moving...

Dear Friends,

I'm moving...

...to WordPress. I hope you'll stop by my new home: Art of Guesture.

I've been working on creating a new space for myself. In honor of my word for 2013... CREATE, I have decided to make the move to WordPress. Art of Guesture has grown from the need to create a place for a new beginning. I have been so happy with what has come from mother/father's daughter, and what I have tracked over the past two years. From Grad School to San Francisco - through new jobs, bad relationships, supreme highs, embarrassing lows and a heavy learning curve, I'm so pleased that it is documented.

As I was saying goodbye to my old home, I giggled a little at the first sentence of my last post:

i've got a stagnant itch and it's telling me that it's time to go somewhere.

Ta da.

I hope you'll enjoy what grows here. A bit of daily life, commentary on what I hear-read-see, photos, music and (as always) whatever I feel like throwing out to the universe.

If you follow me on Blogger, Google Reader or other fancy tool, I hope you'll take a moment to update this URL. It's pretty easy - www.artofguesture.com

Welcome to my new home. I'd love to hear from you.

space...

i've got a stagnant itch and it's telling me that it's time to go somewhere.

anxiety has come up quite often in conversation recently. i have a sneaking suspicion that more of us feel moments of anxiety than we care to admit. for some it's severe and even debilitating, for some it's a passing thought.

SHE TAPPED HER CHEST WITH HER FINGERTIPS. "WE ARE BORN WITH EVERYTHING IN HERE: EVERYTHING WE NEED TO BE HAPPY AND COMPLETE. BUT AS SOON AS THINGS START FRIGHTENING US, WE GIVE AWAY PIECES OF OURSELVES TO MAKE THE FEAR GO AWAY. THAT'S THE DEAL: YOU WANT IT TO STOP SCARING YOU, SO YOU GIVE IT A PART OF YOURSELF. YOU GIVE AWAY YOUR PRIDE,YOUR DIGNITY, YOUR COURAGE." -JONATHAN CARROLL 

i get it. i feel it first in my belly. like my organs are shifting and then it travels into my ribcage. i don't panic... anymore. for me, it's a sign that i'm not in balance. that i'm over-complicating. over-worrying. over-doing. it's also a sign that i'm moving too fast and skipping over the details to achieve something rather than savor (or suffer) the process.

today i've got that feeling. today it feels like a push to get moving. to honor my word for 2013. create. i'm creating some new projects - creating a new financial plan - creating the space to have choices. and more than that, i'm declaring it here. putting it into history to hold myself accountable. i am creating space for a trip to india, a move to be with the one i love, savings in order to have more than $6.13 in the bank the night before the bills are due and for more dancing. there's space for it all. as long as i create it.

are you honoring your 2013 word still/yet? 

weekend inspiration...

 some images inspiring me to study this rainy evening...

weekend video...

trust me. you need to watch this before you start your weekend. it's been a while since i've shared it, and it feels like the best way to start the first weekend of 2013.

THE Kelly Clarkson Driving Dance from the dance/theater piece, 'genesis, no!' by Adrienne Truscott performed by Carmine Covelli and Neal Medlyn at PS122, NYC, 2007.

2013

i have to say, i'm pretty pleased that the world didn't end in december. I know that's a completely ridiculous statement and i never actually believed the world would end. so, in a non-related sort of way, i sure am glad we're all still here and that we've opened the door and made ourselves comfortable in 2013.

last year, every time i said the year out loud, 2012, i followed up by saying the future, even though it was obviously the present. because, doesn't 2012 (and now 2013) sound like the future? for someone who grew up in the 80's and remembers bad technology, 2012 (and now 2013) really is some far off, distant future. 

well, here we are. living in the future.

i rang in 2013 by sleeping through it. on purpose. jordan and i couldn't spend the evening in the same city, so i decided to treat myself to a great night's sleep and enter the new year without feeling hungover, over-indulged or with any oops/regretful feelings. i went to yoga on new year's day where we did 12 sun salutations, one for each month of 2012 and then i got a massage. a brilliant start to 2013.

as far as resolutions go, i'm with tolly... i usually break them. i started reading her blog a few years ago and really love her idea of setting a word for the new year. instead of making a list of rules to follow for the year (which never works for me, because as soon as i make the list i devise plans to break all the rules), she sets a word. a word to make decisions by and with. an intention of sorts.

a few weeks ago, i began thinking about what my word might be and what i'd like to accomplish.

create.

i'd like to create opportunities for myself professionally, personally, in my relationship, in my artistic and writing life and my spirituality.

maybe it's the season, or the common age... or just a need for new... because tolly's word is also create - with a twist, of course.

so, here's to a year of creation and creative energy, in the many forms in which they come!

what's your word?

2012

so much good in 2012. nestled right in with the pain and the loss. clean sheets tonight for the first sleep of 2013. a refrigerator full of groceries. a quiet night all to myself.

happy last day of 2012. maybe two yoga classes today.

not about... [part one]

this is part one of a two (maybe three) part post.

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i've written and deleted this post on a daily basis since december 14. that was the day of the sandy hook elementary school shooting in newtown, connecticut.

i've been a whole mixed bag of thoughts and feelings and shit since this happened and am filled with questions about our world.

why?

i grew up in long beach, california in a lovely neighborhood by the beach. long beach has a long-standing reputation of being a rough community filled with gang violence and boasts to be the home of more than one nationally-known gang. at times, this reputation is true. though, it does not rule our community.

growing up, i knew of shootings, drive-bys, gang initiations and city-wide riots. i went to high school with a young man who was killed by gun violence. i also went to school with a young man who was convicted of murder.

i have never lived in fear. never thought i could be next.

when i hear the dialogue about the state of our nation's politics as it relates to gun control and protection after an even like sandy hook, i can only express concern and confusion. when i hear that a common response is to put armed police officers in every school in our country - or to encourage educators to carry weapons in the classroom - this is when i begin to consider fear. fear that this is what it's come to.

we are a country living in fear.

this evening i read this post by one of my absolute favorite bloggers, hila at le projet d'amour. the post is incredibly brilliant and highly charged, which i love, and is as it should be. hila touches on some exceptional issues surrounding victim-blaming in cases of rape and sexual assault. as you may have already guessed, i've got whole pile of opinions on this... tonight, my take-away thought that provoked this post, is the idea that telling a woman to dress more conservatively, to wear flats instead of heels, to be sober 100% of the time or to never be alone, ever, promotes fear. fear that we are not safe. we are educating and encouraging women to not get raped, instead of telling rapists not to rape.

Change is not going to magically happen if we keep regurgitating this crap over and over again – if we keep telling women that it’s their responsibility to make sure they don’t get raped, rather than telling rapists not to rape. 

ok. so i'm having a couple of conversations at the same time here... but i'm hoping you get where i'm going with this. 

how on earth can we ask ourselves to carry more weapons and expect to avoid weapon-driven violence? i took hours upon hours of gang-related, anti-violence, d.a.r.e-type classroom modules throughout elementary school. it worked for me, personally, though i know it didn't resonate with everyone.

what is missing? how do we regain control and live proactively? 

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check back in the next few days as i continue to delve into the ideas of education, communication, dialogue and mental wellness as a response to living in fear in part two.

image found here.