With Love, Seven-Year-Old Self

At age seven, I unknowingly wrote a love letter to myself using only a few pieces of play money. I'll explain.

The other day I witnessed a 97-year-old woman and a 3-year-old boy enjoying the comfort of the same living room. Someone made a comment about the parallels between the very young and the very old ('seasoned' if you want to be polite) and I immediately recalled a poem I used to read and re-read of Shel Silverstein's. Earlier this evening I ventured about the house in hopes of stumbling upon my hardbound copy of A Light In The Attic. My eyes fell upon the title and I snatched the book with much excitement, knowing I would be flipping the pages as I did ages ago to search for that poem. A surprise awaited me.

Carefully tucked into three pages were three pieces of play money. (For the record, the play money consisted of only dollar bills--apparently I was a frugal 'pretend' business woman.) The three poems I had chosen to mark were the following:

'Cloony the Clown'

'The Little Boy and The Old Man'

'The Oak and The Rose'

'Cloony the Clown' is about a clown that just wasn't funny, but caused the whole world to finally break into laughter only after having explained to them his sad situation.
'The Little Boy and The Old Man' is the very poem I was looking for.
'The Oak and The Rose' is about a tree and a rose plant that were friends until the tree outgrew the rose. The rose is upset by the tree outgrowing it, only for the tree to explain it was really the rose's fault for remaining so small.

Looking back, I was a unique 7-year-old to say the least. These poems are by far of the saddest and most melancholy variety in the entire collection and yet, I was motivated to mark the pages for future enjoyment. Coming across this years and years later feels as if I came into direct contact with my self, only much younger. What did I come to discover? These poems are still by far my favorite.

THE LITTLE BOY AND THE OLD MAN

Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."
Said the little old man, "I do that too."
The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."
"I do that too," laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, "I often cry."
The old man nodded, "So do I."
"But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems
Grown-ups don't pay attention to me."
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
"I know what you mean," said the little old man.

Seth Godin's "The Places You Go"

Again, Seth Godin wins. 

Received this blog entry in my gmail inbox this morning and re-read it several times. Please read and enjoy.

"Over the weekend I visited one of my favorite places. It didn't matter that I hadn't been there in a while, or didn't know most of the people I encountered. The second I walked in, heard the noise, saw the walls... even the way it smelled... I was transported.

It’s incredible to think about--a room could magically change the way I felt. A physical room with the right memories can do this in just a heartbeat. So can a metaphorical one, even a brand.

The states of your emotions (your moods and passions) are like rooms in a house.

Anxiety, flow, joy, fear, exhaustion, connection, contemplation, emotional labor... each one can be visited at will if we choose. Sometimes by entering a real room, but more often in metaphor...

Do you have a friend you can have an intimate, tearful conversation with anytime you pick up the phone? Is there a topic that if you bring it up with your boss, it will quickly lead to contention? Is there a place or a memory that never fails to bring melancholy along with it?

Occasionally we encounter emotions at random. More often, we have no choice, because there’s something that needs to be done, or an event that impinges itself on us. But most often, we seek emotions out, find refuge in them, just as we walk into the living room or the den.

Stop for a second and reread that sentence, because it’s certainly controversial. I’m arguing that more often than not, we encounter fear or aggravation or delight because we seek it out, not because it’s thrust on us.

Why check your email every twenty minutes? It’s not because it needs checking. It’s because the checking puts us into a state we seek out. Why yell at the parking attendant with such gusto? Teaching him a lesson isn’t the point--no, in that moment, it’s what we want to do, it’s a room we choose to hang out in. It could be something as prosaic as getting involved in a flame war online every day, or checking your feeds at midnight or taking a shot or two before dinner. It’s not something you have to do, it’s something you choose to do, because going there takes your emotions to a place you’ve gotten used to, a place where you feel comfortable, even if it makes you unhappy.

There’s a metaphorical room I can go to where I’m likely to experience flow--a sense of being in the moment and getting an enormous amount done. Down the hall is the room where there’s a lot of anxiety about something I can’t change. I can visit that room if I choose, but I don’t. And yes, it’s a choice.

Great brands figure out how to supply a ‘room’ to anyone who chooses to visit. Soap opera fans, for example, can count on being put into a certain state anytime they tune in. The Apple store is carefully calibrated as an architectural and retail room that will change how you feel when you enter it. Chiat Day built offices in New York and LA that triggered huge waves of creativity. And there's nothing like the face of a kid eating a Hershey's bar...

