Fortunate Fortunes

She has this bi-polar sense of self-worth. Some days she will dance into room, intoxicating every bystander with her charisma and charm, but other days she forgets how to take the most modest compliment. It is a bit of a gamble who she will wake up to in the morning. She goes to bed not knowing, just praying that her opinion of self will be kind, forgiving, supple.

They say don’t judge a book by its cover but she is a slave to her binding and reinterprets her title incessantly, sometimes for better, other times for worse. It is strange how her opinion of her value is contingent on so many unstable factors. The other day for instance, was bleak and dismal. Her apartment was unbearable chilly and damp because she neglected to close the windows after setting the oven smoking. The feeling the weather instilled in her was enough to steer her self-perception down a very critical path…

But sometimes she cannot pinpoint the rhyme or the reason. She woke up today an hour and 45 minutes later than intended, leaving no time for the gym or to find a remedy for her orphanesque façade. She surrendered to her harsh judgment and accepted that today she would not stand tall.

But sometimes ones opinions are challenged by the simplest things. Her local coffee spot always posts the day’s horoscope on the barista counter. Typically her roommate surprises her with a text around 10:30 revealing her omen like a fortune cookie, but today she needed coffee to drive her to work. While not superstitious, she is occasionally tickled by irony and serendipity. Her horoscope read: “How many times do you need to be told you’re beautiful before you believe it? You light up a room with your smile. Embrace it”…

Elephants and Art..

There are people, posers if you will, who stand before the most abstract of art, to evaluate nothing but their ego. They search between the stark lines and contours of a canvas, to prove nothing but a point. An illusion unfolds as they project a capacity to unearth the hidden message of the artist, an artist who had no other intention than to splash a dash of this and dabble of that, an artist who likely laughed at the idea of the pompous viewers who would someday assess his afterthoughts.

But then there is art that grips even the most indifferent observer, perhaps one who would love to dwell before a masterpiece but has forgotten how. Art so captivating that is beckons appreciation from the rushed and taxed. It inspires connoisseurs and troglodytes alike with a message so saturated with sadness and grace that it seeps beyond the confines of frames and into one’s consideration.

I don’t know how to pinpoint why certain images speak. I am no master, and I lack the language to articulate the mechanics of a captivating canvas. But does that really matter? Beauty, like most things is relative and the language to correctly describe something, no matter how refined and widely endorsed, is merely a construction…

I haven’t cried in several months. I sometimes consider tears a luxury my schedule does not permit. Or maybe that is my justification for not being as sensitive as I used to be.
I will not say I cried today, but I was somewhere on the brink. I shed a tear or two. I went to the DIA to see an exhibition of Avedon’s photography. One shot, imparticular stirred something in me and silenced my cynicism. Before me stood a woman, fair and slender, surrounded by circus elephants. They were tethered down by chains and she by the sash below her breasts. All were in captivity, and somehow a silent understanding was shared by all.

This image spoke.

Hocus Pocus...

She is darned in black: silk skirt a glove on her curves, yet she tastefully salvages a bit of mystery by concealing every ounce of porcelain flesh. Her neck the only visible fragment of her body, since even her cheeks are camouflaged by a bloodly rouge, and her eyes disguised by dark circles. Everything is in place, except her hair which had different plans: Dark, wildly, nostalgic for nights on the town, and unwilling to conform to the life she now leads. But don’t be fooled by her thick rimmed glasses, double tall extra foam elixir, and PDA in hand..she is but an actress.

Hocus-pocus bravado. She labels Uncle Sam the tyrant and her artistic soul the damsel in distress. In her fairy tale she is the star: protagonist, antagonist, director, producer…She whispers poignant memories of trudging through the Balkans and basking on dessert islands to anyone who will listen to her weave them a tale. Her former commitment to humanitarianism, the guilt she lives with every day for not being all things: rehearsed, calculated, an illusion she believe. Truth be told, she has no external enemies, she is fighting only herself, and she is losing the battle. Fighting to believe she is a creative yet resilient spirit, not a corporate sell-out, quick enough to keep up with the boys, and competitive enough to drop everything that means something to her to win this race.

