse. I suddenly felt like I should draw on a canvas something that I realized over those four hours I was incredibly grateful had been instilled in me by that mentor. "Be Great." See, he never cared if you were the best at something, as long as you were giving it your all. Be great, I thought. That's what you're trying to do. You followed the impulse and you're trying to figure it out. It's a process. Just worry about being great at it and don't worry about knowing all of the answers.
That day, for the first time ever, I had an artistic impulse and instead of writing it down or deciding to do it later, I acted on it, right away. I pulled out a canvas, I painted it, and by that same night, hanging in my office, was a canvas: Be Great.
I look at this canvas often. At the time, I was responding to an overall life value that I believed my mentor had forced me to live by simply by living by it himself. Meanwhile, now, seven months later, I look at it and think "See? Follow whatever idea tingle you're feeling." I'm learning to - upon having an "idea" - trust the spark of "?" for what it is. Every idea is a possibility if we let it take us where it wants to go. Yes, there's the possibility it'll turn out to be nothing. But what if?
Over the past seven months but more specifically the past three, I've seen Garret and I follow idea after idea. We're learning to be open to our own creativity. We're learning not to say, "I'm feeling ___... I'll deal with it later!". Instead, when sadness, silliness, fascination, or inspiration finds us... we let it.
It's more difficult than it sounds. Trusting yourself enough to spend solid time doing something that you do not know the direction or purpose of? For people who lived (as most do) through school assignments for 23 years and then jumped right into very fast-paced runs-on-linear-subway-lines lives for a while, just listening to a flighty idea can take some practice. Of course, it wasn't really school or New York that made me distrust the "whim". It was a mindset I adopted in both of those times and places. But nevertheless...
"It's okay if it's a waste of time because, what if it isn't?" Can be surprisingly hard to hear especially if it's your own voice saying it. After all you are always keenly aware of that "...what if it isn't?" But: I'm happy to say that following our impulses and letting them manifest themselves in writing or art or whatever they want to be has produced for us some projects that I don't think either of us would have predicted we'd have taken on. Projects we're excited about and projects that are making us really happy and... well, we're having a lot of fun!
I sat down to write this post intending to share what those things we're up to are. Of course, true to form, I've rambled on far longer than a blog post should be, and instead of doing what I came to do, I talked about a painting I made months ago. But, in the spirit of following ideas and impulses, I decided not to shut it down when this post didn't take the direction I had expected it to. Instead, I'll let this sit.
I will come back tomorrow to show you what we've been up to. A lot of you probably already know, but I'm excited about some of this stuff so I feel like it all deserves a post. So I'll be back.
Unless, that is, I get distracted and do something else! haha.
Impulses, of course, can be big and small. The impulse to leave the city and move to the mountains of VT was, needless to say, a big leap. I've since coming here, though, learned to follow smaller impulses as well. I think (though, I'm projecting - hindsight is always...edited) that in the city I had let myself believe I was so 'busy' that I'd often have a fleeting artistic thought and it would usually be chased with "I'll do that when I have time." Sometimes if I was lucky, I scribbled it down in a notebook for when I did have time. But of course, when you aren't remembering to have time, it's easy not to. We all know that.
We do literally have a lot more time now than we did then. But I think that I could have had time then too had I wanted it. It's more a mindset that I've melted into now that I simply wasn't prepared for then. And it's certainly been a gradual process, this "shift in focus" I feel like I'm experiencing. I came here buzzing with the energy (or lack thereof) of commuting to and from work, walking no less than a block to get something if I needed it, and trying to catch express trains. You can relax and enjoy a walk to work, you can even enjoy a subway ride; I just wasn't, and because of it I was always "rushing" for no apparent reason.
And when we first got here, I was mimicking city life in the woods. I was breaking up my time very specifically, working essentially 9-5, just in my house. I put work before home even though work was at home. I took business calls on Sundays. I somehow managed to be stressed about time even though I had a lot of it. There was something in my wiring that told me time was something to be concerned about.
By late October, a month and a half in, I was (very slowly) starting to realize that it was "okay" to take time on something if I wanted it. Or to not force time on something if it wasn't clicking at that very moment. To just stop what I was doing and finish that later, so long as I really did finish it. But I remember, very clearly, the day I first actually forced myself into really stopping because I felt like I had to. It was November 16th, the day after my brother's birthday, and I had just finished my first full-length book project as a freelancer (which I had approached with a very "must work 8 hours a day and be stressed from time to time" mentality).
A mentor of mine passed away that day, and I was crushed and isolated (isolated in a good way). Had I been in a position to, I know what I would have done: I'd have gone to a few stores, taken a busy walk, taken a subway ride. I'd have been "alone and thinking" but I wouldn't have been alone. Here, we live in a neighborhood without anyone even in it. Garret was home but he was working. I was just sitting in my home office. I was alone enough that I couldn't easily get out of it and... I actually had to process my feelings. I got the phone call that he had passed around 9:30 am and by noon, I was sitting in my home office in a daze. But could I really just sit there?
