Book Of Abundance

I recently read “Feel the Fear and do it Anyway” – a book I highly recommend. In the book, Susan Jeffers recommends keeping a Book of Abundance. “Start filling it by listing as many positive things in your life – past and present – as you can think of,” she writes. Jon and I already have a beautiful practice of sharing things we are grateful for and I love that. I started keeping this Book of Abundance and then realized how fun it would be to do it on the blog and I can add to every day or when I am moved to do so. Here are the positive things in my life. As Susan writes, “look for blessings and you will notice them all over the place.” I do I do! My life is abundant and I count!
1. Jon
2. Olive
3. the winter air
4. DOMA Café
5. small goat cheese salad and chai latter
6. speaking Czech with the girls at DOMA
7. the creative vibe at DOMA
8. my bicycle
9. being asked by another student in Intensati class if I was an instructor
10. people who appreciate my bike
11. Melissa King
12. Patricia Moreno
13. Lise
14. my mami
15. my daddy
16. Bob Neer
17. Marcos
18. Marcella
19. Andy Roth
20. Toni Roberts
21. Tim Walsh
22. Melayna – my hairdresser
23. Victoria Labalme
24. Wylie
25. freedom to ride my bike
26. freedom to wear what I want
27. freedom to live my life
28. Katherine Wessling
29. Christmas Tree Shoppes
30. Olive wearing a heart headband
31. Marissa
32. Doug Shapiro
33. Stuart Green
34. Alex de Suze
35. Matt Hoverman
36. Geoffrey Naughts
37. being able to afford the opera
38. two arms
39. two legs
40. my sight
41. my health
42. living in NYC
43. living in such a nice neighborhood
44. having a prime seat at DOMA
45. having an agent
46. being an inspiration for people
47. Jon paying for lunch and dinner
48. my smile
49. Jordan Matter – my headshot photographer
50. Anne Bogart
51.Ethan
52. Jess
53. INTENSATI
54. JC Hopkins
TO BE CONTINUED

Maybe Not for Long

1/30/08
Tonight as I was returning home from seeing Fiona Shaw in Beckett’s “Happy Days” at BAM, I spotted across from me on the 2 train a couple. She had long dark hair and a sort of mousey Tina Fey quality about her. He was sort of a Philip Seymour Hoffman type but not that weathered or that heavy. Both were wearing glasses – the kind you would expect to see on a couple that lives in the East Village. Both were reading attentively. He was actually underlining text as if he were preparing for a class. She was simply intent. They were close enough physically that it was clear they were a couple… but maybe not for long. He was reading “Techniques of the Observer.” She was reading “How to Divorce in New York.”

Bicycle Quotes of the Day

1/29/08

"cool bike" from a cool dude - the SNL musician with longish blonde hair who always really rocks out right to the camera outside DOMA CAFE.

"so YOU're the one with the fancy bicycle I see all around" from the mom with stroller coming out the of the Chase Bank at West 4th and Grove. I get this comment quite a bit - it seems people want to put a face together with the bike, like "who is behind this creation?"

"we love your bike, I make an effort to keep my dog from peeing on your wheels" from the neighborhood gal and her yorkie, Commerce and Barrow. Needless to say the effort is appreciated.

Bicycle Quote of the Day

1/28/08
"I like the Penguin," said a young Asian man going into Healthfully on E. 4th Street. I happen to have a pretty cute Penguin squeaky horn on my bike, for Christmas he was donning a little red garland. But with all that shines and glitters on the bike, "I like the Penguin" was a surprising response but also refreshing change from "I like your bike."

Bicycle Quote of the Day

1/25/08
"I love your bike. It makes me so happy when I see it. God bless you." from a woman who gently touched my shoulder outside Doma Cafe (Perry and Seventh Ave. So.)