“Cut the bull-shit” he told me. And I told him he didn’t understand me, but I knew he didn’t need to. He didn’t need to know my thoughts and intentions to recognize the hypocrisy in my fairy tale. Abra Cadabra won’t work on them all. “If you call yourself some staved artist, get off your ass and go to the DIA, sacrifice one predictable night of dancing to paint a picture, to contribute to something you supposedly believe in.”

Sell out.

Yet she is but an actress, who can’t always win the Oscar. Who doesn’t even know she is performing because it is how she copes.

Creatures of havoc

The other day someone told me I am living the dream. While I know this was intended as a kind gesture, I pause to assess the meaning of such a statement. Do they speak of their own dreams, because I dream of other things..

I have an unrealistic fear of becoming a prisoner of convention. And thus some days this dream I supposedly live feels more like a nightmare. The instillation of simple habits sometimes set my heart racing. I notice that I have a morning routine. I become complacent with monotony and side with predictability for the sake of convenience. I wake at a set time, eat the same things, drive the same way. It is an unchallenged regimen. Am I but a machine? I fear habit extinguishes creativity, yet this dream I am living feels increasingly habitual

In the background of blockbuster hits walk the blur of business men and women. The John Smiths and Jane Does who stride in synchronization, darned in snaggless tights and crisp suites. They are but the backdrop, their every movement determined by their hunger for success, their fire fueled by the glamorization of a paradigm entitled “more, more, more….”

But with such an unquantifiable goal, can it ever be enough?

The Prostitution Princess

“You researched what?” He asked in surprise.

“Prostitution” I responded with a straight face, not looking for small talk, particularly not the kind initiated by men several drinks in.

His lips gave way to the mischievous grin that all men accidently let slip when I reveal my anthropological interest.

“What do you mean prostitution?” He asked, hungry for a playful response, clearly ignorant of my disinterest in prolonging the conversation.

“I studied the relationship between prostitution and capitalism.”

He’s eyes revealed he wanted more.

I reluctantly explained that My interest was in the impact of capitalism on sex workers in contemporary US society, how the body is conceptualized as something which should remain whole, but the process of commoditization mandates fragmentation. I considered morality, and relationships, and ultimately how a woman living on the fringe of society is given no option but a schizophrenic existence. I took a sip of my wine and looked him in the eye.

What once was excitement, had been exchanged for terror. In this man’s eyes, I transformed into a monster: Smart, arrogant, immune to his advances, and partial to my own company.
He walked away.

I was relieved. Flirting takes too much energy these days, particularly when it means foolishly giggling about things I am passionate about, diminishing my accomplishments, subduing my intelligence. I would rather someone run away from fear of me eating them than wake-up one day to only discover I am a stranger to my forgotten self. When individuals act astonished that I am an artist, an anthropologist and a business women, I respond with equal astonishment that they fail to see the obvious relationship….

“I think the problem with people these days is they try to put everyone in a box. You are this, or that, but God forbid you be a dynamic individual. How then could we put a label on you?” My new friend laughed.

I couldn’t agree more. Society seems to entice us with stereotypes that we are encouraged to inhabit. I could rant about those who buckle beneath the weight of status symbols and cultural propaganda, but I am also guilty of this crime. I tried the hippy gig for a spurt, followed by the rebellious city girl, only to disregard this for the preppy cape cod, Lily Pulitzer wearing sorority sister. I’m afraid, however, that I am a cracked vessel. The truth has always seeped through.

I passed a little girl the other day, wearing roller skates, a cape and a crown, fist tightly clinched around her magic fairy wand. It wasn’t Halloween, it was Tuesday, and she had important things to do. I looked at her with hidden admiration, jealous of her inhibition and sense of purpose. She wasn’t smiling, but daunted a serious glare. She was on a mission, be it a mystery to the rest of us.

I wonder what would happen if I rolled up to the office dressed as a princess with a purpose. My suspicion is that it might not go over so well, and that I would either be asked to remove my skates or rolled out.