Warm February Night

Even in the middle of Brooklyn and Queens, amid rows of brownstone with electrical wires draped everywhere like dark Christmas lights. Amid the gag inducing smells of cigarette smoke, puke, and car exhaust, I can step outside, feel a warm breeze in the middle of February hinting at the distant spring, smell clean air as a breeze caresses my cheeks, and gaze up at the almost full moon. The few bright stars that are visible. And surrender deep to beauty profound as the beginning of time. And all is well and glorious and endlessly big.

Like little rain puddles in the road, that when stepped in, go down hundreds of feet like a bore hole. So stepping into them makes you plunk down into the puddle like someone who's just stepped into a manhole. And if you wanted, if you could breath underwater, you could just keep sinking down into it for as long as you wanted, never touching bottom.

I'm not sure if this makes sense. I'm just trying to describe a feeling, with gratitude. There's beauty to be had, even among the ugly. So much. It's surprising to find it even here. Like surprisingly deep puddles in the road.

Spell Check Fail, and a Part Time Job

My dad mentioned I'd made a spell-check-proof spelling error, so I did a quick edit and republished last week's post. Hopefully Blogger doesn't send it again, to those of you who get the emails.

This week; great news! I got that writing job and am now employed part time working for somewhere around minimum wage doing (semi) creative writing! Living the dream!

Well, OK, maybe the dream involves getting more than minimum wage. But I have no conceit about my current writing level. I'm still fairly early on in the whole process of learning to write well. I need practice, and lots of it. The fact that I'm getting paid to practice writing is excellent. Mwahahaha! It's like school except they're paying me! So the fact that they are not paying well is OK, for the time being.

Also, what I'm writing is pretty awesome. I'm basically writing up pithy descriptions of travel destinations, with some factoids thrown in. It's informal and playful in tone, which is perfect, and I get to research a whole bunch of cool places. Some of them are boring, but most are really cool, and it's making me realize, because I've done several cities, that I really need to take better advantage of living in New York City. There must be hundreds of awesome things to do here, discoverable in a few seconds of web search. As a creator, as a storyteller, it's my duty to do cool things so I can share the stories. It is in fact lucrative to do so!

Right now I'm working for a specific company who gives me assignments, but one of my writing hero's, Neil Gaiman, got good at writing doing freelance work and journalism. That seems like a good idea. It is like getting paid to go to school. You've got the accountability of deadlines, a reward for completion, and feedback from your employer.

So, that's all exciting. I owe a big thank you to the friend who connected me to the people at this company. Though they were in desperate need of writers, so it's not exactly a favor. Lucky me, since I previously had almost nil professional writing experience. Now I will have...some!

In other news, I'm slowly spinning up the gears to look for a school I can go to for Life Coaching/Counseling/Whatever it is I do. I'm not quite ready to look for a school because I'm still getting info on what kind of schooling would fit me best. It would be awesome if I could take people's insurance to help pay for some of it. I want something hands on rather than theoretical, and it should be able to accommodate my style of working, which is...unusual, though practical.

In the past, I've flitted a bit, trying to get a lock on what I actually want to do. It got a lot easier when I stopped demanding it be one single thing, and when I realized I could actually be paid well to do what I loved.

Well, it's hard to tell how long this is as I'm writing it on my magical little travel keyboard and iPhone combination (I discovered this worked very well for writing on the go) and the small screen makes it hard to judge. It feels like I've probably gone on too long for the current average attention span. Which is scary.

You realise in the past, people had attention spans that could go for hours, right? our access to fast limitless media is atrophying our brain's concentration abilities and it's frightening to think of the consequences for future generations. Here's a video on that subject I found immensely entertaining, though one of the people I showed it to vehemently hated it. It's only three minutes long, so give it a try... }:-D
https://youtu.be/Edx9D2yaOGs

Also, if I remember I'll post a second thing I wrote some time in the middle of the week. I'm starting to write more, and this is something that's been kicking around in my brain for a long time that finally came out.

That's all for this week. Sending love from a joyful heart,

-I

Be honest now, does this dress make me look fat?

I'm on an honesty kick at the moment.

Not honesty as you might traditionally think of it, saying exactly what you think at any time. Though I'm leaning a little bit more towards that, but mainly as a side effect. The main honesty I'm focusing on is self honestly. How am I feeling? Does what I'm doing feel good? Right? What do I really want?

I'm doing the best I can to get rid of any dishonesty I have with myself. Telling myself things are good when they're not, or bad when they're fine. There is often a difference between how we think we're supposed to feel, and how we do feel. What we're supposed to want, and what we actually want.

And being honest with myself feels good. It feels kind. Not that I'm particularly self deceptive out of everyone in the world, but we all are, to some degree or another. It's often a way of avoiding discomfort, when our truth would have us doing something scary or with potentially unpleasant repercussions. But it's a trade-off. In exchange for more comfort in the short term, we get a sense of shallowness in the long term. Like the volume has been turned down on our life.

Death is a great teacher. And when I think about my own mortality, and the uncertainty of when it will happen, I want the depth that being truthful with myself brings. Looking back at life on one's deathbed, it seems that is the choice that will let one leave this world more content.


