cardboard box algebra

it's mabon... which you probably only know if you are a pagan.
or if you've been clinging to the equinox - looking forward to the balance of dark and light.

the picture above is by samuel palmer, who was only recognized for having any talent in death. an artist's reality that is too-frequently the reality; greatness realized in darkness, when it is too late to do its creator any good.

there is a certain bravery in being the moon in the night sky - illuminating nothing; a world asleep. and yet, without it? without the moon? what would become of the tides?

i feel sorry for those artists who thought their struggle was in vein. what reward did they ever have? save being true to themselves? likely, because it was impossible for them to do anything else.

i came across a charles simic poem the other day. it's unrelated, but maybe, in some future moon-tense, where the y's and z's balance out, it's actually the answer...

nearest nameless (by charles simic)

so damn familiar
most of the time,
i don't even know you are here
my life,
my portion of eternity

a little shiver
as if the chill of the grave
is already
catching up with me --
no matter.

descartes smelled
witches burning
while he sat thinking
of a truth so obvious
we keep failing to see it

i never knew it either
till today.
when i heard a bird shriek:
the cat is coming.
and i felt myself tremble.

when at rope's end.... bake

do you remember when this blog was sing-songy and all i wrote about were things like candy drawers, wild unexpected jaunts and baked goods?

i do.

it was years ago. before notorious men, one cosmically so, irreverently bucked through my life like a bull-in-a-china-shop tornado. since then, once i'd dusted off the shards of glass and dabbed the blood, i looked around at my world and thought, "oh wow - we are most definitely *not* in kansas anymore."

was the world so different? of course not. but i looked at everything with different eyes. gone was my buoyant optimism. my belief in magic, in life, in... anything.

BUT - i've grown weary of digging my heels into the poisoned earth of this abandoned fairground that i've built. i'm tired of picking stale peanuts off the ground, hoping like jack & the beanstalk that one of them will conjure back an irretrievable past - make people and circumstances behave & turn out differently.

people have done & will do what they do. even when their actions are good for nobody - not even themselves. which is tragic, but that doesn't mean my life needs to be a tragedy.

and so... first step, for me. is to start where i began, and bake my way back. baking is magic. it's starting from precious little nothing & turning all those separate elements into something. it is creation rather than destruction.

my young cousins and i were all in desperate need for a cheery diversion on monday and so we tackled peter reihnart's bagels - which had been featured by luisa of 'the wednesday chef' *and* tim of 'lottie and doof' (i trust these bloggers implicitly) - the kneading of which is *highly* recommended for emoting, whether you be a 12-year-old, or, uh, slightly older. **(there wasn't time for us to refrigerate the dough overnight - so my genius sister suggested we let them raise in a warm dark place for an hour instead, which worked *perfectly* - but i plan to make them again properly and take a pic to show you).

and last night i made the vegan chocolate tahini cake pictured above, suggested by my friend molly of 'the particular kitchen' (good for gluten-free baking or if you have a load of tahini on hand - which i did... but if not, and if you're not doing it for health, i'd suggest this loaf by nigella instead!)

it's been a good start.

so... here's to more baking... more great adventures... more living life in a way that's full of creation and gratitude. that's my promise to you from here on out. maybe i'll even get around to writing about candy drawers again.

love,
the long ago, but not forgotten, ms. spice

the last chapter

The weekend was a train wreck.

We'd come all this way, but not journeyed an inch of distance.




And I knew that my life, what I expected, what I accepted - needed to drastically change.


"Learn the alchemy true human beings know. The moment you accept what troubles you've been given, the door will open." — Rumi



Top photo is by Alex Prager.... bottom photo is by me... the palms of Los Angeles, mid-summer.

we journey afar to find our way back home

bear died in his dad's arms on sunday night. he was outside, where he wanted to be. his spirit went like a whisper; puff; gone.

i don't know where it went exactly, but i am certain, like all those who have ever left us, he is home.


angel bear: 1996 - 2010

he's a scorpio, i'm an aries... hmmm...

