Plastic by Moses Sumney
Crazy debate a few days ago! Shocking violence this past week, right? Beautiful, gorgeous song that we just heard right now, yes?
I'm not escaping. I'm just trying to see the incredible things in life that might pass me if I focus on this myopic craziness. I was just reading an article about how Donald Trump treated the former Miss America. As I continued reading it, I thought to myself, what am I doing? Why am I engaging in such ignorant discourse? I already know what he did, so why spend even 10 minutes of my life reading more? I don't need to fuel any fire. We read an article, it becomes a part of our literary footprint and embedded in our memory. And then, we speak about it in conversation. These aren't the conversations I want to engage in. In this moment, it feels so incredibly important to be intentional about our choices in order to engage deeply.
And when I separate myself from current events and politics, when I just look at this life in front of me outside of social media, feeds, 24 hour news cycles...when I detach, in order to be present, I feel like I'm living life...so fully.
Honestly, when I think of the past 7 days of my life and when I reached the deepest conclusions, it was when I was either a part of conversations with people I love at an awesome wine bar in Korea Town in New York City, talking about new ideas at brunch up near Inwood Heights, or writing about new kinds of worlds for my fiction class on Tuesday night. These were the moments that felt present, profound and magical. I feel so outside of myself when reading about the current political context. Isn't that something -when we can't see ourselves in the everyday political context?
So what do we do in those situations? We look in every crevice and corner in order to find ourselves. I found myself on the A train riding from Washington Heights to Midtown on Friday with two dear friends and my husband. I found myself again when talking about the power of story at a local brunch spot in New York City. And again when talking about segregation in South Africa during a lunch break at work on Tuesday. Or when just laughing, laughing with my husband about the everyday moments when getting ready to go to work in the morning.
One of my favorite podcasts is On Being by Krista Tippett. The podcast gets into these beautiful conversations about faith, spirituality and ethics. One interview surprisingly stuck with me. It was an interview with an Irish poet, John O'Donohue who passed away in 2008. He shared reflections on this life in front of us, about how the current education system and current public environment doesn't push for the 'art of interiority.'
"That's why I find the aesthetic things like poetry, fiction, good film, theater, drama, dance, and music actually awaken that inside you. And remind you there is a huge interiority within you."
As I write his words, I deeply connect. It seems like right now, we are not collectively giving space to this interiority within us.
Later in the interview, he asks this question:
"When is the last time that you had a great conversation, a conversation which wasn't just two intersecting monologues, which is what passes for conversation a lot in this culture. But when you had last a great conversation, in which you overheard yourself saying things that you never knew you knew? That you heard yourself receiving from somebody words that absolutely found places within you that you thought you had lost and a sense of an event of a conversation that brought the two of you on to a different plane? And then fourthly, a conversation that continue to sing in your mind for weeks afterwards. And I've had some of them recently, and it's just absolutely amazing, as we would say at home, they are food and drink for the soul."
Don't you love the sentiment? Of soul giving conversations? Of overhearing yourself say things that you never knew were inside you?! On Wednesday evening, I was in conversation with a few friends and there was a moment I transcended beyond my ego self. Wild! And no, I wasn't on any kind of drug. These moments with people, or when we are writing, or when we are running, or when we are just being...whatever it is, they are so worth pursuing and carving out spaces in order to do so.
Wrapping up here, but below is my song for this week related to a concept. I recently came across Sofar. Here is the mission of Sofar: "Bringing the magic back to live music. Amazing artists in intimate spaces, performing stripped-back sets to carefully curated audiences." Sofar happens in over 200 cities around the world every month. What? Can you just soak up that art of interiority that can happen with a little bit of live music and a collective crowd present for that music and experience? I literally just signed up to attend the next Sofar concert in Seattle. Intentionality and personal choice: that's what I'm attempting to do, in order to create some more of this interior soul-giving living.
And here is Moses Sumney performing in New York City:
I'm not escaping. I'm just trying to see the incredible things in life that might pass me if I focus on this myopic craziness. I was just reading an article about how Donald Trump treated the former Miss America. As I continued reading it, I thought to myself, what am I doing? Why am I engaging in such ignorant discourse? I already know what he did, so why spend even 10 minutes of my life reading more? I don't need to fuel any fire. We read an article, it becomes a part of our literary footprint and embedded in our memory. And then, we speak about it in conversation. These aren't the conversations I want to engage in. In this moment, it feels so incredibly important to be intentional about our choices in order to engage deeply.
And when I separate myself from current events and politics, when I just look at this life in front of me outside of social media, feeds, 24 hour news cycles...when I detach, in order to be present, I feel like I'm living life...so fully.
Honestly, when I think of the past 7 days of my life and when I reached the deepest conclusions, it was when I was either a part of conversations with people I love at an awesome wine bar in Korea Town in New York City, talking about new ideas at brunch up near Inwood Heights, or writing about new kinds of worlds for my fiction class on Tuesday night. These were the moments that felt present, profound and magical. I feel so outside of myself when reading about the current political context. Isn't that something -when we can't see ourselves in the everyday political context?
So what do we do in those situations? We look in every crevice and corner in order to find ourselves. I found myself on the A train riding from Washington Heights to Midtown on Friday with two dear friends and my husband. I found myself again when talking about the power of story at a local brunch spot in New York City. And again when talking about segregation in South Africa during a lunch break at work on Tuesday. Or when just laughing, laughing with my husband about the everyday moments when getting ready to go to work in the morning.
One of my favorite podcasts is On Being by Krista Tippett. The podcast gets into these beautiful conversations about faith, spirituality and ethics. One interview surprisingly stuck with me. It was an interview with an Irish poet, John O'Donohue who passed away in 2008. He shared reflections on this life in front of us, about how the current education system and current public environment doesn't push for the 'art of interiority.'
"That's why I find the aesthetic things like poetry, fiction, good film, theater, drama, dance, and music actually awaken that inside you. And remind you there is a huge interiority within you."
As I write his words, I deeply connect. It seems like right now, we are not collectively giving space to this interiority within us.
Later in the interview, he asks this question:
Don't you love the sentiment? Of soul giving conversations? Of overhearing yourself say things that you never knew were inside you?! On Wednesday evening, I was in conversation with a few friends and there was a moment I transcended beyond my ego self. Wild! And no, I wasn't on any kind of drug. These moments with people, or when we are writing, or when we are running, or when we are just being...whatever it is, they are so worth pursuing and carving out spaces in order to do so.
Wrapping up here, but below is my song for this week related to a concept. I recently came across Sofar. Here is the mission of Sofar: "Bringing the magic back to live music. Amazing artists in intimate spaces, performing stripped-back sets to carefully curated audiences." Sofar happens in over 200 cities around the world every month. What? Can you just soak up that art of interiority that can happen with a little bit of live music and a collective crowd present for that music and experience? I literally just signed up to attend the next Sofar concert in Seattle. Intentionality and personal choice: that's what I'm attempting to do, in order to create some more of this interior soul-giving living.
And here is Moses Sumney performing in New York City:
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