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A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Soul Fury

Rumi, setting the heart alight:

80.

“The longing that makes you sit secluded,

that longing eventually takes

the human shirt off your back.

Strange being then,

neither seeker nor sought.

Who can be a breath-companion

with one who has no breath?”

64.

“There is a life where you have

your longed-for companion

day and night, night and day.

There is a way beyond time,

a being who gives us

the purest clear to drink,

and is at once cup, wine,

water, grace, eternity.”

#rumi #soulfury #poetry #healing

From The Paper Kites debut album 'States' OUT NOW. Album available from http://www.thepaperkites.com.au LYRICS & CREDITS BELOW Directed by Michael Haydon Pro...

#tenenbaum #thepaperkites

Official music video for 'Wonderwall' single Release Date: 30th October 1995 Directed by Nigel Dick Album Taken From: (What's The Story) Morning Glory ? The ...

Revisiting a classic.

#wonderwall #oasis

Inside

Listen while you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjR9D3sI7uI

My mind quivers. It pulses. It reaches past the borders of my skull, fluidly out, beyond, quiet and invisible. I wonder at the sparks that ignite within. What runs along those sinewy fibers, bundled in a tight, incomprehensively complex mass? I attempt the impossible: to will a vision of time not yet past. But to do so in excess is futile, even dangerous. I am still learning how to take things day by day, to slow down, to breathe. I trust that time can—will—reveal to me a path. Or perhaps it is merely the belief that sustains me.

I started reading “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood. I watched some of the show, but needed to compare, to see it at its source. It is frightening, stark, bleak. Unlike the show, so far, the book offers hardly a glimmer of hope. Hope within the character, yes, but as a whole? Halfway through, I am not so certain. I just ran into a beautiful quote, though, that I wished to share, which speaks to wider things, to something like understanding:

“I think this is what God must look like: an egg. The life of the moon may not be on the surface, but inside.”

There is something gently comforting in contemplating that secret, perhaps one day revealed. The secret of inside: of the moon, of depths, of love, of life.

#moon #handmaidstale #mind #writing #journal #margaretatwood #offred

newyorker

“I smoked this race,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says. “I didn’t edge anybody out. I dominated. And I am going to own that.”

Read David Remnick on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s historic win and the future of the Democratic Party.

moonlit-reveries

This woman represents every minority who grew up with fighting parents, huge aspirations, and is blazing forward for others to follow suit, despite barrier after barrier along the way.

#inspiration #latinas #sisepuede

“Wake up to the sound of your fleeting heart When you go, what you leave is a work of art On my chest, on my heart”

#featherstone #thepaperkites #music

The Moon Was Red and Dangerous

Listen while you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBQgg2tTG9c

It is midnight, or past 6am thousands of miles away where I spent a whirlwind of a few months. It isn’t so much the jetlag as much as the insomnia; thoughts swell within the tight corners of my tireless mind, warding away the possibility of sleep.

A blood-red moon shone over NYC. After a long 13 hours of travel, my plane swooped down to land in Newark, tilting itself towards the crowded, scintillating island for its passengers to admire in stunned silence. I thought about all that I will miss, and all that I am to experience in this big, beautiful, crowded, exhausting, wonderful city.

I will miss the wide-open freedom of those winter days. The carefree nonchalance: an attitude that sifts subtly, especially in the newfound spring breezes that greeted me during my last weeks. All the connections, small and large. Brief yet monumental. Smiles, laughter. Even the confusion, the moments where I felt lost, alone, uncertain, doubtful. But mostly, the invigoration. It is an elixir, to travel. To meet people, to experience and to share. But mostly, to reflect. To dig into myself, to question and to grow. To gain perspective.

My great uncle Escomel died on Sunday; I have never met him, but talking to my mother today, I realized this tragic event caused a pain that stretched into the deepest annals of a past I had never fully known. We spoke for over an hour about the Guerras and the Mayhuascas of my family in Peru, skimming the hardships and the burdens those resilient people faced every day. Cholitas. And I looked at myself, sitting by Morningside Park, fully aware of how much they and my parents worked so very hard to give my siblings and I every single opportunity we’ve been lucky enough to receive. How much sacrifice, and how unaware we were of all of it growing up. We were taught to work for what we wanted, to reach as high as we wanted. And now? I have months of beautiful memories behind and ahead of me. Everything I’ve worked for, and all that I want to give back, to them and to others who are born with the world at their feet, but with no precedent set but the grit of a humble, world-beaten, but determined family.

