Nobody Knows (Decision making as crap shoot)

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Sylvie

A recurring theme this weekend, as I struggle with minor health issues and a general feeling of being run down from the humid heat, is that no one knows what to do. We have a set of external guidelines, suggestions, common wisdom and personal opinions, but there’s no definitive knowing against which I can make decisions. Outcomes will vary: Is that just life, or is it India? Maybe I should start praying to the local gods for better health?

To illustrate my point: Everyone has mixed feelings about the anti-malaria pills we’re supposed to take (I’m having odd dreams). Some in my group are taking them, some have stopped, some may start after stopping. Despite medical advice, and after some googling, we’ve each formed our own opinions on how to handle the need for this medication. I suppose all human decisions are equally personal — with some information seeking married to gut feeling, but I also note that without the comforts of my typical (home) compasses, I have become more random in my decision making. I remember what the nurse at the travel clinic said about stomach issues, but then I wonder when I consult with my peers about what’s truly appropriate. What level of discomfort should trigger prescription use?

Similarly, the U.S. state department has guidelines about avoiding crowds for safe travel, but crowds are where the action is. What do I consider each risk level to be, and what levels of risk do I choose to tolerate and why? (And can I avoid crowds in India?) These are big questions and they come up again and again. No answers here. I’m just amused by the range of adaptations to these common quandaries in myself.

We went to a street festival last night. Here’s a picture of two in our group making friends there.

India: Dream Continent. Kolkata: Dream City

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Sylvie

Here’s one of my theories about travel: For every major city known around the world (think London, Hong Kong, New York, Cape Town, Kolkata), there is a dream version of the city which lives in our minds–a dream composed of impressions, movie clips, song lyrics, images, fleeting conversations and travel fantasies. Equally, certain (sub)continents are stamped with dreamed exoticism. For example India and the strange assortment of reactions news of my trip engendered in friends and family.

I do not know when I started wanting to visit India, but I remember telling a cab driver in Philadelphia that India would always be there for me–eventually my time would come. (This conversation took place 10 years ago.) But the feeling was stronger than that, I wanted to experience the India in my heart and mind. Was I really having a relationship with a country?

Now that I am here, I feel close to Kolkata. I feel an affinity for the city’s abundant spirit, its in-your-face attitude, its generosity, its speed, it’s intensity. It’s a tropical New York. It is nothing like New York. I worry about my love for India. I wonder how self-serving this love is. Do I adore being “Other”? Being noticed? I think about how tourists use foreign spaces as fun-house mirrors for their egos.

Is going to India a cliche? At least I’m not in an ashram. I am living in Kolkata, walking its sidewalks, taking its metro, eating its food, finding a tailor, navigating commercial interactions and human exchanges of all durations and intensities.

I think about the India stereotypes and how Kolkata does and does not fit my pre-arrival ideas. Yes, it’s abundantly dirty and polluted–water, streets, exhaust, the generic dusty grime that covers everything and gets in my ears. No, I haven’t been confronted by many beggars. Yes, it is an assault on the senses. No, the smells can be quite lovely. No, there are no wild monkeys. Yes, there are dogs everywhere, but mostly they nap. There are also a few cows. Yes, westerners stick out and are stared at. No, the people aren’t always friendly (but then I wouldn’t expect New Yorkers to be constantly friendly.) Is it safe? Yes, I think so. Do I feel comfortable walking alone? Sometimes, by daylight.

Real Kolkata is both more familiar, and less exotic than dream Kolkata, but it is also more mysterious beneath the commonplace surface. I am never sure what really happened, what was understood and what was not, after I have an exchange with a local. We meet on fields of stereotypes, each expecting the other to play a role, and then we try to become human to each other, to surprise, or control the interaction. As a privileged foreigner surrounded by real need, my “purpose” is to be ripped off, but to try to be reasonably ripped off. I don’t know enough yet to be able to bargain wisely, but I trust the knowledge will come in time.

My dream Kolkata has become my real Kolkata. It is more vibrant, more human, more complicated and more charming than I had hoped for.

