i love this song

when i first heard it, i asked Mr. T (my new reference to the Husband, I've decided) if it was an old Patti Smith song. Then perhaps I thought of the Violent Femmes next time I heard it. No, someone new. Old sound. Love it.

That is all for today.

Somedays, all ya need is a song.

a few days until New York City...

My younger brother has settled into NYC life over the past few years an has seemed to adapt well to it.

I, on the other hand, did not find any sort of peace and harmony to the land when I set off for its landscape over the years. At one point in my very early twenties I even walked around with a stack of resumes, applying for jobs in Manhattan, just to see if something would 'click' for me there.

I found minor frustrations around every other corner, and while they were minor, I ended each day feeling agitated. The turnstile not being calibrated properly so I lost a subway ride on my pass and had to either wait fifteen minutes or go buy another fare. My hotel reservation being overbooked and having to find a friend in Brooklyn for a last-minute place to sleep. Holding on for dear life with a stack of suitcases on a bus to LaGuardia. Ordering a lunch in a busy restaurant and not having any place to sit and eat it properly except out in the cold, walking aimlessly. A jerky shuttle driver dropping me off five blocks from where I needed to meet a friend and then giving me wrong directions as I lugged my suitcase.

But just as minor frustrations occur here and there in any sort of life in any kinda landscape, I still enjoy going back for a visit. I have experienced some equally amazing moments and observed some wonderful sights each visit.

1. Three African gentlemen were carrying their belongings in large cloth sacks and just walking around with wide eyes and dropped jaws inhaling the atmosphere as they stared up to the skyscrapers as they witnessed something never before seen in their new journey in a new land.

2. Being on a 'guest list' for Joey Ramone's 50th birthday party days after his passing and a Little Debbie food fight at the finale, cream-filling splattered all over my hair.

3. A cab driver getting lost in Brooklyn and turning off the meter to find the best route for his weary passenger. Also waiting for me to be let in the building to make sure I'd be alright.

4. Lengthy conversations with strangers in a bar about the drive from the East Coast to the smokestack filled industrial wastelands of Indiana before you see the Chicago skyline.

5. The kindness of the food service employee at the Statue of Liberty cafeteria.

6. Walking around Immigration Hall at Ellis Island.

7. Trying on a crazy dress with cowgirls imprinted all over I could never afford at a cute boutique run by two Japanese girls...

Anyhoo, I am headed to NYC again for an extended weekend later in the week and I look forward to future discoveries.

hibrrrrrrnating some more

Oh the cold weather.

It gets the best of me. I never have two consecutive days off so I try to make the best time of my free days. But that dang Chicago cold!

Attempted to write some more. Fueled by coffee and warm fuzzy slippers and itchy brain cells, I 'vomited' on paper some more. Kind of like I'm doing now. Fruitless. Perhaps I need to re-read Stephen King's On Writing. Whatever happened to my copy?

There is a tale in me that I want to tell. Or as some say, perhaps everyone's got a book in 'em. What carries the stories that we hear in our lifetimes? The relatedness of our journeys? The fantasy? The hook? The character development? The dilemma? The unique voice?

I draw from a unique set of experiences. I have this itch to explain them and paint them and share them, but they will not hold any meaning to me unless they are understood. Well, not even understood, but I do ask that they have the ability to connect to the reader. I try out some of these stories/experiences in spoken stories with my husband and a few select friends, and the reaction I get is not one of connection. "Do you understand? Does this make sense?" And the answer is always various stages of 'No.' If I can't allow them to make sense for those close to me, how do I know what connection lies beyond?

I once tried my hand participating in an art show. I don't think it's fair to label myself an artist because I do not possess the God-given gift that others do. But as a creative person, I wanted to challenge myself in a new way. It was a staff show that took place at a gallery in Pilsen, joined together by my coworkers at the time of Museum of Contemporary Art. The pieces included installations, paintings, drawings, videos, you name it - coming from all levels of talent. It was a nerve-wracking experience for me. But I did it.

My piece was something I came up with as a means of connecting a conversation with other artistic mediums. Being a fan of music and such a lover of words, I often wonder what stories lie behind the reality of a song. I scoured thrift shops for the perfect worn-out stereo speaker surrounded with the perfect type of wood to which I could burn the words. I skipped an Easter Sunday with the family and sat in my old apartment by the lake listening to music on the radio as my woodburning wand spent 15 plus hours engraving a message across the broken-down sound system. The message was as ephemeral as a three-minute song and doesn't even bear repeating at this point, but it was clear to at least one person.