A part of me still longs to go back to Paris, to unravel more of its history, to discover others still, and to accomplish more in lab. But a part of me also loves being back; the energy of this city is infectious, and fills me with renewed vigor. I imagine myself living in Paris in the future, to envelop myself in the European lifestyle. But for now, there’s still more of my youth to share with this lovely, insomniac city. More to work towards, and more to give back.

#travel #paris #newyork #writing #redmoon #gregoryalanisakov #peru #family

By the Stream

By: Paul Laurence Dunbar

“By the stream I dream in calm delight, and watch as in a glass, How the clouds like crowds of snowy-hued and white-robed maidens

pass, And the water into ripples breaks and sparkles as it spreads, Like a host of armored knights with silver helmets on their heads. And I deem the stream an emblem fit of human life may go, For I find a mind may sparkle much and yet but shallows show, And a soul may glow with myriad lights and wondrous mysteries, When it only lies a dormant thing and mirrors what it sees.”

One of my favorite poems, expressing the near-unreachable depth of things, and of people.

#poetry #paullaurencedunbar #bythestream #reflection

Big Black Car from Gregory Alan Isakov's "This Empty Northern Hemisphere" album.

“Well time has a way of throwing it all in your face The past, she is haunted, the future is laced; Heartbreak, you know, drives a big black car Swear I was in the back seat, just minding my own

...

Well you were a dancer and I was a rag The song in my head, well was all that I had Hope was a letter I never could send Love was a country we couldn’t defend

...

Well you were a magazine, I was a plain jane Just walking the sidewalks all covered in rain Love to just get into some of your stories Me and all of my plain jane glory Just me and all of my plain jane glory”

#gregoryalanisakov #bigblackcar #time #love

All Inside Our Amsterdam She Flies

Listen while you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz2qpnRB5_E

Amsterdam has a sensuality about it that is at turns vulgar, at turns subtle, seductive, depending on one’s frame of mind. I found a certain quirk, a cheekiness, a charm to it that has not been replicated by other cities. It is a city built along a web of canals, and, like most cities in Europe, offers its unpredictable mix of blazing sun and soft rain. Its homes are comically tall and thin, with facades that tilt towards the streets as if preparing to bow. The sheer number of bikes famously outnumbers the population. Here, there is a special pride in this mode of transportation, as if everywhere else has been doing it wrong all along.

The art was a category unto itself; the Rijksmuseum features only Dutch artists, and I gravitated towards the paintings, a gorgeous library only (unfortunately) on display, and two elegant sculptures.

During the Easter weekend I was there, the tulips weren’t quite in full bloom, but some were eager to emerge despite the chill.

While riding along the canals on a boat tour, our group spotted people attempting to lower a table down to the street using the cranes that stick out of almost all of the buildings. Sights like this (verging on the absurd) bring serendipity to the everyday—a bubble of laughter erupted from everyone gathering around the spectacle. How wonderful that something so seemingly ordinary can cause such mirth.

There is something about traveling alone that is both thrilling and humbling. It allows you to take time to connect with the city, to meet new people, and to go where your heart leads you to. It is reflection and exploration: two things that come naturally to me. Yet, the humbling part is knowing the importance of shared experiences, too. The city is my own, but it is also laced with things that remind me of others, people who would delight in this or that. I am so lucky I get to travel, and to be able to realize these complicated, conflicting emotions.

I turned 24 this past Friday, and spent some of it celebrating in my laboratory, and then the latter half traveling to Amsterdam. I had time in my journey to think about my progress so far, about where I am right now, and about the many things I want to improve about myself. The foremost is my intensity; it permeates into everything I do: studying, traveling, ruminating, loving, etc. It is in my nature to dig deeply into everything, to get at the core of things, despite how futile the attempts often are. It’s a fieriness in me that I have nursed unwittingly. It seems I would much rather hurt and bleed and learn in the process than to remain along the surface of things. To feel alive — much like that feeling I described previously, which I felt as I stood above a piazzi in Roma. This, I have found to my utter surprise, is highly unconventional.