I promise you that at a time, I could not have just sat there. From the circumstances of everyday life and from my own inability to commit to it. But the truth is that here, I have no schedule that I need to stick to here. Just one that I usually do stick to. Somehow I willed myself to really do it. I sat, and I let whatever was going to happen, happen. I thought a lot. I cried. I sat and wondered and felt confused and weird. And then, around four - four hours after I'd started just... sitting... I had an impulse. Of course, the sitting had been an impulse too, but this was an artistic impulse. I suddenly felt like I should draw on a canvas something that I realized over those four hours I was incredibly grateful had been instilled in me by that mentor. "Be Great." See, he never cared if you were the best at something, as long as you were giving it your all. Be great, I thought. That's what you're trying to do. You followed the impulse and you're trying to figure it out. It's a process. Just worry about being great at it and don't worry about knowing all of the answers.
That day, for the first time ever, I had an artistic impulse and instead of writing it down or deciding to do it later, I acted on it, right away. I pulled out a canvas, I painted it, and by that same night, hanging in my office, was a canvas: Be Great.
Over the past seven months but more specifically the past three, I've seen Garret and I follow idea after idea. We're learning to be open to our own creativity. We're learning not to say, "I'm feeling ___... I'll deal with it later!". Instead, when sadness, silliness, fascination, or inspiration finds us... we let it.
It's more difficult than it sounds. Trusting yourself enough to spend solid time doing something that you do not know the direction or purpose of? For people who lived (as most do) through school assignments for 23 years and then jumped right into very fast-paced runs-on-linear-subway-lines lives for a while, just listening to a flighty idea can take some practice. Of course, it wasn't really school or New York that made me distrust the "whim". It was a mindset I adopted in both of those times and places. But nevertheless...
"It's okay if it's a waste of time because, what if it isn't?" Can be surprisingly hard to hear especially if it's your own voice saying it. After all you are always keenly aware of that "...what if it isn't?" But: I'm happy to say that following our impulses and letting them manifest themselves in writing or art or whatever they want to be has produced for us some projects that I don't think either of us would have predicted we'd have taken on. Projects we're excited about and projects that are making us really happy and... well, we're having a lot of fun!
I sat down to write this post intending to share what those things we're up to are. Of course, true to form, I've rambled on far longer than a blog post should be, and instead of doing what I came to do, I talked about a painting I made months ago. But, in the spirit of following ideas and impulses, I decided not to shut it down when this post didn't take the direction I had expected it to. Instead, I'll let this sit.
I will come back tomorrow to show you what we've been up to. A lot of you probably already know, but I'm excited about some of this stuff so I feel like it all deserves a post. So I'll be back.
Unless, that is, I get distracted and do something else! haha.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
sh*t new yorkers say
Okay, so, I have to admit I was a little underwhelmed by Shit Girls Say, which had the interwebs and my Facebook newsfeed all a stir in December. It may have had to do with the fact that a guy was playing the girl saying the shit. I mean, I feel like it's trying to pass itself off as self-deprecating humor... which it can't possibly be when it's a dude saying all of it. That's just... poking fun.
Well anyway, I digress.
[SCORE! I've been trying to use "I digress" properly for like, months!]
Since Shit Girls Say came out, there have been a myriad of copycats - or, rather, "Inspired By" works of art. I'll admit to clicking right past most of them, but then today "Shit New Yorker Say" caught my eye, and I clicked, I was pleasantly surprised and very amused.
This guy couldn't be more "Brooklyn" and I guess I do appreciate the legitimate self-deprecating humor in this one. I absolutely love when he's in the back of the cab and says "You have to take me to Brooklyn, it's the law!" Oh, the feeling of being wronged when a man won't drive you 45 minutes to a desolate neighborhood in Brooklyn when he could just drive someone to the East Village instead. Life is hard!
This really did "bring me back" to all of the embarrassingly "New Yorky" things I'm sure I said non-stop when I was there. Actually, some of them, I probably still say.
Now, where's "Things Vermonters Say?" I refuse to make it, but I'll watch and probably giggle a little if someone else does.
.lsm
Well anyway, I digress.
[SCORE! I've been trying to use "I digress" properly for like, months!]
Since Shit Girls Say came out, there have been a myriad of copycats - or, rather, "Inspired By" works of art. I'll admit to clicking right past most of them, but then today "Shit New Yorker Say" caught my eye, and I clicked, I was pleasantly surprised and very amused.
