I Refuse to Crumble

Hey world,

There is a disembodiment occurring - where my body deliberately moves through the spaces I currently occupy, and my mind floats nearby, like the balloon that trails behind a running child, oscillating between floating weightlessly and realizing that you're tethered to something that moves without your control.

The mind, heart and body is not in sync...I've learned that solitude doesn't result in redressing internal conflicts, and companionship only fills the cracks so far as the time together elapses. 

What I've alluded to thus far on the blog, and what I've finally articulated is this:

I'm not satisfied. 

I started asking myself the questions I posted before:

Am I happy with what I accomplished today?

Do I love where I am in this moment?

Am I in love with what I do?

Do I love me?

And the answers kept coming back: 

Kind of. 

No.

 I don't think so. 

Yes. 

Those answers need to become YES. YES. YES.YES.

So I've taken it upon myself to get myself back together. The larger causes of my dissatisfaction cannot be addressed or changed overnight. But, I realized, I should absolutely be happy with what I accomplish each and every day. And if I am happy with what I accomplish each day, I will also start to love where I am in this moment.

If you know me, you know that I legitimately HATE exercise. The last time I went to a gym was in early 2012....I think. But exercise requires discipline. It requires your body and your mind to come together. It's not a battle of which is stronger, but how much the two can endure together. So this is the first method I'm employing to bring satisfaction into my life. 

For the month of March, I have committed to go to the gym for at least one hour (on machines) 5-6 days a week. 

For the month of April, I have signed up for two kickboxing classes, and will attend one or the other every. single. day. for. thirty. days.

I will do things that I once thought I couldn't. Or wouldn't. 

I am going to push myself to reunite. 

One of my favorite songs from high school has a line that says:

"The hardest part of living is just taking the breath to stay." - Mayday Parade

I read that as: Living is intentional. Breathing, while it seems like something we do inherently, is an intentional action that our body makes, every second of every day, to keep us alive for another moment to experience in this world. It's not enough to wake up and hope that your lungs hold out for you, you have to remind them (and yourself) that there's more than just breathing. 

I'm telling my lungs to breathe again. 

And I can feel them expand and contract as I climbed 40 floors today, bicycled 8 miles, and rowed .6 miles.

Change is coming.

xoxo,
M

My 2014 Reading List

Hey World,

It's about time to make some resolutions, right? One thing that I really want to commit to in 2014 is to unplug and open spines, in that order. Of course, I'm referencing unplugging from my phone and my computer and my TV in times of boredom and open spines...of actual books!

I have a Kindle and he and I have been through a lot together, but there's nothing like a nice paperback or hardcover and a blanket to make everything in the world right again.

My other resolution is to track my readings in 2014 -- as a way to track my interests, see what I've accomplished, and see how many books I can actually read. It also will discourage me from reading too many sappy love stories...although let's be honest, I'm sure a few of them will pepper their way in here. 

This past month, I've been off from school, so I had an inordinate amount of free time. I also had other things going on, and I'm working on unplugging more (this list could be so much longer....damn Criminal Minds!). 

But here is my list, so far, in order. I'll continue to update it every month or two with additions. 

Books Read in 2014:

Baking Cakes in Kigali, Gaile Parkin

Giving, Bill Clinton

Dictatorship to Democracy, Gene Sharp

The Antelope Strategy, Jean Hatzfeld

Laughs, Luck…and Lucy, Jess Oppenheimer

Bucolic Plague, Josh Kilmer-Purcell

The Sex Lives of Cannibals, J. Maarten Troost

Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Peggy Orenstein

One Man’s View of the World, Lee Kuan Yew

The Brightest Star in the Sky, Marian Keyes

Divergent, Veronica Roth

Showing Up for Life, Bill Gates Sr. 

Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg

Insurgent, Veronica Roth

The Plague, Albert Camus

The Other Wes Moore, Wes Moore
A Free Man, Aman Sethi

Fault in Our Stars, John Green
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum
Small Wars, Sadie Jones
The Long Walk, Slavomir Rawicz
A Long Walk to Water, Linda Sue Park
Like Trees, Walking, Ravi Howard
Blueprints for Building Better Girls, Elissa Schappell

Note: this list will not include books read for school, because I think that's a different kind of relationship with books and reading. 