Tropical, Political Clothing

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Sylvie

For the next six weeks, I live in Kolkata. Not even in Junior High did I think so hard about what clothes I wear, how they fit my body, and what my appearance conveys about my identity, my values, and what interactions I am seeking out and hoping for.

The wearing of clothes in Kolkata is complicated territory for me. Indian women typically wear longer sleeves, longer shirts, longer pants and skirts, and scarves. Women cover up here, even in the heat. Occasionally I spy a woman who might have short sleeves on, but she will then cover up her shoulders with a scarf.

As a western woman, I am closely observed by men, women and children, and I might even say continuously judged (or so I suspect). I am conscious of the brands I wear, the electronic toys I possess (iPhones are rare), and how my shoes are different–and how each of these things implies lifelong privilege which I had never scrutinized. This week, I am newly aware of my shirt’s neckline, the degree to which my shoulders and my prominent bosom are covered. I am aware of the stares and how I represent a brand, the western woman.

For my internship, yesterday as we toured the Sonagachi red light district, I was wearing new pants, purchased in India, hoping they would be more heat adapted. Sitting in the sex worker’s health clinic talking with peer educators, the pants stuck to my thighs in the heat, and when I went to cross my legs as I sat on the floor, the pants ripped at the top of my thigh. My classmates swore that my long top covered the wardrobe malfunction, but I still felt quite self conscious and vulnerable as we walked through streets saturated with brothels, a curiosity for the population. It makes for a good cocktail story, and for layers of feeling in the moment.

I understand that there are two markers of sex workers in Kolkata–you can identify them at night because they wear western clothes and a lot of makeup. You might call it a theatrical performance, an impersonation.

The multiple ironies, including me trying to fit into Indian clothes so I send a message of modesty, are not lost upon me.

I ponder the challenges of functioning in a society where women’s modesty is always monitored–how that pressure must shapes lives. I look forward to returning to tank tops without worry back in Philadelphia. I also have new sympathy for those who will never blend into their environment, be it due to race or culture. Finally, I am grateful for the heat and these insights.

Time, Space, Heat, Color

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Sylvie

My roommates and I decided (I think on our first day) that the space-time continuum needed to be altered to the space-time-heat continuum–a few hours in Kolkata bring home that point abundantly. Heat changes the way your body experiences both space and time–they both lengthen. For example, what I’m convinced is a five minute walk in 40F weather is a 20 minute walk in 99F, and my experience of time in the sun feels much longer because it weighs on my body so much more. So while things are taking longer, and feeling hotter and more weighty, there are all the other assaults on the senses afforded by life in the city.

First and foremost: The Color. There is vibrant color everywhere. The paint merchants must be rich. The flowers are bright white jasmine or golden marigold, the saris come in every hue, the taxis are flashy yellow, the ad signs are of every color, and emerald greenery abounds. There are of course many smells, most both familiar and unrecognizable. There must be hundreds of different kinds of street food available, each with its own distinct odor.

As I walk, I go from smelling limes to smelling curries, to smelling jasmine, to smelling urine, to smelling human sweat, to smelling garbage to smelling car exhaust, to smelling jasmine or incense. I smell the air expectantly, a little nervous about the next strong odor to come wafting by, but many more are pleasant than I expected.

There are the sounds of Kolkata, mostly honking, but also banging and knocking from construction, the patter of feet on the streets, human conversation, not so finely tuned motors of all sizes and power. There is the whistle of the policeman occasionally guiding traffic. There is the constant beep of the ceremonial security screenings in the subway.

It’s like every major metropolitan conglomeration I’ve visited except it’s India. It flows and shifts, behaves and then swells into chaos and recedes into order very quickly. It’s this fluidity–saris, traffic, sudden shoves forward in the metro and prayers to many faced gods–that I will remember.

Kindness of Strangers Mode

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Sylvie

It took me 36 hours, three planes, a train ride, and a taxi cab to get from Philadelphia to my apartment for the next six weeks in Kolkata, India. My checked suitcase and I made it together despite a tense 40 minute transfer window in Zurich where I was told United had pulled me off my corresponding Swiss Air flight. Thanks to the Swiss Air agent who put me back on my second plane. On a trip across three countries and four languages, surprises lurk at every turn.