This guy couldn't be more "Brooklyn" and I guess I do appreciate the legitimate self-deprecating humor in this one. I absolutely love when he's in the back of the cab and says "You have to take me to Brooklyn, it's the law!" Oh, the feeling of being wronged when a man won't drive you 45 minutes to a desolate neighborhood in Brooklyn when he could just drive someone to the East Village instead. Life is hard!
This really did "bring me back" to all of the embarrassingly "New Yorky" things I'm sure I said non-stop when I was there. Actually, some of them, I probably still say.
Now, where's "Things Vermonters Say?" I refuse to make it, but I'll watch and probably giggle a little if someone else does.
.lsm
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
sushi for me please
now this is one thing i miss about brooklyn.
i woke up today feeling kind of like i was getting a cold. nothing major, but still, there was something there. in brooklyn, if this feeling would hit, i'd head to the starbucks across from my office for a green tea latte. ah, yes. sweet, sweet, (sugary), matcha fun. what the green powdered stuff didn't knock out, i'd fend off by heading to the sushi place across from my office (note: i didn't work in a big or busy part of brooklyn, but we did have EXCELLENT sushi and coffee) to order the best spicy crunch salmon roll on the planet. i have no medical information whatsoever to back up the claim that "salmon rolls help kill a cold before it takes over your body" but there was something about the raw protein of it all that had me convinced i was on the mend.
so today when i started to feel a cold coming on, i was a bit lost. there's no starbucks to be found (literally, i haven't found one anywhere nearby at all). and as for sushi?
in our part of vermont, there's two places that i've found. two. that's not many for a girl who ate sushi at least once a week in brooklyn. one is called "shin la japanese restaurant" and it's in brattleboro. we went there once and it was a really festive night in brattleboro, at the beginning of october. everyone was out - brattleboro does a thing called "first fridays" where on the first friday of each month, the local businesses and galleries have special late hours and draw in new customers (or, celebrate the existing ones?). it was warm out and many were partaking, and like us, many had decided sushi would be a good option. well, we went, we ordered. and... drumroll please (mmm. drum roll - that sounds delicious, what's in that one?) ......we were disappointed! it was mostly rice and what fish was in there was stale. ...i'm convinced that miso in brooklyn was so delicious that it ruined me.
the following week we went to panda north, a chinese restaurant that i knew also had sushi. it wasn't terrible. it was on par with non-miso-in-dumbo sushi in brooklyn. okay, that will do. it's not poetry, but it'll do.
will i find a miso in dumbo equivalent? i doubt it. but that's okay; brooklyn's there for that.
anyway, i woke up today and i needed sushi. my made-up cold remedy. garret was headed to brattleboro anyway to get a haircut, and so i mentioned casually (read: stated that i wanted) it might be fun to get takeout sushi. my non-money-efficient dream came true when around 5:15 garret called to ask me what i'd like. panda north (the better of the two options) it was.
so, we had a sushi takeout dinner! we ate right out of the containers with throw away chopsticks that came wrapped in red paper. it all felt very brooklyn... except that this one came in our own car and travelled 30 minutes with garret to get to me. not quite the same as calling and having it show up 10 minutes later in the hand of a stranger, but it was delicious nonetheless.
and mysteriously... my cold seems to be gone...
i woke up today feeling kind of like i was getting a cold. nothing major, but still, there was something there. in brooklyn, if this feeling would hit, i'd head to the starbucks across from my office for a green tea latte. ah, yes. sweet, sweet, (sugary), matcha fun. what the green powdered stuff didn't knock out, i'd fend off by heading to the sushi place across from my office (note: i didn't work in a big or busy part of brooklyn, but we did have EXCELLENT sushi and coffee) to order the best spicy crunch salmon roll on the planet. i have no medical information whatsoever to back up the claim that "salmon rolls help kill a cold before it takes over your body" but there was something about the raw protein of it all that had me convinced i was on the mend.
so today when i started to feel a cold coming on, i was a bit lost. there's no starbucks to be found (literally, i haven't found one anywhere nearby at all). and as for sushi?
in our part of vermont, there's two places that i've found. two. that's not many for a girl who ate sushi at least once a week in brooklyn. one is called "shin la japanese restaurant" and it's in brattleboro. we went there once and it was a really festive night in brattleboro, at the beginning of october. everyone was out - brattleboro does a thing called "first fridays" where on the first friday of each month, the local businesses and galleries have special late hours and draw in new customers (or, celebrate the existing ones?). it was warm out and many were partaking, and like us, many had decided sushi would be a good option. well, we went, we ordered. and... drumroll please (mmm. drum roll - that sounds delicious, what's in that one?) ......we were disappointed! it was mostly rice and what fish was in there was stale. ...i'm convinced that miso in brooklyn was so delicious that it ruined me.