I hope to add another book every week or so; right now I'm at 23 in 4 months!

xoxo,

M

*Last updated April 24th, 2014

I Hate My Curtains

Hey world,

When I used to blog frequently, I often found that opening a new blog post and furiously typing whatever came out was a form of catharsis for me -- regardless if I published it for left it in the purgatory of my drafts. 

Now that I blog only once in awhile, I have slowly noticed a bottlenecking of emotions. And boy, is this bottle of emotions ready to burst!

As I'm typing this, it's 3:51 am on a Sunday (Monday) morning. It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day; a holiday celebrating a man who rose before a movement and led a struggle that dramatically altered the United States for the better. 

Ironically, I'm embroiled in my own struggle (though certainly not anywhere near as momentous of proportions). 

But like MLK I have a dream and, like MLK, I desire change.

---

This past Saturday, I had one of the nice maintenance men who works in my building come and install my curtain rod. When he left, I dragged over my stool and hung up my very first pair of curtains. 

I expected to have this great moment of triumph; I had aesthetically completed my apartment! 

Instead, I shrugged my shoulders and dragged my stool back to the island. 

The next morning, I woke up and thought "I wonder if I feel different now that I have curtains!" -- surprisingly, I didn't. Now that I'm staring at them in the dark...I'm still not impressed with them.

They've slid from a temporary moment of triumph to living proof that I'm now completely compliant with the vision of NYC apartment-living domesticity. 

---

I think the curtains need to come down.

Change is imminent; but first, there must be a struggle. 

xoxo,

M

A Litany for Survival

Hey world,

I took a hiatus, but I'm back to share another poem. I know, I'm also thinking seriously, what is this? A poetry collection blog? but this one has a back story so sit back for a moment.

When I decided to accept the job with WorldTeach, I was absolutely ecstatic. But I also knew that at some point, I would to start doubting myself. I would get nervous. I would get to Tanzania and have potential mental breakdowns about everything*.

(*If there's anything I can say about myself without hesitation, it would be that I'm very adept at guessing what Future Me will do. And Future Me, and Current Me, is ALWAYS in a tizzy worrying about the next set of divergent paths in the wood instead of accepting my current location)

So when I came across this Audre Lorde poem, I was transfixed. I retyped it into a word document (helps press it into your memory) and then printed multiple copies of it and tucked them all over my room. One copy made it to Tanzania and home with me, and it's that quarter-fold that I now have in my apartment hanging on the side of my fridge. 

Out of the way, but nearby if needed. 

I identify with the "those of us" referenced throughout the poem, and I feel as though many travelers, wanderlusters and world-seekers would too. 

It's about quelling the what-ifs and giving into the what-the-hell's. 

As I've recently had to admit, the hardest thing to be afraid of is fear itself. 

xoxo,

M

---

A Litany for Survival

- Audre Lorde

For those of us who live at the shoreline

standing upon the constant edges of decision

crucial and alone

For those of us who cannot indulge

the passing dreams of choice

who love in doorways coming and going

in the house between dawns

looking inward and outward

at once before and after

seeking a now that can breed

futures

like bread in our children's mouths

so their dreams will not reflect

the death of ours:

For those of us

 who were imprinted with fear

like a faint line in the center of our foreheads

learning to be afraid with our mother's milk

for by this weapon

this illusion of some safety to be found

the heavy-footed hoped to silence us

For all of us 

this instant and this triumph

We were never meant to survive. 

And when the sun rises we are afraid

it might not remain

and when the sun sets we are afraid

it might not rise in the morning

When our stomachs are full we are afraid

of indigestion

When our stomachs are empty we are afraid

we may never eat again

When we are loved we are afraid

love will vanish

When we are alone we are afraid

love will never return

and when we speak we are afraid

our words will not be heard

nor welcomed

but when we are silent

we are still afraid. 

So it is better to speak

Remembering

We were never meant to survive. 

Home, Now.

Hey world,

The sun set in Harlem today and the colors of the sky drift from blues to a whitewash of pastels to darkness. Again. 

I push my nose against the glass and scrunch my eyes towards the sky.

Not a single star. I sigh, and drag myself back to my computer. 

I talked to a friend from my year in Tanzania for over an hour today. I curled up on the couch under my blanket while we chatted, and I couldn't help but think of the days where we would talk in Tanzania and it would be a game of continuous phone tag. Where we would talk about what we were cooking for dinner and the best ways to avoid the rain and make time pass faster and update one another on our water supplies as I kicked around some dirt outside of my house and covered one of the hundreds of tiny anthills that sprung up each morning. 