The other thing that became apparent, as I dealt with authority figures in three airports, is that as a traveler I am irrevocably at the mercy of strangers all the time. This is particularly true in India where I have no local language skills. English knowledge is unpredictable, and I often need second and third parties (strangers and kind bystanders) to step in and facilitate transactions/exchanges with officials at various security points, gates and payment centers.

Mumbai airport.

I realize the human condition is inherently one of being at the mercy of strangers, I just wasn’t feeling it so acutely, so personally every minute. In India, I have few communication skills and therefore no recourse — if I annoy or frustrate people and they choose not to deal with me, I could be in trouble. Of course, everyone is a professional, and they do their job (kindly), and we are in public, so there’s a measure of expected outcomes, but I’m feeling quite vulnerable. One of the reasons I feel vulnerable is that I am a tall, broad American woman. I am big by U.S. standards and I am really big and visible in India–in some ways representing all the economic advantages of my society. I’m not only visible, I am economically desirable to vendors of services. So far it seems most of public life in India– shops, street stalls, various services– is conducted by men, so I am also extra aware of my femaleness and its relative standing in the power hierarchy. I’m used to being an assertive female in the U.S.–I’m already moderating those impulses even in my severely sleep deprived haze. I’m too busy being grateful for people working with me across all my differences. On the whole, everyone is being extraordinarily kind and gentle and patient.

And then there’s the gripping experience of going through Kolkata traffic in a taxi, which even at 6am had me in deep prayer mode. The acceptable margin of space between vehicles, and between vehicles and pedestrians, is another form of unexpected, excruciating intimacy.

Today I nap, and listen to the crow outside my window knocking on the glass. He and I understand each other. (More pics to come.)

Distraction as Medication

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Sylvie

Yesterday was my last day of work. I said goodbye. A lot. This took its toll. My composure transmuted into more of a wet sponge facade. However, it turned out I had the following arrows in my quiver (some lucky, some planned for):

1) A long walk to the museum to distract me and give me the opportunity to take cool pictures of Philadelphia to look at in Kolkata’s heat.2) Seeing trees invariable calms me down.

3) Plus there was white wine waiting for me in the Philadelphia Art Museum. But also, 4) one of the world’s greatest entertainers, Miss Martha Graham Cracker, a local treasure.

And, 5) because I need to know as I’m moving (feeling naked and unprepared) into the future that the relationships I’ve built come with me, two lovely friends met me to watch Miss Martha sing and banter on the steps of the Museum.

The walk, the laughs, the wine, the art in the museum, my friends, and Miss Martha reminded me that what I love in life is still abundantly present in it.

And I felt better.

The Goodbye Season

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Sylvie

“I can tell by your tears that you will remember it all” is one peculiar quote I found online while making a half-hearted attempt to research how to say goodbye. I’m in the midst of closing chapter after chapter: The end of my first internship, the end of a yearlong class, the end of my four-year second stint at Wharton. Looking people in the eye, enunciating my future, and facing myself as reflected in their eyes is weird stuff. It’s both a relief and a bit shocking how supportive my soon to be former coworkers have been. There’s a hearty dose of unreality matched by heaping bitter sweetness to the whole proceeding. After nearly 11 years, I’m opting out of the university administrator lifestyle. My decision makes sense, but my heart is catching up slowly to my will.

The thing about being bi-national, and having been bi-coastal, is that my life has been littered with goodbyes. It is impossible for me to have all the people I love in one place.

You’d think I’d have plenty of practice, but in fact, I’m not very good at saying goodbye. I prefer evasive maneuvers. Clean cuts. Leaving friends and acquaintances, people I like, behind squeezes my heart. This started with spending my summers in France during my teen years. Saying goodbye to all my friends and family after a two month stint just wrenched me and made me atypically wordless. I did better just staring at the road ahead, getting on the plane and keeping myself distracted.

(Might running off to India for seven weeks be considered an evasive maneuver?)