Um... practical details. Slowly building up a good framework for myself. Accountability buddies like my writing buddy, and soon a life coach buddy. And some teachers and mentors to help point me where I need to go to get better at the things I'm primarily working on: writing and life coaching. Might have a part time writing job! More on that if the "might" turns into a "do."


That's all for this week, dear friends. I think of many of you with love, often. (I don't know how many because I don't know who all reads this.)

-I

Little Bits of Mirth

Things that made me laugh this week:




Walking along the street, seeing this sign, and immediately knowing it was put up because someone did just what the sign says not to do. Imagining them as a serious businessman, walking while texting on his phone, suddenly smashing into the door with a loud but not painful rattling wump sound, then trying desperately to look dignified afterwards like a cat who has just failed an easy jump:

https://youtu.be/m9k_I2OCbls

And after the sign is put up, when someone else smashes into the door, and then sees the sign, what emotions and thoughts are running through their head? And can the bystanders who saw it and then got close enough to read the sign contain their morally inappropriate but overwhelming urge to laugh?


Business update: very busy and productive. And tired. Speaking of lack of awareness, was on a bus, five feet from two good friends, and didn't notice for several minutes, till they called my name, twice, and waved to me. I'm glad I'm not in feudal Japan or I would have been required to commit seppuku for bringing shame on my teacher of awareness. In my defense it was a long uncomfortable trip and I was trying to ignore most of the sensory input that was coming to me as it was smelly, ugly, cramped and painful. I will do better next time sensei. Yosh!*


* "Yosh" being a Japanese word that means "OK!", in this case, as an exclamation you might use after rolling up your sleeves, before trying a second time to lift something heavy.

Snowstorm!

Wow! I'm betting most of you got hit by this too. It's pretty incredible here in New York. There's no place for the snow to go, so cars parked on the sides of the streets were encased in snow to the point where you couldn't see them at all. The wind whipped the snow into pyramid shapes atop them, two or more feet above the roof. And walking along the street still confronts one with walls of snow that are at times up to eye level.

Thankfully for everyone who needs to get places it's started to melt and people are going about their normal lives again, but for a day or two, the whole world seemed to stop.

There are still cars trapped between walls of snow from the shoveled sidewalk on one side and the plow on the other, three feet high.

And the weather report was initially saying, maybe four inches by the time it got to here ;-)

I hope you guys are all safe and sound.
Stay warm,
-Isaac

Off to See the Wizard

I'm off to the woods for secret wizard training starting early tomorrow. Have to finish packing tonight and get up super early and I won't be back till late Saturday next week, so this is my last chance to send this from my computer (rather than finger typing while I'm on the bus).

I Taught another class today. I'm learning a lot, the kids seem to be enjoying it as well, and the other teachers seem to think I'm doing at least a good job (they say I'm doing a very good job, but they are nice people so that may be an overly generous estimation.)

In any case it is an incredible way to learn for myself, and a deeply satisfying way to be of service.

Today was about Martin Luther King Jr., and a core concept from the Bhagavad-Gita. I simplified the words and simplified the concepts through activities (discovery: kids love drawing) but kept the essence intact. It's good practice in not being too serious, because to design the lesson quickly and effectively I need to be in the headspace of play.

OK, that's all for now. I need to eat and pack!

See you in a week :-)
-I

Trust in Guidence

I went to New York and did an acting conservatory for two years, even though I did not have the intention of becoming an actor. I had plenty of logical reasons. I'd enjoyed acting, as a hobby. I loved improvisational dance, and if acting was as joy producing as that then I'd be happy to do that as a job, and there were some distinct similarities. I knew the particular teacher I was going to was a master teacher, and even if I just continued on my path, more towards writing and such, I would learn the discipline, industriousness, and courage to be both financially successful and artistically successful.

But when it came right down to it, I simply had that surety. The unmistakable feeling that this was the right next step for me. I only rarely got that level of clarity. Moving to Iowa to go to the spiritually oriented high school, in the spiritually oriented community, was one such time. It only seemed to occur when it was a big decision, one that would change the course of my life, potentially in a very positive way. It has always proven right. When I follow that voice, it leads me to wonderful, incredible growth. Always. So I've learned to trust it implicitly. Especially when it's very clear and strong. And it was. So I went.

And, as always, it was a very good thing. In ways I could never have logically guessed at. For instance, here I sit, half a year after graduating, with the dawning realization that part of what I love to do is teach, particularly with a spiritual bent. I'm designing a lesson plan for Saturday (with lots of help from more seasoned teachers) and I realize, the feeling of anxious excitement, that could easily bleed over to tension, if I let it tip into worry, is almost identical to how I felt in school, preparing a scene or monologue. And I'm reminded of what one of my best friends said, how teaching gives her much of the things she loved about acting. And I see now, even more, ever more, how each step feeds into the next. All this training I got... it is perfect for teaching. The storytelling, the meticulous eye on preparation, even how to handle stage fright.

It has been years. So many years of picking up pieces of a giant jigsaw. Some few got put together, but mostly I was just collecting them, getting more and more confused as more jumble was added to the table. But finally, the puzzle is starting to come together. The edge pieces are all found. Some of the picture is there, and I'm starting to get an idea for what it is. And that is making the assembling happen faster and easier. It is a good feeling, a relieved feeling, and I can do nothing but feel gratitude and yet more trust in that deep inner voice that has been leading me with breadcrumbs all these years.

-I Out