“Yes, but we’ve always had different taste in art and living. I assume that won’t be a problem?” - me


Illustration is by the wonderful Nicoletta Cecooli.

over

just back from the hamptons and am feeling thrown. it's odd how some of life's best moments take a while to sink in... take months, years, and other continents for you sit back in reflection and think, "my, how sweet, almost ambrosial, that was."

other moments, such as those final glimmering seconds of christmas, are appreciated as divine and passing within closer proximity to living them - often *as* you live them. my trip to the hamptons this weekend was more like that - a rare circumstance animated by its unchecked merriment and singularity.

so when kasey, our friend tom (international man of mystery), and i boarded the train home, it felt like i was sorrowfully dimming the lights and pulling down a bittersweet curtain over the memory of our weekend. i have not laughed so hard, nor been so thoroughly entertained and surprised by events in a very long time. we gathering hopped, we met artists, we met (other) eccentrics, in some ways, we met each other... and through it all, we laughed, oh how we laughed. it was an unexpected and redemptive bit of perfection... a freeing gust of air... the type of unleashed contentment you'd like to cork up; consumed moments that somehow, someway, you wish you could down again so you could savour different elements of them; those rarest of unmarked hours that are not grand or extraordinary per se, but sober you up with joy, make you wince at their passing, magnify the reality that life is temporary... all of which make it difficult to let go of the experience while it's still up close.

our trio's trip to the hamptons of aug 20-22, 2010 may have been absorbed by the sponge of time passed, but i do hope that something very similar will unfold again, ideally sooner rather than later... and perhaps with greater frequency... yes, being able to count on that would make me less mournful and more gleeful, replace my clingy reminiscence with a sense of anticipation - like the promise that a thousand imminent christmases from my childhood are going to appear on the horizon and i'll have the exhilaration of watching them draw closer and closer, and living through them, all again.


Photo is by a very cool Los Angeleno (can't you *tell*?) who I discovered during our weekend - Alex Prager.

Re: the picture... Is her life over? Or is this some kind of liberation? The moment looks both transcendent and lethal. At any rate, it seems to capture a point where one thing has stopped and another has begun. Shrug. It seemed appropriate.

subtext

i am here.
on a shelf.
come & get me.


Photo is by Mike Brodie.

something white, something blue

ah meghan, my closest dearest kindred friend from boston. my senior year roommate; the girl with an equally reckless & incorrigibly independent streak; the person who lived a life parallel to mine, albeit, seemingly, always a few steps ahead.

we met through her childhood friend jaime (i also had a childhood friend called jamie) and were fast friends. on the surface, it didn't appear that we had a lot in common, but emotionally, we shared a very similar makeup, plus, it seemed, we had similar life stories. a trend that amplified over time.

in the years following university we appeared marked for the same destiny. first she got stuck back at home, then i got stuck back at home. she moved to california (LA) and left, then i moved to california (SF - then LA - missing her by mere months) and left. she got mixed up in TV, then i got mixed up in TV. she abandoned broadcasting, then i abandoned broadcasting.

if that weren't odd enough, our romantic lives also seemed to follow a similar course, the men we dated, the way things with them played out - it felt like looking in a mirror... i can't tell you how many times we rallied each other having just been through the *same thing.* it was *weird.* honestly, for the longest while, it seemed i could predict what lay in the cards for me based on how meg's life had looked six months prior.

and then.

she moved back to boston - permanently. she got a 'normal' job. she met a guy. they stayed together (whoa). a year ago, they bought a house. in the house was a ring. he asked her to marry him. she said yes. they planned a wedding. on saturday, that wedding happened.

clearly, all parallels between our lives ended about five years ago.

and i *could not* be happier for her. meghan, of anyone i know, deserves to be happy. you see, not only do i love meghan because she is fun and free-spirited, she is *nice* - through and through - without having any good reason to be. her niceness isn't a compensation for a lack, or a way of glossing over hollow bits of her character that she doesn't want you to see - no, she's the full package. she's gorgeous, fun, possesses an unshrinking (sometimes she's made me sooo nervous!) wild bent, and has been through too many health problems and other high waters to mention, and she *still* doesn't have a single malicious barb to her makeup. you know the type of person who is so lovely they don't even know how lovely they *are*? that's meghan.


can't you just see it?


so when she told me a year ago, "i'm getting married!" then, asked, tentatively, "it'll be in newport - do you think you'll be able to make it?" i said, "are you kidding?!? yes!!! of course! i have to be there. i WILL be there."


and i was.

after all, i had to witness this person who i consider something of an extension of myself tie the knot, come full circle - i had to approve (and i do... just look at the way he's looking at her, he loves her... )


nathan, you may kiss the bride.


ta da! just like that. nathan and meghan. man and wife.

the best man made 170 people cry during his speech, which he delivered with an undisguisable crack in his voice, despite being a total joker who clearly never dreamed he'd shed an emotional tear in public. it was so good that i'm stealing the gist of his tearful last line: "may you be happy together as long as you live and forever and for eternity."

you both deserve it.

the carnival has shifted!

ahem.

it was bound to happen and now it has. even in the virtual world a hopeless gypsy will eventually feel compelled to inhabit a new space.

i won't be posting at this address anymore, BUT i'm *very* excited to drag you along with me to my new little bubble:

www.ferriswheelbohemia.wordpress.com

see you there!

pax,
ms. nožisková

post tempest

So I owe you all an epilogue... to the day I was sending "goodbye - have a nice flight" emails to Kasey that had her thinking I was going to end up floating in the Thames rather than at the Fed-Ex office when all was said and done.