YouTube isn't just video. It's a room. Not everyone uses it the same way, but most people use it the same way every time they use it. If it's the site people go to see stupid pet tricks and write stupider comments, then they know why they're going and it's going to be hard for it to become something else...

Is your brand providing the right room to the right people at the right time? Most products, most services--they provide a thing, a list of features, but not a room for my emotions.

This insight about our moods and your brand is all well and good, but it becomes essential once you realize that there are some rooms you’re spending way too much time in, that these choices are taking away from your productivity or your happiness.

Why are you going there again?

Every time you go to that room, you get unhappy, and so do we. Every time you go that room, you spend more time than you expected, and it stresses out the rest of your day. Every time you go to that room you short-circuit the gifts you give to the rest of the team.

Once your habit becomes an addiction, it’s time to question why you get up from a room that was productive and happy, a place you were engaged, and walk down the hall to a room that does no one any good (least of all, you). Tracking your day and your emotions is a first step, but it takes more than that. It takes the guts to break some ingrained habits, ones that the people around you might even be depending on."

Dylan

"You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you"


-Robert Allen Zimmerman

Lights in the Distance

I believed this place I would leave

Lest my feet root in the ground

Yet I only settled upon different soil

No different from my old town.

Help! I'm on Yelp!

There has been a monster created, justsoyaknow.

Recent reviews by Monique V.

What's this?

I happen to be a fairly opinionated consumer and Yelp is tailored for my kin -- to "share our experiences" in hopes of benefiting potential customers of restaurants, hotels, spas, etc. However, this outlet also creates a monster in that it promotes me spending more time on the Internet writing and contributing to public forums. I have a Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Blogger (obviously), BRMC FanPage, Pandora, and now Yelp account. I've virtually abandoned MySpace (my About Me consists of "Remove Profile" in hopes one day the MySpace people will do away with my page) yet have continued joining social media sites. I can sit here and fuss about it all but the fact of the matter is--I love it.

June?

June.

The month passed and this blog remained bereft of an entry.

In commemoration of the ghostlike month, I decided to run the Google Test on "June" and pay homage to the very month I neglected.

A personal fave: June Carter Cash

Flaming June by Lord Frederick Leighton

Bill Nye on CNN? Brilliant.

Stumbling upon this made me about as happy as seeing an elderly couple holding hands on a Sunday afternoon.
The devastation in the Gulf of Mexico continues to grow and has left everyone in a state of, "Wow, that's horrible... is there really anything we can do?"
CNN answered this with the absolute BEST solution: Hire Bill Nye the Science Guy to provide insight as to what needs to be done.

This made my month.

Good Things

"All Good Things Must Come To An End."

I disagree.
We were told this as kids at the end of a long day at the fair grounds or Chuck E. Cheese, as our parents found themselves at the end of their energy rope.

This adage needs to be recycled and replaced with
"All Bad Things Must Come To An End."

The truly good things in life never end. Sure, the sun may set on a particularly great day and the "great day" has come to an end. However, the memories and warm feelings from this day will never leave. Think about the small experiences, such as a particularly delicious bowl of ice cream. "All Good Things Must Come To An End?" No. The privilege of having experienced the taste of the most delicious bowl of ice cream will never leave.

Let's allow the bad things to come to an end. Experiencing a bad day where it feels more like a nightmare than real life--we all get those. The fact of the matter is, these days will eventually end and the Red Sea will be parted.

If you have had the privilege to experience something good in your life, be grateful.
The majority of people in this world have not been fortunate enough to experience whatever it is that you experienced. Life itself is a gift, so enjoy. The good things in life will never end, but rather continue as fond memories to be appreciated for years to come.


The bad things can end if you allow them to. Don't let them overstay their welcome.

Home

Home is where the heart is.

Vault Door.

This is the photo that originally caught my attention.

This is the original photo.



















I'm always intrigued by photography. I think my favorite part of photography is how a person can dictate what is included (and also, what is left out). The banner (top image) was the original culprit of my interest - a cross-section view of a vault door in b&w with added focus to accentuate each lever.