I’m actually spending more time with my discomfort than I ever have before. It’s been layering into me for months as I concocted my plans. This mixture of excitement and malaise is absorbing, refreshing, tastes odd in the mind. I’ll leave it at that, I’m atypically wordless in the face of these voluntary losses.

In Motion

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Sylvie

I couldn’t write for a while because everything I was concocting had to remain quiet until I informed my employers. Also, I’m not very good at being indirect or coy, so I felt a bit muffled. Then, once I was free to write, I felt like a giant container of mixed and turbulent feelings. The bosses have been informed. Two weeks before leaving my job, I’ve turned a corner. The feelings are starting to stack instead of rumbling. Hello blog. How I have missed thee. So here’s the plan, which is no longer a plan, but the shape of my new life for the next 12 months. I have set my future in motion.

In about two weeks, I leave for a Kolkata, India, where I will take a six-week class followed by one week of touring (will I finally get to see the Taj Mahal? Stay posted.). Expect lots of ruminations on life as a foreigner.

Once I come home, there will be a mad scramble for summer employment, and another summer class, and some internship projects.

Sometime in August, my three-day-a-week new internship starts, with all the corresponding excitement. (I’m really happy to be taking some time to focus on my development as a clinician, to finally be able to fully embrace my learning without juggling the demands of a full-time office job. There is the corresponding anxiety about whether or not I will find ways to make money while meeting these new obligations.)

I’ve decided I’m only allowed to fret over one thing at a time. So I’m now fretting over my seven-week trip to India. I have never been on a seven-week trip (besides my childhood summer commuting between France and the U.S. for family visits.) Now that my spring classes are finished, I can spend my leisure time trying to read up and prepare myself for this adventure. Here’s my conclusion: I cannot prepare myself. There’s no way.

I can do some online research. I can look at pictures. I can open up the encyclopedic brick that is my guidebook. I can read other student blogs. I can pile up the supplies and necessities for my trip around the apartment. But I cannot prepare in the sense that I cannot become ready. I can only go.

And that’s my feeling about this entire coming year. I will do my due diligence, but I will not be ready. I can only move forward: Go with my full heart and mind, and hope for the best.

The Terror of Dreams Come True

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Sylvie

I’m in the process of changing careers. It’s a dramatic shift – from administrator to therapist. I suppose there’s an argument, or a joke, to be make about how the two professions overlap. I’m struggling with the speed of the changes both internal and external. My life is suddenly super exciting and terribly exhausting. Change makes me anxious–and it’s hard to know exactly why. This was a measured, deliberate, even handed venture. I weighed the pros and cons, the costs and time. I made spreadsheets. I conducted informational interviews. I prepared. And now I’m contending with the reality. I’m surging into the future. If I think about what I know so far, it’s quite good. My new work fascinates me. Demands all of me.

But despite the evidence, I cannot discard my weathered inner skeptic. My wish for this new career is too often counterbalanced by my glass half full mentality. I try to remember the hope that brought me to this juncture, the inner compass that envisioned this path forward. I wish the sense of certainty that got me into grad school still covered me like a cloak. Instead, I’m vulnerable–I’m starting something big and new. I haven’t started something big and new in quite a while. Often my vulnerability leaves me feeling raw and exposed–it’s very much how I remember falling in love in college–how I was so excited and full of dread. On good days, I can set aside my worry momentarily and just be.
I did not know dreams come true would be so demanding of me. I thought my age would protect me. Instead I have to find new ways of thinking. Here’s my new wish: that when I am past this moment, I will remember the beauty rather than the terror.

A Peculiar Displacement

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Sylvie

I love Sumerian guardian figures–curly hair, bushy beards, wings, and I’m sure what used to be colorful frocks. The world they come from is heavy with scents I will never know. I feel for and respond to them how I might if I met a living fairy. I am especially fond of the giant winged bull men that guarded major entrances. They are found in the corners of large museums, next to the Egyptian wing–and I have grown to love them most among their ancient Mediterranean basin peers.