I have an issue with self-doubt that I think we all deal with; it is a thing that requires steady determination to quell. Going to Barnard helped me a lot with this. As does being surrounded by people—both at home and at work—who use confidence as a propelling force in their lives. For some of us, though, this is the hardest thing to harness. I’ve learned to use it when I need it, but to have it as a perpetual force? That, I think, will take time, if it ever arrives.

Gregory Alan Isakov is a songwriter who I turn to during quiet, pensive moments. His songs have a folktale quality about them, but they are lyrical. All of his songs lift me elsewhere, and sustain my frequent head-in-the-clouds states. He is akin in my mind to Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan, but is more modern and much less well-known. His lyrics are not straightforward, much like good poetry, so there is always something to discover in listening. His song about Amsterdam has stayed with me.

“all inside our Amsterdam she flies

hoarding the kites

that howling wind, she’ll take everything

but she’s easy on the eyes.

churches and trains

they all look the same to me now

they shoot you some place

while we ache to come home somehow”

-“Amsterdam,” Gregory Isakov

#amsterdam #holland #travelwriting #gregoryisakov #canals #bikes #tulips #art

A Periodic Reminder

To be unabashedly, stridently, openly oneself.

“Phenomenal woman, that’s me.”

Happy Birthday, Maya Angelou, who would have been 90 today.

#mayaangelou #poetry #phenomenalwoman #beatselfdoubt

A Poem Pressed Into a City

Listen while you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNEhdiG4Yp8

“Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.” - Anatole Broyard

It has taken me some time to get my thoughts together about this city. I still… I still can’t quite put words to it. There was a moment—brief, fleeting—looking above the Piazza Barberini. Nighttime, chill. Removed from the late-night bustle of the street below. Feeling… alive. Just that. More alive than I’ve ever felt. Is it worth sharing, out in this void? Perhaps not. But, at least for me, it helps me transfix it into something that I can hold onto. A part of me.

The exquisite beauty of Rome is in its decay. Its ruins that lay in every corner, the foundations of another era, forcing you to imagine, even unwittingly, another time that existed beyond the annals of your own days. Someone once lived there. Then you think of your own home: who will look upon, or stand layers atop, its ruins and wonder, who once lived here?

The focus — or seeming focus — on religion in Rome (churches along every corner, breathtakingly ornate) brings back memories of Catholic school. The judicious nuns, the safe feeling of reverence. Knowing (not just believing but knowing) of something greater creating, guiding, judging. My Peruvian family live their lives on unwavering faith, and I embraced it. Then having that belief fall away as I grew older, slowly, and then all at once. Going into these churches, and into the many I’ve been to in each city I’ve visited, I am, in a way, glad that I still feel respect for it. Who doesn’t need hope, and a scaffold, in their life?

I stumbled upon a crowd at the Vatican, right before the Pope was to come out onto his perch and give a blessing to all present. The moment was as if staged to have my old faith, and my current skepticism, meet briefly for the first time, then part ways once more.

I am stunned by all that I saw in my short time there. The city whispers its stories to you, in the echoes of your footprints, in the crumble of the rocks, the soft rain. It is a wise city. It is a beautiful city. It is poetry.

#rome #writing #travel #anatolebroyard #poetry

“Don’t confront me with my failures; I have not forgotten them.”

Montmartre & The Dead

Listen while you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNRmUAdoAyk Full soundtrack here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wCLK9iOPDw

“Failure teaches us that life is but a draft, an endless rehearsal of a show that will never play.”

Amélie has always been one of my favorite films. Amélie: a solitary dreamer with little ties to others, a woman whose mission eludes her, but who finds solace in helping others from a distance. I see myself in her. This distance she creates is observed and reprimanded by another solitary artist with glass bones, whose reproductions of a Renoir painting absorb his passing years. The scenes are sumptuously scarlet-infused, the dialogue a compendium of witticisms and whimsicality.

“Amelie has a strange feeling of absolute harmony. It's a perfect moment. A soft light, a scent in the air, the quiet murmur of the city. A surge of love, an urge to help mankind overcomes her.”

Around the corner from the tourist shop-ridden streets, a sight that knocked me out of balance. It wasn’t just the feeling of being somewhere I’d imagined going to; it was the feeling that I was somewhere that seemed ready to welcome me in this time of my life. One that seemed to want to lift me out of downtrodden spirits.

