Excerpt of the day: on love and patriarchy
I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and then I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism.
…
I have no nostalgia for the patriarchy, please believe me. But what I have come to realize is that, when that patriarchic system (rightfully) dismantled, it was not necessarily replaced by another form of protection. What I mean is–I never thought to ask a suitor the same challenging questions my father might have asked him, in a different age. I have given myself away in love many times, merely for the sake of love. And I’ve given away the farm sometimes in that process. If I am to truly become an autonomous woman, then I must take over that role of being my own guardian. Famously, Gloria Steinem once advised women that they should strive to become like the men they had always wanted to marry. What I’ve only recently realized is that I not only have to become my own husband, but I need to be my own father, too. And this is why I sent myself to bed that night alone. Because I felt it was too soon for me to be receiving a gentleman suitor.
~Eat,Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert, part 96: Love.
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,400 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 57 trips to carry that many people.
Old notes I
Nov. 25, 2010
It’s snowing.
I got a sudden insight of how temporary everything is. And how clear it is now that it’s me, only me all along, and this snow. Me and no one else. Cause everybody leaves eventually. myself included. People become your coffee buddy, sushi buddy, drinking buddy, movie buddy, pancake buddy, or even bed buddy, for a while. But every time it snows, I’m reminded that people come and people go; positions are held, swapped, abandoned, and re-held. But don’t let the confusion from it distract you to forget that certain spots remain forever unassignable. That I would never have a snow buddy.
Return: that final stretch
Can’t grab on the shards, only a few threads.
Need to pull. Draw it all in, push it all together,
But my hands feel dead. eluding skills.
They say, if i pull for just a bit longer, if i endure, if i keep sober,
butterflies would emerge, out of the ashes
blue birds would appear in the rain.
twenty four years of trek; can’t just make a leap of faith,
over a beat skipping heart,
what if it would break? too scared to fall,
Cause Here, nada es facil,
Never, Nothing’s on my side
I pull, I stretch, but only on my pride
Explain yourself woman, caterpillar said.
In a British tone: twenty three seconds,
I only knew it by the morning, sir,
By the night, you see, I’m different, sir.
That hardly makes sense.
Non-deterministically Polynomial nature
of her thought process,
She was too curious, too dumb, or too young,
to put a return at the bottom of every function.
Now, she is looking at her thin drawing papers,
chalk sketches, lines of poems, stains of color, here and there,
But outspread over the time, and place,
So, put it all together, Brand yourself, don’t be afraid,
You’re a sketcher, the business woman said.
Words, give me words, but just the right amount of them:
A Master’s thesis, in 15 minutes.
Two pages for curriculum of life.
no, that’s too long. just call it a CV.
Keywords, all they want. Better yet, skills.
twenty four years of life. I’m just plotting it out myself.
Where would you like me to begin?
Gotta begin somewhere;
May I have your time for more than just twenty three seconds?
At the end of the rainbow
Juli 20th. Vienna
Crazy windstorm on the streets of Wien. I’ve been walking around since this morning, looking for a sweater to buy. Wound up buying all kinds of crap but sweater -as usual.I lost my camera yesterday by the biggest (or oldest?) ferris wheel. All the photos and videos of my trip, and all the potential memories saved in them, gone. I’m not bitter. Not bitter at all. Only heartbroken: Fine Vienna, Fine. It’s also weird how my relationship with photography twists and turns. The more I try to get on a good track with it, the more it evades away. Perhaps, I shouldn’t have relied on it as much as I did in the past weeks to log my thoughts and feelings. Perhaps I’d never be able to express myself as strong and forward as photographers are. I was always one for putting it all into writing; (call me superstitious but) perhaps, it’s my destiny to be forever stuck in words, -the most impoverished way of communication.
No complaints. With time, and a little bit of luck, I’ll start over and be who I am. I know it all now. I have it all planned out. I’m feeling comfortable in my skin. I feel the wind blowing over my cracks and scars. As if these wounds are gonna heal after all. I’m gonna die, only to be born again as a kid with a destiny hard carved into her soul.
The viennese wind is waltzing out on the streets. My feet are tired of walking, but unwilling to stop. The wind blows right through my clothes, into my heart and out of my ribs. I’m feeling fine. It’s all so clear now. I lost my camera yesteday. My first ever euro trip, right down the gutter. but I’m not bitter. I’m feeling fine. so whole, so confident. Ja, “Alles Klar”.
Could this be the end of the rainbow? Could it be that I die right here right now, only to be born again with the same soul, but a new body? I have a significant destiny for that tiny fresh body. Ah, It feels like a good day for dying.
November 11th.
- I was born in Texas. I’ve lived in 5 states. and this is by far the biggest city of all…I’m here with my college friends. we’re forming a band. we’re going to rap, learn to play banjo, and grow bushy blonde beards.
- I’ve lived in 4 cities, 3 continents, and I am still way far from settling down. Yet, I’m no vagabond. I can’t just arrive somewhere today, build a home and live only to ruin it and leave the week after. I thought I was. I thought the deepest darkest corners of my heart furtively wished for it. But funny how it turned out in the end that the darkest and deepest corners of my heart are just longingly vacant for a place of ‘home’.
- you watching Jon stewart? Right on. We all love him.