This sense of the familiar joined to excited disquiet mirrors a taste of my time in the UK–I think I’m plugging along just fine until I’m handed a menu — there are many expressive and alien words full of promise on each list of foods. I’m still reeling with joy at the words “Eaton Mess” which is apparently a delicious meringue concoction.

I’ve tasted piccalilli (which sounds like a toy and a flowering edible vegetable to me). There was a dessert in a Bath pub I wish I’d obtained the spelling for–I can only reconstruct the sound of the word loosely as Belzebub. It had brandied prunes over some sweet cream or pudding.

I’ve had the joy of following two wonderful guides around–a Rita at St Paul’s and a John in Bath and they let me peer obliquely at ancient British mores — the mix of the proper and the improper which is reproduced with other angles and overtones in the American lands I inhabit. I love the colors and the tea and the sly whimsy and humor of these folks in their gray misty lands.

A friend of mine aptly pointed out today that what we deem exotic can be found anywhere–true enough. Oh the lovely unknown.

Regeneration, Care of the BBC

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Sylvie

Since I was a little girl, I’ve enjoyed the BBC show Dr. Who, particularly the Tom Baker Dr. Who when I was little, and now all the new reboot Doctors. I especially love the re-generation story lines when the doctor seems to die and is immediately reincarnated into a totally different person, who sounds different and generally speaks and dresses differently and has other kinds of charm and energy, but somehow embodies the same philosophy and all the same knowledge. This metaphor seemed particularly apt to me yesterday as I was sitting on the trolley, thinking about my current transition between skill sets, populations, peers, and focus. I was trying to mentally sketch the person I am becoming but also considering the multiple past selves I already contain that are totally invisible to the casual observer–it’s not only the good Doctor who does this: in some sense, each human life is a story of countless regenerations. Hair cut to hair cut, lover to lover, bell bottoms to jeggings. Older people are icebergs–so much floats beneath the surface: forty years of flirtations, seductions, griefs and small triumphs, career changes, jobs and hobbies taken up and discarded, tie-dye tshirts made on the kitchen stove–it’s all there, past knowledge, past hope just waiting to be recalled, reactivated. I too forget, when faced with an older woman, how she must have danced and blushed at other points.

Happy Potato Chip

Posted on November 22, 2012 by Sylvie

Two weeks ago, I was waiting for the trolley on the way to work when I saw a man walking on the tracks, holding a soiled roll of toilet paper. He had clearly thoughtfully placed a crap in the full privacy of the tracks. He was coming back, muttering to himself, and as soon as I saw him, my heart jumped. Heart in throat, I surveyed my fellow travelers on the platform switching for the trolley. No one seemed to mind the man walking on the tracks. I looked down the tracks to see if a trolley was coming and if he was in danger–so far, no incoming trolley. I was about a minute in to my time on the platform–I contemplated my options as the man continued walking down the tracks — he was still muttering to himself and the lights of the coming trolley were in the distance, now a few minutes away. I reviewed internally what I knew about crowd behavior, and the behavior of the man. I contemplated what I could do. He approached the edge of the tracks, stepped onto the platform, lost his balance, windmilled his arms, and then got himself back onto the platform. He came towards me, still walking close to the edge of the platform. I was rifling through my mind–how could I approach him kindly and invite him to safety? He was likely psychotic, and perhaps paranoid, muttering to himself constantly. I tried to approach him with kindness–in the most non threatening way I could–and I waved him toward me as he explained as he walked along the edge of the platform as the 34 trolley approached that he was not something (I can’t recall), he was a “happy potato chip”– and he took a step forward, and the trolley pulled into the station, and we both got on, and we were both safe, and I did not know what the day would hold, but my part was done.

Open Spaces

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Sylvie

I have four delicious days with no urgent deadlines or projects. I’d get this kind of satisfaction from traveling to Tahiti, receiving two daily massages for a week, or… being able to metabolize meals made of nothing but red wine, bacon and dark chocolate with no impact on my weight.

I honestly don’t know what to do with myself (well, besides the floors, I should be mopping the floors). I’m experiencing a rare breed of mental restlessness: somewhere between itch and cottony feeling. I’m a bit dizzy with the temporary freedom. My dizziness will blog.