“You mean she would rather imagine herself relating to an absent person than build relationships with those around her?”

“If Amélie chooses to live in a dream-world and remain an introverted young woman, she has every right to mess up her life!”

Atop the highest point in Paris, the world spilled out in a flood, held together finely by the mist of the rain.

Down the slick cobbled stones of that beautiful hill, onto wherever the trail would lead me. The cemeteries of Montmartre peeked out from the side of a bridge, and drew me in: stately sepulchers decaying in the harsh gray.

I watched a TED Talk by Caitlin Doughty recently (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKIyDMaxh4w) about the relationship that modern society has with death. It is outsourced, avoided, and made to be kept under wraps. Grief is a rushed sentiment. But this has shifted drastically from the way our ancestors, and several current communities around the world, treat the death of a loved one as one that should be the full ownership of the deceased person’s loved ones and family. I stepped gingerly along the stone-lined paths, through winding corners of this quiet cemetery. The only others around were the security staff, eyeing me curiously as I passed.

What filled the lives of all these corpses encased in unfeeling tombs? What were their regrets, the things that always made them laugh, their secrets, their flaws? Who loved them and who did they love? What would they tell the person passing who asks, “What should I look forward to?” When will their descendants stop coming to visit them, to thank them for being at the roots of their existence? Death, like life, is an uncomfortable reality. Did they ever think this?

Some roses were fresh, fragrant, glowing against the coarse stone. Others, wilted, colorless, but still, somehow, beautiful.

“Without you, today’s emotions would be the scurf of yesterday’s.”

-Hipolito, The Writer

Invisible Cities

Listen while you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbs4oz59KEc

“… the more one was lost in unfamiliar quarters of distant cities, the more one understood the other cities he had crossed to arrive there… Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.”

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”

—Italo Calvino, “Invisible Cities”

Invisible Cities is a book about Venice, but it is, too, sinuous poetry about the our experience of traveling, of discovery. It is a celebration of hoping to lose oneself in foreignness, but finding more of oneself along the cobblestone paths, the faces flitting by, the art, the monuments, the buildings, the air.

By now, three weeks have passed since I have arrived in Sceaux, a small, quaint suburb to the south of Paris. The houses are earthy, antiquated. The streets are narrow, quiet, winding. The house I’m in nestles right next to the train station, a brief shot to the center of the bustle of the most elegant city I’ve ever encountered.

Getting lost in unfamiliar quarters of distant cities: that quote above reflects a key facet of my identity. Partly due to shoddy WiFi connection, and partly to the daring fearlessness that comes with excitement, I allowed trains to take me anywhere, for my feet to turn into inviting streets without an idea of where they would lead. Each turn etched new paths in my memory of this vast, beautiful city. In a visit to the Louvre, too, I eschewed a map in favor of slinking through the winding halls, transporting from Greek to Roman empires, watching the evolution of French painting, the first attempts at impressionism.

London, in the rain: quintessential and perfect. I loved it so much, and felt there is so much more to see, that I plan to visit again next month. There is something about it...

I visited Shakespeare & Co. the other day, in Paris, after a day exploring Le Marais with a friend. The book I chose was Oliver Sacks’s “On the Move,” an autobiography of the late neurologist. What I love most about him and few other contemporary scientists (Janna Levin, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Carl Sagan, etc.) is the shared passion for literature, exploration, and science. The worlds can be married exquisitely; it is figures like Sacks that see the beauty in that connection, and spend their life elucidating it. In Sacks’s book, he notes that throughout his life, he carried a journal everywhere he traveled, to pen his observations, from species of shrubbery to cloud-piercing mountain peaks, and his deep awe for all of it. Keeping a journal is a way to attempt the impossible: to capture the minutiae of experience, the intangibility of an impression. And yet, as writers, we try to do just that.

Though the fullness of the days allows me little time to pen impressions, in small patches, I hope to encapsulate this awakening of the self and the world.

x, Josie

#paris #london #europe #invisiblecities #italocalvino

The video above is the most accurate representation of an experience of a new city I have ever seen. There is a gripping tenderness to it that anyone who craves aloneness, but must reconcile the bouts of loneliness, has felt. There is a moment she realizes she falls in love with Paris. Already, I know exactly what she means.

“I felt alive. Yes, alive.”

#paris #parisjetaime

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