I followed my nose and stumbled upon the original photograph (second image) which included a larger portrayal of the vault door. I was surprised to find this, after having been satisfied with the smaller section shown in the first picture I found. This made me wonder: am I better off having seen the whole door? Or was it more satisfying to have seen just a glimpse of it.

This line of thinking applies in all things we do. Sometimes things seem more appealing when ingesting a small glimpse or taste of it. We can appreciate a higher quantity of things when they come in small doses--that is what our culture is thriving off of at this very moment. The flip side to this? Maybe I really was better off having seen the larger picture of the vault door. The detail captured by the photographer's camera of the bottom levers/bolts/knobs/etc. is truly beautiful.

Moral of this story: Don't let the photographer behind the lens dictate what you see. If you stumble across something that truly intrigues you, do your homework and look for the bigger picture.

Failure, success & neither

" The math is magical: you can pile up lots of failures and still keep rolling, but you only need one juicy success to build a career.

The killer is the category called 'neither'. If you spend your days avoiding failure by doing not much worth criticizing, you'll never have a shot at success. Avoiding the thing that's easy to survive keeps you from encountering the very thing you're after.

And yet we market and work and connect and create as if just one failure might be the end of us. "

Seth Godin 2010 (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/)

I read this about five times upon receiving my daily dose of Seth Godin's blog (which you need to follow if you have any interest in marketing/pr/comm/buss/etc.) a few days ago.

Why is it brilliant? It reminded me of a teacher giving a student a prompt:

"Give me insight as to why people shy away from failure and in turn, shy away from success. Oh yeah, and do it in five sentences or less. You have twenty minutes."

Godin deserves an A+ for nailing the hypothetical assignment.

Thank you, Paul & John

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near.
Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Eleanor Rigby by Tommy Steele
December, 1982
Liverpool, United Kingdom

There is a fine line between solitude and loneliness.

We all have times where we may feel particularly lonely, whether it be in the car while driving from one place to another, hours of sleeplessness, or simply having nothing of note to do on a given day/night. However, I know that I know nothing about going about a continually lonely life.

I love to people-watch, and in doing so I am both calmed and saddened. Too often do my eyes fall upon a person much like Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie. I think of this song more often than the majority of other songs I have been exposed to in my lifetime. It is truly relevant and timeless in that no matter what progress is made, there will always be the Eleanor Rigby's and Father McKenzie's of every town.

Thank you, Paul and John.

Eleanor Rigby was never performed live by the Beatles.

Night Lights

The often-haunting nightscapes of Night Lights reveal how city environments can become both isolating and poetic with the absence of daylight. Helen K. Garber, Ginny Mangrum, and Bill Sosin create art from urban streets stilled by darkness, veering from spooky landscapes to lovely abstract compositions of illumination and shadow. Moving and evocative, the exhibit is a chance to see three photographers respond to the special challenges of photographing under the blackness of night.

Visited DNJ Gallery (http://www.dnjgallery.net/) this past Saturday for the opening of this exhibit and was impressed. I chose to attend for several reasons:

1. The title 'Night Lights' - viewing the city lights at night is a classically calming activity, often the perfect setting for reflection after a long, hectic day
2. The picture - the beautiful photograph by Bill Sosin, one of the featured artists in this exhibit
3. The extremely well-written press release for this event (shown above) - a PR person who 'gets it'; upon reading I was stopped dead in my tracks and knew I would be making the drive from Long Beach to Los Angeles for the opening night.

Origins.

Do you wonder where the self resides
Is it in the head or between your sides
And who would be the one who will decide
Its true location
-andrew bird, dark matter

There is so much going on.

War, unemployment, immigration policies, environmental issues, social barriers and bridges, innovation, technology, genocide, trafficking, you name it. When sitting down to look around at the surrounding world, it can be disheartening.

However,

Do you ever take the time to notice the old couple sitting outside of the ice cream shop enjoying an ice cream cone in the sun?

Do you sit down to read a book, magazine article, poem, etc. and come across a line that makes you stop dead in your tracks?

Do you listen to a song and hear a lyric that shakes you? Or a tone in the voice of the singer that lets you know they sincerely get something that others often fail to convey?


This is my blog.
I aim to collect all of these things - the old couple's ice cream date, the line from the book, the lyric. Pictures that somehow relate to the sentiment they create will more than likely be included. These moments of beauty whether in a dark or bright sense are where I find motivation.

This is where my 'self' resides.