I’m valuing several kinds of space this week. Mental space for one.

The road is another. I love motion. I always feel full of potential when I’m covering vast distances. As we prepare to travel to this year’s thanksgiving destination, there will be asphalt space, wheels turning, speed, and the fast of the road will be overwritten by the fullness of a home.

There is also the space of identity, of personal reinvention. I’m enjoying my training in social work, though it certainly is daunting, the array of listening and speaking skills: the mastery of thoughtful, kind inward gaze and outward being. If I consider the array of choices I’ve made, few feel as momentous or as close to my heart’s desire as working toward this professional degree.

I can honestly say I want few things out of life. (I mean, I want vast experiences, and physical comfort, always.) My goals, however, are few: I want to adorn my life with friends; I want to commit to my partner; I want to write; and I want to become a therapist.

Everything else that is dear to me is pleasure and luxury. The right to determine what to do with my time, I’ll admit, is the ultimate luxury.

My First Essay Response to Junot Diaz’s: The Cheater’s Guide to Love

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Sylvie

I’m proud of this essay I wrote for a Junot Diaz website.

Check it out: http://thecheatersguide.net/2012/11/13/the-cheaters-guide-to-loneliness/

Thanks!

Aikido

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Sylvie

This week, I’m thinking a lot about energy and how it can be used and redirected, and I’m thinking that maybe I need to learn the martial art Aikido. The premise of Aikido is that your attacker’s energy can be taken in and redirected so as to protect both you and the attacker. If every human interaction is an exchange of energy, and human energy needs to be safely and productively handled (particularly in the work place) then Aikido is the ultimate physical manifestation of understanding how to make the best and kindest use of personal energy. (I’m sure there are many other physical practices and schools of thought and faith that address the issue, but I like the idea of Aikido very much right now, as an embodiment of the best human values. )

I’m aware of Aikido because my mother’s friend Agnes studied it when she was a young mother and showed me a couple techniques in her doorway, on a fall or spring day, when I was about eight. She kept asking me to “attack” her and I kept running at her and she would very gently but firmly take my arm and twist like a bullfighter out of the way and I would find myself on the other side of her body and the door, on the outside. It seemed very magical. At the time I was learning Judo and I was more attracted to the possibility of hurting an attacker (appropriate for an eight year old).

I’m currently fascinated by how knowledge, history and life themes can converge in surprising ways. It’s surprising how my child self and my adult self are meeting through this memory of Aikido and my current preoccupation with the fruitful and kind harvesting of energy. In turn, this makes me think of my mother, one of the first people to talk to me about energy, and how while I knew she was right–there definitely was energy–for most of my life I felt uncomfortable talking and thinking about it openly. The concept was just a bit too groovy.

My mom is on my mental scene in a second way. Here’s one of her oft repeated nuggets: No learning is pointless or useless. All knowledge acquired will be used again, eventually. This came up repeatedly between us during my teen years and twenties, whenever I complained that I was being forced to master skills I considered uninteresting or too specific. And here I am, middle aged, putting pieces of my decades of learning together like a jigsaw puzzle. Maybe this is what wisdom looks like, becoming more than the sum total of your experiences.

Humbled by my Humanity

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Sylvie

Now that my time is parsed, sectioned, subdivided, and carefully annotated to account for every one of my multiple (and seemingly endless) obligations–I have to confront the obvious, which I love to pretend doesn’t apply to me: I’m human.

If I can reconcile myself with what might seem like an obvious proposition, then, what does being human require of me? What are my human obligations, rights and responsibilities?

And importantly, why do I shy away from being human?

Also, if I think I’m not human. What Do I think I am?

1) Requirements (inherited in silence, sometimes found in science or faith): Humor, Love, Passion, a dose of patience, a notion of hope, a heaping ladle of curiosity, a kind center, a practical turn, a Glass (neither full nor empty- realism tempered with thoughtful optimism).