از استانبول تا الكساندريا
ریرا. صدا می آید امشب. شبي در قايق، آواز آدميان. اقيانوس نقره اي است. خط افق، دلتنگ…كتاب مي خواني برايم؟
سردی. چقدر وقت هست زندگی نکردی؟
ريرا؛ من عاشق زندگي بودم. و آدم ها. يادت هست؟ آدم هاي اين ساحل غربي دل بستني نيستند اما.
تو اما از كجا ميايي كه اينچنين بوی آدمي می دهي. بوی گرمي قلب.
از استانبول برگشته. گرمای شرقی دارد. اهل ماندن نیست. نمی تواند باشد. برمی گردد به شرق. در هر رفتني قلبی را می گذارد و قلبی را می برد. هر رفتنی قیچی ای است در این دل.
دل من، در دل شب. نظم هوش رباي مهرباني اش. «زیبا». شيرين. عسل می شود در قهوه ام.
ولي او. با ملکه ی برفی که می خوابد، سردش می شود. سردی اش هم دوست داشتنی است اما…بس که زندگی دارد.
ريرا؛ چند وقت می شود؟ سفر مدام است آخر. مجال زندگی نمی دهد. شب اول همیشه شب آخر بوده و هست. این هم اصل دوم مهاجرت. هميشه تا طلوع وقت داري فقط.
پري كوچك غمگينم. طلوع تا طلوع زنده مي شوم.
با صدایي شکسته. سیم سل بریده. و ویولن از دستم لیز خورنده. مثل ماهی های کوچک قرمز.
و مثل تو، كه صبح که شود، به ریرا مي بازمت.
من می گویم
به چه دل خوش کنم.
دلم می خواست وقت داشتم، که تا ابد برایت از خودم بگويم. این قدر بگویم تا درست و غلطش سوا شود. دلم مي خواست بشناسي ام.
نمي گويد، مي دانم اما. آسمان هميشه كشتي ارباب هنر مي شكند. تكيه به آن نتوان كرد. به جايش مي گويد، منبع گرماي خود بايد بود. مي فهممش…مي فهممش؟
هيچ وقت نخواهم دانست.
قهوه برایش درست می کنم. همین یک لحظه را دارد.
قلپ هاي قهوه اش را مي شمرم. دانه. دانه. دل مي كنم.
two cents of gold
There are only a handful of key advices that are ever going to impact you enough to alter your life path. For me they are usually very simple advices or nice words but so extremely rare. Last one came from the nice soprano section leader about a month ago who told me, in the chillest manner, “don’t be afraid to come back”. She might have just said it out of being nice, but for me, that was it. I felt entirely transformed after that; A whole new me who wasn’t afraid of ever ‘going back’ again. I’ve been thanking her in my head ever since. Last time before that though dates back to almost two years ago, when the ever so great D. gave me that simplest of all advices to ‘just do it’. Amazing what a plain old saying can do when it hits you on the exact right time, when you start to take it to the heart.
Then it brings us to tonight; One precious honest friend finally gave me two advices that I needed to hear in such a long time. Two of those high impact sentences in one night. I feel elevated and transformed on two levels: One is that I know now that my gpa matters very little. What have I been really worrying myself about? Just finish up that degree that nobody cares about, including you! And on a different level, I know that best things come through pushing harder on the average, the shallow connections, the mediocre presences, on small talk, really, rather than waiting for the perfect, the right moment, the right hook, the right person to show up. I know now that sometimes people are hard to get a hold of. They would just be asleep, or busy, or not in a good mood for any reason. It’s always better to assume the best in people than the worst. Cause Yes, the worst is just in your head. Even when it isn’t.
Dear Seb., I’ll be thanking you in my head for a long time to come.
Turning Point
Just deleted a whole bunch of Pink Floyd and Siavash Ghomeyshi songs from my ipod,.. Comfortably Numb included..
It was about the time.
Portlandia
Portland is a place to fall in love with. Everything in it is so personal and hand-crafted. From the city design, the seemingly overlaying bridges, big spaces for tiny businesses, like, an entire block for a “knitting” shop. weird businesses, like that other store called “Tea house/DIY”, or that “public sewing + breakfast” place. To tons of Thank You notes on the wall of a “restroom” at a regular bistro. (yes, thats america, they dont know what “washroom” is.) And a giant billboard saying: “cars from 1999$”. And just this obsession with huge (and mostly silly) billboards. Vintage clothing, regular clothing, cool clothing, a shopping haven with zero retail tax. And then the Powell’s, to top it all off: the biggest and hippest bookstore in the world. (fact.) color coded rooms, little hand-written notes on the shelves and the fact that threre are 3 entire shelves only filled with Italo Calvino’s. Who knew the guy had so many books. In Portland, every other guy wears a big bushy beard, black rimmed glasses and skinny jeans. Every other person is a musician: Street music, bar music, live music, on the fly music, wrap it up, or eat here music. This is a town taken entirely over by hipsters. irony is everywhere and in the heart of everything, in every corner, on every rooftop, at every doorstep; Even in the straightforward layout of the city: NE, NW, SE, SW… OK hipsters, we get it. You are “Keeping Portland weird”. Well done.
In a nutshell? If Portland wouldn’t make you feel, nowhere else would.
And me? no, I didn’t fall in love with it. I guess cause I’m not a hipster. Apparently, I “certainly dress like one”, but I’m more “mature in years” to be a hipster. My take home lesson from Portland.