Well, I made it. Miraculously...truly miraculously... since I have no idea how I figured it out, but I did... I finally got the DVD to burn. I stumbled out of my warehouse and onto the DLR... at last emerging in Mayfair - looking like a slumrat compared to all the coiffed business beauties walking around me.

With the help of a hairdresser (who, no doubt, wanted me out of his posh shop) I found Kinkos/Fed-Ex... and the lovely people there seemed to take it all in stride... they're obviously accustomed to dealing with frazzled sleep-deprived Americans who treat their streamlined office with its "next day" guarantees like some kind of Mecca-sanctuary.

I put the DVD into an envelope. I marked it "for cultural use" and "of no commercial value" (ha), then kissed it goodbye.

Could all that have happened within a matter of hours? From "I'm never going to leave this horrendous industrial building" to "thank you kindly dear Fed-Ex man for taking my large sum of money and promising me my parcel will make it to Paris in time"? Crazy.

And afterwards, despite my sleepless exhaustion, I decided to walk back to my apartment. It was an unusally warm and beautifully pleasant day in London. I strolled through St. James Park, which was tingling and vibrant with the life of spring grass and blooming flowers, and then past Buckingham Palace, where I watched tourists taking souvenir pics as proof that once - once - they had seen this royal residence that I live in walking distance from...

With some trepidation, I arrived at my building, only to find myself immediately holding the door open for somebody who was serendipitously leaving (and who seemed as grateful for my chivalrous gesture as I was for their exit). I retrieved the keys Kasey had left me from my flat's mail slot. Then I rode the elevator upstairs and let myself into my little space, where I looked out over all the roof tops and an ancient church's steeple from my room's balcony and sighed relief.

What a fuss. What a wonderful fuss... for something that worked out in the end... as it always tends to... Can you see forever on a clear day? Probably not, but if the clear day follows a storm, you can certainly sense, touch, breathe, something like bliss.

I've been meaning to post a song from the Australian artist, Lenka, ever since the Sundance Film Festival, when I saw her at the Music Cafe. For some reason, it seems appropriate to attach one to this post. This particular song is called The Show and, besides the hoppy melody, the lyric "it's a joke, nobody knows, they've got a ticket to the show" strikes a major chord with me. But my favourite part is when she sings "I want my money back..." - referring to life, of course. Ha. As if - no? But sometimes, don't we all...?

Enjoy!

(I pre-apologise for the lame 'sing-a-long' version of this... it's the only youtube link they will let me play here in the UK... feel free to look up the actual video if you're in the States!)

what remained

I moved out today (long story... alluded to, in part, by the very memorable and well-received "cracks" video featured here a week or so ago).

After too-many consecutive hours of sorting and boxing and schlepping, I thought everything had been cleared out, but upon my last survey of the place, I realized I'd inadvertently left a collage/mural I'd created affixed to the wall - a montage of Rodney Smith photographs captioned by bits of a favourite quote of mine from Catharine MacKinnon, renowned scholar, feminist, and all-around intriguingly smart woman.

With movers breathing down my neck, I rushed to take down my makeshift composition; haphazardly peeling off the images as quickly and as delicately as possible; tossing them into an empty box. But just as I was about to tear the last lingering picture from the wall, the final possession of mine to grace the little abode I'd inhabited for nearly a year, I paused, because I hadn't meant for this particular pairing to be the finale... hadn't intended it as the savored last word. But there it was, my favourite part, the quote's true crux.... since it doesn't really matter what philosophical trappings came before or after it, without this fragment, all the surrounding philosophy is meaningless.

"But invent the capacity to act," it said.

Indeed. This is true for everyone... regardless of what you believe. And I'd sort of like to think that the message staring at me was a serendipitous metaphor; a small wink from the universe, rewarding me and egging me on with this symbolic nudge of encouragement; confirming that this move was progression, that I was going forward in a good way.

Almost as if to say, "Well done! But keep it up! Perfect or imperfect, you must continue to take action!"

So I took a picture of the picture as proof. As a reminder to myself, and to you, that thought is nothing without the physical act - just as Catherine MacKinnon insisted, it is in our actions that our power manifests itself. Want to do something? Take a leap. Don't like where you are? Move.