Random Thought of the Day

1/23/08
Winter is supposed to be cold. I find it amazing that so many people are complaining about how cold it is. I love the winter. I love the cold. I love that I was at a spa in Queens in an outdoor hot tub with my hair freezing in the winter air watching the moon rise and the sunset on a wintery sky. You know that sky right? The sky so blue, the sun so bright and that orange/red reflecting off the buildings, it's winter light. The trick to this weather is to dress right. I have a winter parka from Landsend that covers my butt, boots from Quebec, a fur hat from Russia, a neck warmer and Patagonia capilene long underwear I wear over my pants (if need be). I ride my bike and feel the frigid air on my cheeks and breathe in the arctic air that feels so clean and pure (even though it's NYC). The only thing missing is the snow. So stop complaining, get some proper clothing and stop and smell the cold air. And remember Winter is supposed to be cold.

Bicycle Quote of the Day

1/23/08
As I've already mentioned I get a lot of compliments on my bike. Most every day I get at least one "I like your bike." Every once in a while I get some really original comment, like "that's a parade on wheels"
Today's was pretty good too. From the hipster kid walking with his girl on 14th Street: "that is some bitchin' ass bike." Oh yeah!

Maid Marion 2008

1/23/08
My friend Tom suggested some time ago that I should take pictures of my bike with every seasonal decoration change (for those of you who don’t know I decorate my bike every season creating a mini mobile public art display), with the goal of perhaps putting together some kind of picture book or scrap book. Without a doubt “Maid Marion” (as I affectionately call my Nottingham born three speed Raleigh bike) is often photographed and perhaps more often complimented (“I love your bike”, “nice bike”). One tour guide in our West Village neighborhood, called it the most photographed bike in the West Village. I have received photos and drawings left on the bike, it has been painted, and the bike has been featured on websites and in an occasional newspaper photo op (often of course with the lovely pug dog Olive in the basket). With the switch from the New Year 2008 decorations to the Valentine’s LOVE BIKE (one of my personal favorites) fast approaching, I thought I should really take a picture of the bike in it’s New Years outfit.
Well low and behold as I was taking my clothes to the laundry place earlier this week, Charles Boyd, a former West Village resident now living in Kentucky asked if he could take a picture of me and my bike, and generously offered to email and mail me a copy of it. So here it is!
Maid Marion in her 2008 regalia and I, courtesy of Charles Boyd.

NOT SOON ENOUGH

from my friend Jesse:

Don't let this day passed unremarked:

Today, January 20, 2008, we have one more year left of Bush. I believe his term ends at noon EST, which means that we already have less than a year as I write this. We're in the home stretch, and I know I speak for all of us when I say it can't come soon enough.

J.

Happy New Year

Here is a New Years wish from Sera - a wonderful spirit and a great bellydancing teacher I studied with this past year.

I share with Sera in wishing you all these things in 2008!

In the new year, I wish for you:
inner peace, abundance, truth, love, connection, growth, evolution, openess, contentment, challenge, empowerment, companionship, motivation, well-being, perfect health, connection to community, connection to friends, peace amongst family, ease in work/ business, awareness of beauty in the world, feeling of beauty in yourself, feeling beautiful, feeling alive and strong, creating your prosperity, feeling prosperous, your creative ideas becoming real in the world, travel to a place of power, deep connection to a lover, finding the feeling of being alive with the sense that everything is how you desire, finding the feeling often of what it is to have soul.