Someone sitting at the gallery relayed the message to me that a man came over to her to comment specifically on how much he enjoyed my piece. All of those works in that space and he chose to comment on mine and mine alone.

That's all that mattered to me, especially in remembrance of everything that had happened a few weeks later in my life.

Maybe one day I'll muster up the courage to try it all again.

hibernating

slow news day. again. tried to sit down to work on Great American Novel and nothing but blah blah blah flowed from within today. bitter cold is back. leftovers for lunch today. coffee in hand. kitty sleeping under bed. hubby working all day, open to close.

could talk about billy corgan, my new customer. or slumping music sales. but blah blah blah.

when it's a slow news day, i whisk myself back to France.

Journal entry from Fall 2005, my last Parisian excursion. new commentary following.

aie aie aie
such a strange time to be here in paris. globalisation slammed right up in your face. fires burning. social unrest. capitalist hierarchies. wealthy nations not comprehending why third-world natives want to grow in lands of opportunity. i guess this is it. the future. no more hope, just a lot of war blowing up all over the planet. this can't be it. this can't be our reality. somewhere there's gotta be a light.

when i get back stateside i think we need to band together and spread some love, kids. where are all the hippies? where's all the action? did we get lazy and just decide to spew our opinions on the internet? there is a big friggin world out there and, babies, i'm right in the middle of it, and i don't really think it's time to laugh and fantasize and play in imagination-land anymore. America is no longer disneyland, Wile E. Coyote has finally caught Roadrunner, and Starbucks has invaded Paris. The world is morphing back to a Pangean state, but it's people are not. I like to laugh and roll around in the balls at Chuck E. Cheese and ride bumper cars at the fair just like everyone else, but it ain't funny anymore...

I've been sitting on the steps of the Parisian opera house each nite before I catch my train back to the fiery suburbs, just watching the world pass before my eyes, and after a million Americans stop by to ask me directions to the Eiffel Tower, I'm tired. Really friggin tired.

By the way, I need a job. Anybody hiring? I'll go anywhere.

---

I found your journal (from Amanda's) and was just catching up on your great adventures! You are having the wonderful time you knew you would and learning more about your soul - that is a good thing! I am sure you will find just the right time to start writing. You can be the female (hah!) David Sedaris of Paris. Maybe you should find him to see if he needs an assistant? That would be a great job for you. Good luck with the adventure and I will keep looking every day for more fun. Take care - Love Teresa

Several years later, and with a new president in tow, I feel rejuvenated. Running off to France for five months is not an option at this time, but participating in Obamarama global overhaul is.

Inspiring.

connective tissues

In the spirit of subconscious signs that I am to follow without speaking of (my secret new year's resolution which I just broke), I am finding lots of resonance in simply enjoying moments. Any film I watch, any new piece of music I discover, I am allowing it to resonate, sans critique, sans comparison. Just enjoying for the sake of enjoying. Certainly there will be things that don't jive, people who don't float my boat, anger that I will find repulsive, unneccessary angst, but I will quickly move on and seek the next moment in my path.

Am I on a path? Certainly I must be. We all must be.

A year and a half ago, I spent a few days in the hospital delivering an almost five-month old fetus. The extremes of emotion were relentlessly brutal. What was John Lennon saying...life is what happens when you're busy making other plans? I was preparing to take that journey toward parenthood, to step away from Self, to devote my world to this new creation and I was neck-deep making those plans.

Then death stops you in your tracks.

And you return to the Self to deal with it.

We never found a scientific explanation for the loss, so I turn to the Spirit to duke things out. When you turn to the Spirit, see, you no longer have to deal with the Self.

I was in the hospital two other times prior to the miscarriage. And the focus at that time was a psychiatric focus where I was forced to turn away from the Spirit and deal with the Self. Because I was told the Self was not well. I often wonder what those 'friends' who veered me down that road are up to.

These were all very strange times in my life. And they seem like a distant dream I once had. They don't even feel like they happened.

But the point of all this is that we are all searching. Or rather, those of us who are truly ALIVE are still searching. This is only further demonstrated to me when a big rock star comes in and buys Paulo Coelho and self-help spiritual guides from me.