It made me miss kicking my Toms shoe around in the dirt. It made me contemplate making some beans for dinner...until I remembered how much I hate beans. It made me miss being somewhere that wasn't here.

Thanksgiving just came and went. Christmas is just 25 days away.

I've been home for almost six months, but days like this make Tanzania feel so familiar that I could have left yesterday and not known any better. 

That travel bug is itching and itching and itching, but I know better than to let myself be tempted. Another six months to go before I can even consider leaving the country...I need to start saving. 

Harlem is home now.

Having no stars outside is home now.

I miss home now. 

xoxo,

M

Living the Dream

Hello World,

This is going to be a rather long post. But stick with me, and try and follow where this is going, because I swear, somehow it's all related. 

---

There's this girl I know from high school who, while lives largely in my periphery, has become nothing short of an inspiration. It started with an innocuous link on her Facebook to a blogpost she wrote a couple of years ago, and then I started to follow her blog. And her life path. And I realized that she was very much like me in so many ways (something I was semi-aware of when we were in school together) but her drive came from this place of self-knowing.

A couple of days ago, she announced on Facebook that she's quitting the 9-5 she's held for the past few months in Boston, and is westward bound to try and create a life surrounding her passion. Not her interests, but her passion. 

When I read it, I was just so pleased. I let her happiness wash over me, and I felt calm. And then I wrote this and left it on her wall:

So many people talk about their dreams and doing what they love, yet most never make it past the safeness of dreaming. I am so incredibly proud and honored to know someone who extends their boundaries, pursues their passions, and puts self-reflection and self-happiness first - and that that person is you. 

Keep living out your dreams; you're an inspiration for me to continue to do the same and I am absolutely certain you also inspire and motivate others to do the same.

To be happy and to help others find their happy; what more could you ask for in this world?

"Mtaka cha uvunguni, sharti ainame"

---

Today, my favorite blogger Kim, from So Many Places,  wrote about this poem in a post from France: 

THE INVITATION

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. 

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!

 I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

 I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children. 

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.  I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away. 

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

---

This is what Kim had to say about it: 

"I read the poem once and then I read it again. Of all its beautiful stanzas this one stands out to me today:

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

And I realize that this is what I want to express in my emails: the importance of embracing the flame of possibility instead of turning your back on it. I want to say: If the risk of climbing into the fire is worth more to you than the comfort of lingering where it cannot touch you, you will know.

And when you decide to step inside the fire do not shrink back.

Do not shrink back even though the flames are crawling up your pant legs.

Do not shrink back though you are afraid that you might catch fire.

Do not shrink back although you fear that the heat and intensity of the flames will transform you into something unrecognizable.

Because that is exactly the point."

---

I loved what she had to say about shrinking from the fire. But I was more taken by the last two lines:

I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away. 

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

This is something I ask myself every day.

Am I happy with what I accomplished today?

Do I love where I am in this moment?

Am I in love with what I do?

Do I love me?

And when the answer shifts from 'yes' to 'no', that's when I too, will have to be brave enough to make a change. 

Above all, I must commit to living a life that I am proud of. That sustains me, that is true to not only my interests, but my passions, and my vision of the future. 

Moreover, I must continue to surround myself with people who live in the same way, for our energies united ground our own convictions in a world where dreaming and doing are still distant. 

xoxo,

M

What Your Walls Are Made Of

Hi world,

There's nothing I love more than a great Ted (or Tedx) talk.

This particular talk from TedxBoulder has been shared like wildfire this week after appearing on Upworthy -- and I think it has a great, relevant message for everyone.

Ash Beckham talks about coming out of closets. Not literally, of course, but the proverbial closets that we all seem to find ourselves inside of time and time again: when we know truths about ourselves, yet we are afraid to admit them to the world.

Our closets could be hiding anything...but most of all, they hide ourselves.

http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Coming-Out-of-Your-Closet-Ash-B

The video is 11 minutes long, and worth every second. In fact, I watched it twice.

And while you're watching, think about your own closets. Think about how closets come into being, how they trap you in, and how powerful it is to open the door.

Being open and honest about who we are and what we want out of life is so, so important. It's not an easy thing to do -- but Ash reminds us that it might be hard but it'll be worth it

xoxo,
M