From Sera
12/31/07

Needs and Wants

1/16-18/08

This past weekend I had the enormous pleasure of seeing a really extraordinary show. It was part of the Under the Radar Festival presented by the Public Theater. The show was called “small metal objects” and it was performed at the Whitehall Staten Island Ferry Terminal. Jon and I went on Sunday afternoon and since the show was being performed for free, I returned with my friend Joe on Monday night for the final performance. The audience sat in makeshift theater, a raked platform with seats. Each seat had a set of headphones. Berni, the production manager, held up large placards instructing the audience members to do a sound check, if you were hearing the theme from “Shaft” you were good to go. So after the sound check music, the sound design kicked in, sound accents rather than music per se, but somehow perfect and even with the headphones on, you could hear the sounds of the terminal, kids crying, announcement for the ferry arrival, and a general din of crowd (at the afternoon show I saw there was this one man that kept blowing a little “duck call” whistle at what seemed to be specific intervals, which seemed so perfect that at first we thought it was part of the show). And then the dialogue begins coming through the headphones, but it’s not immediately clear where the actors are. It was this amazing cinematic long shot. A wide shot of the whole terminal as your eyes scan with more focused precision, to see where is this conversation is coming from. Who in this crowd is having this conversation that you can hear? There are pregnant pauses in the dialogue, the Australian accent are heavy. One voice is higher than the other and having seen a picture of the two featured actors on the program I have in my head who is who (it turns out I’m wrong, the higher voice belongs to the shorter actor). I’m looking for where the voices are coming from but I’m also SO enjoying the search, “people-watching” at it’s best. People starring at the audience trying to figure out what are we doing here. And then you find the actors, you see who’s speaking, now the set expands. Not only are people taking in the audience, but some people are just going on with their lives completely oblivious to the performance present, then the layer of passerby’s that take in the performers. Do they, in passing by, hear what we hear?
It’s almost like a dance as two other actors enter the scene the beautiful duet turns into something else. For me this merger of public space and private dialogue was such a unique doorway into humanity, an opening like one found in Alice’s Wonderland, very unexpected. And because it was at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal it felt very New York, because while the accents were Australian, the supporting cast was a cross-section of New York’s diverse population. It didn’t really occur to me until my friend Joe pointed it out. He commented that the show was about needs and wants. And yes one couple needing “the gear” a euphemism for drugs I suspect. One character needing to be left alone in thought. His mate not wanting to leave him alone. I got me sort of thinking about wants and needs in general. The piece was produced by Australia’s Back to Back Theatre which “was founded in 1987 to create theatre with people who are percieved to have an intellectual disability. The show was apparently inspired by the thoughts and philosophies of one of the devisors/performers, Sonia Teuben. All the performers, including Sonia were superb and the concept outstanding. The Sydney Morning Herald called it “a pure open-hearted, unique meditation on human worth.” I would call it a pure, open-hearted, unique meditation on humanity.

Does Prayer Change Things?

1/15/08

Sometime before the holidays I was making my way from the Shuttle to the 4, 5 and 6 trains in that connecting tunnel under Grand Central Station. There were about a dozen people roaming around with red aprons that had PRAYER CHANGES THINGS written on them. A little further on I noticed a “Prayer Station”, it looked more like a carnival booth where you might pay a gypsy to tell your future or pay for a kiss. Being skeptical of (yet fascinated by) religion like I am, I sort of dismissed these people with their aprons and carnival booth as ultra right christian (is that supposed to be capitalized) cheerleaders. And yet at the same time I thought “wow isn’t this great” it’s kind of like that YouTube video of the guy giving away FREE HUGS. Except free prayer isn’t exactly free hugs, is it? And I’m not sure prayer changes anything. My first thought was “if prayer really changed things wouldn’t we have peace on earth already?” So as I waited for the downtown train heading to Union Square, I started thinking, “what does change things?”
And whether it was the Inten-sati classes, my law of attraction thinking, or all the other bits of therapy, healing and self-help reading or just a random moment of clarity it came to me, simple and straightforward. What changes things is 1) Intention 2) Action 3) and Belief in oneself. I didn’t realize until just know but those are perhaps the tenets of my personal, dare I say, religion. No, I dare not because there really is so much baggage there, right? Sometimes baggage with wonderfully beautiful luggage tags and sometimes a suitcase full of shit, and sometimes a duffle bag of treasures but baggage none the less.
Baggage on the conveyer belt of the baggage claim at an internationl airport. But I digress. No, this is not my religion but I am confident that 1) Intention 2) Action and Belief in oneself does change things. And while I think prayer is a component of intention, it is incomplete in it’s ability to actually bring about change. Don’t get me wrong prayer is a good thing. Some of my best friends pray. But to loosely paraphrase Mary Baker Eddy, prayer does not change the laws of the universe, but it does bring us into closer harmony them.