I often wonder where my focus should lie in my Great American Novel I need to chisel away at. Maybe the topic of miscarriage is a journey I was guided to write about?

coming into focus

I envy those friends of mine who knew early in life what their calling might be. Particularly those of the creative persuasion, and how productive their hobbies and passions actually turn out.

While dawdling in a little bit of everything, or as I like to say 'Jill of all trades, master of nothing,' I want to fine tune all of my interests into one sweeping finale. I am not a photographer, I am not a sports fanatic. I can knit the most minimum of all basics, paint when I feel inspired, play a few songs on the piano and strum some sounds on the guitar. I truly enjoy writing, but have been having major struggles finding things to write ABOUT.

On a day like today, where the snow and antibiotics have kept me indoors baking banana bread and zoning out on television, all I can do is sit and watch the thermometer fall and rise to zero.

So my grand focus is a rather broad one. I just want to tell stories.

Stories.

Bonjour 2009

Another year dead and gone. 2008 was a quick year, it seemed. It started off with a Vegas wedding, continued through last winter with long work hours, awoke in spring with more work. Summer lent itself to a few outdoor music and food festivals, September allowed for a quick week in Florida and the year rounded out with Chicago politics on a global stage.

And snow.

This photo was shot just outside my home in the early evening of a wintry blast of a storm just before Christmas. The snowfall, in its moment of conception in this local realm surrounding me, is certainly heavenly in its own right. The calamity of life lessens, the air seems to whisper softly and everything looks gorgeous.

We won't talk about what happens over the course of the days following a heavy snowfall.... of the polluted black snow mounds, slush, and potholes. That would ruin the mystical quality of the winter songs Mother Nature sings.

(But it suffices to say it doesn't last long.)

2009 begins another year of hard work. For most everyone, it seems. The economy is what it is. I feel a serious tone almost everywhere I turn, which may not be such a bad thing after all. I have always lived a frugal lifestyle, as has my husband, so this isn't any new contender in the fight. But I do anticipate a sort of change among people. Will it be like the snowfall? Peaceful in its meager beginnings? But leaving behind a very difficult and ugly aftermath?

Only time will tell, I suppose.

Some Bests of 2008? Getting married, Slumdog Millionaire, Obamapalooza, Paul Weller's 22 Dreams album, a customer stepping up to pay as I was ordering my lunch, getting back in touch with old friends, Lucinda Williams' Little Honey, several Netflix finds and a new television set.

It's the little things, you know?

World Music

As a person who enjoys the written word, story-telling and the art of proverbial jaunts, I have found a hobby over the years in becoming more familiar with music and words different from my own. Music for the sake of music.

I have spent my entire life listening to the words and the message and the story in Western song rather than recognizing the ephemera of it all and just enjoying the moment that music is able to give us listeners.

If I had a knack for creating music like so many of those whom I admire, I would pull together a band of intercontinental sounds and languages and throw them all in a casserole dish and let it bake for hours. Sadly, my guitar-playing is rough, my elementary school piano lessons have gathered dust in the attic of my brain, I have the rhythm of a rickety worn-out electric train and I can only play Oh Susannah on the steel drum. Therefore, I will leave the music makers to the sounds that curate the non-verbal exhibitions of our lives.

This is an extraordinary Ethiopian recording I stumbled upon. As I said before, I'm not a fan of 'reviews' but rather the evocativeness of this exchange. Google it, order yourself a copy of this and escape for 62 minutes. I just can't get enough of this record.

Barack Obama

It was an overwhelming sight to see in downtown Chicago last night. I didn't step into the rally but was able to soak up the peace and love on the streets of a town where I've meandered a majority of my life. I had never seen a moment of joy in Chicago quite like last night. Vendors filled the areas surrounding Grant Park, selling everything from light-up buttons to dollar bills with Obama's face imprinted...American flags sold by Central American accents, smiling so full of life and wonderment, watching the tears flow....

Did you watch the Young@Heart documentary yet? The epic journey of their performance of the following song is a pretty spectacular sight to see. (I couldn't find a film clip on youtube so thanks to Lee Dorsey/Allen Toussaint and the person who posted it for this incredible song...)

And speaking of hearts, who would have thought POLITICS could have one?

I'll be back soon with some photos from last night. We are on the threshold of some very powerful times....

'Twas the night before election day...

The air is tense.

I am thinking about wandering the crowds tomorrow night in Grant Park.

Thinking about it.

It may be too much too handle.

Tomorrow only knows.