2) Rights/Responsibilities: ecstatic moments; a longing for intimacy-sometimes beautifully fulfilled by forest, friends or lovers; the quiet solitude of pain; the quiet peace of reflection; knowing moments of perfect sun or rain. Long dimness in fogs-bodily, intellectual, heart generated, or atmospheric.

3) The shying away–I shy away because the weight and wonder are troubling to encompass.

4) What do I think I am? I do not know, but I enjoy it.

Human–a term I sometimes equate with great failure, and yet a term that trembles with generous potential.

I don’t feel sufficient for my humanity.

And yet.

As another human helped me see: So it goes.

Final question: is this a poem?

The Charm Offensive

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Sylvie

I’ve been trying to get better at tuning in and connecting in some small way with every person I exchange words with today. It’s a fun project-makes me feel very vaguely like the Dalai Lama’s neighbor–like after a lifetime of watching someone else be gracious and wise, it’s my turn. It’s also interesting how ambivalent I feel about extending care outward–after all, aren’t these my private goodwill reserves? How strong is my emotional muscle? Will I run out of charm? Will I permanently exhaust the supply, leaving me a bitter-pinched-dour wreck for the next few decades?

Is love a renewable personal resource? I mean, we’re told to be brave and fearless in loving others–religion, mentors, family: all espouse the notion–but how many living examples are left to model this practice? I mean: Mother Theresa is dead. Loving may have been her superpower, but she remained mortal.

Well, for today at least, I’m going to keep going until I fry my battery. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Lightness

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Sylvie

Someone once said to me that it takes about 10 years of therapy to realize what a total stranger can figure out about you in about three minutes (which sometimes makes me want to go bounding about asking strangers what they see.)

I take myself too seriously. I love to laugh, but I think my fundamental state is a bit wistful, maybe yearning. My grandmother tells me I was a melancholy child–she liked that about me. Tonight, a friend told me in all seriousness that I need to get more playful about my various obligations. I’ve been thinking a lot about teaching others to embrace fun, but it never occurred to me that I should be giving myself that exact speech. Typical.

Oh the awesome shortsightedness of being.

I used to think a lot about Milan Kundera’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.”

Using his metaphor–I wanted to be a light person, but I knew that I was heavy. I can sometimes make people think I’m a light–but it’s a trick–that’s not me.

So how do I become more light in my ponderous being?

In not-so-light fashion I have added “FUN” at the top of my to-do list. (no comments needed.)

The Shores Of Philadelphia

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Sylvie

I’m leaving West Philadelphia for Northern Liberties. I’ve lived on the western shore of this city for almost twelve years – its the longest time span I’ve ever spent in a single neighborhood.

I used to fantasize about which Philadelphia neighborhood I would leave for, and then the idea of leaving became totally absurd.

I love the crunchy artistic punk environmentalist, bicyclist, young kid established family grad student african immigrant vibe of the place. There were at least seven distinct ethic or specialty eateries within two blocks of my home–during Baltimore Dollar Days, the crowds wantonly bypassed the Subway offerings for locally sourced ice cream or samosas. We did not dance in the streets when the Phillies won the World Series, but we did when Obama became President.

I love the architecture, the gardens and trees, the devoted neighbors who organize block parties–it’s part transient, part lifers. It grows and organizes itself in a dance. The firehouse at 50th and Baltimore that used to be a market now holds Dock Street Brewery–Philly Car Share offices became sliding-scale Community Acupuncture. There’s plenty of DYI and community art events.

I’m leaving for Philadelphia’s eastern shore – five miles and a river away.
It’s a new life, with other communities full of artists and urban innovators. I’m leaving for love, which is the only pull strong enough to take me away from the place where I finally started taking my writing work more seriously.

It’s a joyful new beginning and a weird time for me. The seven years I spent on Cedar Avenue are the longest consecutive stretch of time I’ve spent under the same roof in my entire life.

I’m already familiar with the outlines of my new home, but I will have to dig deeper to find my communities and spaces, the places where I stop by and waste time browsing or conversing. I will have to learn who I am becoming against this new urban mirror.

Sylvie Writes (a blog)

Ruminations on life, travel, and writing (by Sylvie Beauvais)

Category Archives: Identity