the following week we went to panda north, a chinese restaurant that i knew also had sushi. it wasn't terrible. it was on par with non-miso-in-dumbo sushi in brooklyn. okay, that will do. it's not poetry, but it'll do.
will i find a miso in dumbo equivalent? i doubt it. but that's okay; brooklyn's there for that.
anyway, i woke up today and i needed sushi. my made-up cold remedy. garret was headed to brattleboro anyway to get a haircut, and so i mentioned casually (read: stated that i wanted) it might be fun to get takeout sushi. my non-money-efficient dream came true when around 5:15 garret called to ask me what i'd like. panda north (the better of the two options) it was.
so, we had a sushi takeout dinner! we ate right out of the containers with throw away chopsticks that came wrapped in red paper. it all felt very brooklyn... except that this one came in our own car and travelled 30 minutes with garret to get to me. not quite the same as calling and having it show up 10 minutes later in the hand of a stranger, but it was delicious nonetheless.
and mysteriously... my cold seems to be gone...
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| sushi from panda north in brattleboro, vt. |
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| sushi from panda north in brattleboro, vt. |
Sunday, August 28, 2011
brooklyn goes out [as our place of residency] with a bang!
so, about six months back, i said "new york! you're not doing it for me - i'm moving away." and new york was like "what? i'm exciting!" and i said "no. i'm sick of your subways, and the lack of 24 hour local news coverage during storms. plus, the city that never sleeps? come on. take some time off - close some restaurants."
"i'll show you," said new york.
and show me she did. one week before we're outta here, hurricane irene hit the city - loudly. by midday friday (which was, might i add, a beautiful day, weatherwise), new york city had been broken up into zones, and "zone A" was under mandatory evacuation. we were already aware that the entire transit system was to shut down at noon on saturday. from there, many businesses started making preparations, aka closing. the mayor gave a press conference every couple of hours, and the local news coverage was indeed round the clock.
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| a view of brooklyn on NYC's irene evacuation map. we were thankfully not in an evacuation zone! |
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| our hurricane irene emergency food stock. what are we, nine years old? |
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| ziplock bags filled with water, which i froze. |
i woke up midway though the night to hear rain pounding down and wind howling, but by the time we actually were up for the day it was getting brighter and there was a break in the rain, so we ventured out with murgy to assess the damage.
for the most part, park slope seems to be in good shape. many restaurants and businesses are still closed and/or taped up, and the ones that were open had limited staff and supplies. with no mass transit, it seems that people are pretty much staying where they are and going to local restaurants, etc.
meanwhile, the entire weekend i was texting with my mom, dad and my friend tracy saying "we had one more week to get out of here! why now!" but, a quick google search has schooled me. below is a picture i got from the brattleboro reformer's facebook page - this is downtown wilmington after today's storm! we had breakfast at dot's restaurant (in the background) just a few weeks back when we visited the town with my dad and my grandma...
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| a photo from the brattleboro reformer - main street in wilmington, vermont - we'll be there in a week! |
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| beer table in park slope had one of the more creative takes on "come out while you still can" marketing, which i saw all over the place. |
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| i loved the sign this CD shop in park slope put up. |
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| the city turned garbage cans over in preparation for the storm to cut down on debris flying. the mayor said in one press conference that he was hearing people were turning them back over to be helpful. "please don't." he said. |
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| union market in park slope was packed on saturday, and planned closure for sunday in light of the storm. |
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| murgy on sunday morning, assessing the damage. |
Sunday, July 17, 2011
for realz
well, it's really happening! this week garret and i are to sign a lease for a wonderful little house in the woods. we'll be there at least a year.
after three years of living in brooklyn, i can't even imagine what the shift is going to be like, though i am envisioning it all the time. i feel like i did when i was waiting for my freshman year of college to start. i find my mind wandering to how i'll decorate the new place, what mornings will be like, what walking around will be like...
meanwhile, we'll be living city life behind entirely. so, also currently on my mind are the things that are part of my daily life now that are going to quickly be eliminated are:
- ordering takeout
- walking to restaurants
- stopping at the market on the walk home to pick up some stuff for dinner
- bakeries
- starbucks
...apparently all i think about is food.
here we are last month when we visited the house!
after three years of living in brooklyn, i can't even imagine what the shift is going to be like, though i am envisioning it all the time. i feel like i did when i was waiting for my freshman year of college to start. i find my mind wandering to how i'll decorate the new place, what mornings will be like, what walking around will be like...
meanwhile, we'll be living city life behind entirely. so, also currently on my mind are the things that are part of my daily life now that are going to quickly be eliminated are:
- ordering takeout
- walking to restaurants
- stopping at the market on the walk home to pick up some stuff for dinner
- bakeries
- starbucks
...apparently all i think about is food.
here we are last month when we visited the house!
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| us on the balcony of the house! |
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