FOCUS

1/14/08

Mondays are hard. I almost want to take that back (like saying Mondays are hard contributes to making them hard). MONDAYS ARE GREAT! Today I want to get A LOT done. I don’t really like what I am writing right now, but I’ve committed to writing something for the blog everyday. The practise of writing. DAMN – (I wanted to write fuck and somehow edited myself). I don’t like editing myself. I’ll tell you why Mondays are hard, it’s because I work as freelancer and if I’m not working, like for example today, it is up to me to make my own schedule. I find it difficult to self motivate. Monday is always the same thing. I really have a pretty consistent pattern which in all honesty I would LOVE to break. I mean LOVE to break. Fridays are sort of these loose days. I call Friday, “my day Friday” – it’s usually the day I take it easy. I by no means deserve to take it easy because it’s not like I’ve accomplished so much Mon-Thurs, but Fridays Olive and I do Pet Therapy at St. Vincents and then take it easy. I always imagine the weekend will afford me the time to catch up on all the tasks I didn’t get done during the week. But I almost NEVER actually take care of all those things (and believe me the list is long, household tasks: long overdue putting up shelves, cleaning the closet, clutter clearing my office, career tasks: send out pictures and resumes, follow up with professional types and random tasks: returning phone calls, emails, taking down Christmas decorations, going to the gym etc. etc. and more etc. REALLY the list is LONG). I feel constantly behind the eight ball. Well the weekend rolls around and I have fun I don’t do ANY of those catching up things. This weekend Jon and I saw some amazing shows as part of The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival (undertheradarfestival.com). Some incredible food for thought. One show in particular “small metal objects” was really an extraordinary experience. And don’t get me wrong the weekends are filled with great event and time with Jon and Olive that I cherish. And I do my best to be in the moment and enjoy enjoy enjoy. And for the most part I do – I DO enjoy but there is that nagging of ALL THOSE THINGS I SHOULD HAVE DONE. Gosh “should” I know I know bad word, fuck bad. You see I’m really working on creating positivity in my world. Saying YES to the Universe! So I’m really conscience of the messages I am giving my self, “should” (who said?) “bad” (who said?). Anyway so Monday rolls around and I say ENOUGH – today I am going to get it together. And I tend to make some strides but it takes time and by Friday I’m off track again – though usually happy because whatever side tracked me seemed “worth it.” If I could stay focused for more than four days. Focus that might just be the goal of the day.

Christmas Cards & Children

1/13/08

Today I am taking down the Christmas cards and Christmas decorations. It’s been AGES since I’ve written on my blog but I think it’s time to get back to it. So here’s a little post-holiday reflection. The Holidays were nice this year, no stress, easy, enjoyable, no major excess. Jon and I didn’t send out cards but we happily received them, we didn’t do the present thing either. I LOVE not getting caught up in the commercial BUY BUY BUY nonsense. Get something if it feels right, don’t if it doesn’t. We went to Cambridge and spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day with my family. It was simple, the traditional meals. Marcella and Bill came over Christmas Eve for cuba (a barley and mushroom dish), carp, potato salad and apple strudel. My daddy read the nativity liturgy from the bible in Czech as is our tradition we lit the candles on the tree while Mami chimed in with O Tannenbaum. Christmas Day Teresa Neighbor joined mami, daddy, Jon and I for duck with cabbage and dumplings. Later that day, Jon and I drove around Cambridge in search of peppermint stick ice cream and ended up laughing with the White Hen Pantry man about how it’s not White Hen anymore. Jon made sure the usual suspects (super, mailman, cleaning gal) all got a little Christmas money. Yikes I still need to give Sarah at the cleaners something she is such special woman – I like chatting with her. I always think about how her life is so different from mine. It’s nice taking down the cards because I get to re-read them and re-connect with the folks that sent cards. It’s an eclectic mix of good friends, kind acquaintances, professional obligations, actor-friends I love, other actor-friends, people from the past, Cindy from college and her two girls, Mimi from highschool days, Edna from the Pet Therapy department, a nice card from United for Peace and Justice. A card from Suzanne our friend in Montreal who’s father recently passed. Amazing with all the she’s going through – she manages to send out the Christmas cards. No one sent any round robin letters through the mail, a few via email. Jon seems to hate these, like some people dislike the cards with family photos. I like both. I like the round robin letters and I like seeing photos of my friends kids, Ellen’s girls, Ethan’s baby – still can’t believe Ethan is a daddy. I am ALWAYS amazed by the kid thing. Like Sarah the woman at our laundry place, my friends with kids just seem like they live in a completely different world, a world I may be a little curious about but ultimately don’t want to visit (I don’t think). Okay that’s enough for now.