the dafosphere

every breath

2011-12-18T19:58:00.000-08:00

On the night I could have died, I was just watching television.

My wife had just turned in for the night. She said good night from our bedroom down the hall. I thought that was a good idea. I was tired of wasting my time on the Internet, I was tired of listening to the television, and I was especially tired of the laptop that was cradled on my crossed legs like a tireless puppy. I lifted the computer and leaned forward to put it on the coffee table.

That's when I felt the first punch.

The punch came from inside my chest, not outside it. I put hand over my chest, like someone in shock. I stood up, gingerly, mindfully, and started to massage my chest. I paced back and forth. It felt like someone was punching me from the inside. And not just any punch, a full-blown upper cut. The whole time, my mind was working overtime, trying to figure out what this pain in my chest was. Within seconds it felt like someone was stabbing me with a knife. I finally walked into my bedroom and said, "Honey, I can't breathe."

My wife jumped out of bed, turned on the bedside lamp and asked me what was wrong. I explained that my chest was hurting and that I was having a hard time breathing for some reason. I laid down on the bed to rest. I closed my eyes for maybe thirty seconds and then jumped up. Laying down made whatever was wrong with me ten times worse.

"We need to go to the hospital," I said.

By the time we got to Centenary Hospital , which was about five minutes away, I could no longer freely and easily inhale. I had to be strolled into the emergency room in a wheelchair. I was hunched over and clutching my chest, which felt like it was crumbling in on itself.

The nurse was asking me questions: What was my name? Did I have my health card? And I didn't have breath enough to answer. My wife was answering all the questions for me. They could see I was in intense pain. My eyes burned with tears and my chest was burning even more.

They admitted me into an large, grey operating room where they did an x-ray of my chest. They provided me with an oxygen mask. When they got the results from the x-ray, a doctor came in and very earnestly told me that my right lung had collapsed and that they would have to do surgery to inflate it.

I had never experienced a collapsed lung before, nor would I wish the experience on my worst enemy. Not being able to breathe fully was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. My wife, who was maybe a month or two pregnant with our baby, was ashen faced and wide-eyed. The look of helplessness on her must have mirrored mine. I felt like things could take a turn for the worse at any moment.

What does a breath mean to us when we have so many of them without even noticing them? I read somewhere that we take around twelve breaths per minute. That works out to as many as 23,000 breaths in one day. It's no wonder we take them for granted!I was lucky if I could get twelve on that night I lost my ability to breathe. I never knew how important it is to be able to inhale and exhale deeply, freely, and to be able to say that "I'm alive." If I could, I would keep count of every breath I took.

I was in the hospital for almost five days recovering from the surgery with the help of a tube that came out from between my third and fourth rib. The tube was connected to a machine that worked to re-inflate my lung. It made the sound that a straw makes when you suck the last bit of Coke from the glass. It sounded like water being sucked deep into a long, dark drain. It reminds me of how something - someone - is here one minute and then the next is gone.

My favourite childhood memory

2011-10-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

my favourite childhoold memory is walking out of our corner unit townhouse in north Scarborough, my brother and I holding my mom's hand on either side, no more than nine and six years old, respectively.

We'd walk through the grassy laneways between townhomes, walking past six conjoined homes at a time, tall like sentinals shoulder to shoulder, past their open backyards and their windows with opened curtains. Beneath solitary pines and maples. The drone of traffic getting louder as we approached McCowan Road.

It was the mall on the otherside of McCowan Road, called Woodside Square, that was our destination.

Fridays was when we would go, the three of us, to cash my mother's cheque of $322. We'd line up at the Royal Bank and wait to be called to the next teller. My mom would sign her exquisitely rehearsed signature, written in fine English letters. Each time she signed was almost like a performance. It was the only thing she wrote in English with ease and confidence. The two Ns of her name like soft waves between the boulders of the As. The F stood out because it was capitalized, printed and not in cursive. The S was satsfied, complete, a final statement and declaration that her name on that document was official, it was hers and nobody else's. (Given that she hasn't signed a cheque in so many years, I wonder if she still knows how.)

With money in white envelope, with bank book stamped and in purse, we would maybe get a hamburger at the McDonald's across the way.

Mostly, though, we would go to Zellers.

Zellers is a discount department store with high white ceilings and white walls striped with red. We would go there and my mom would look at clothes or shoes or kitchen stuff. My brother and I just wanted to go to the toy section. Superman and Batman and Transformers and Thunder Cats were there, in their protective plastic bubble, erect and waiting to be bought, to be freed, to be held and thrown and smashed and buried and found again.

She might buy us a toy on some occasions (and usually without my dad's consent!). She might buy something for herself. We also got Club Z points, too. It was a ritual that makes me think of the routine things that we do that children love, that make living so impossibly beautiful, so mysteriously memorable. Because I think we always had a sense that we weren't well off, that we worked hard, bloody hard, to have what we did. And sometimes, most days actually, just looking at all that stuff hanging and standing and waiting in those white, white aisles, was enough.

It was a small trip of escapism, a break from the routine of school and work and homwork and reading and learning our times tables. A place for me to imagine having all those toys with my brother and what adventures we could create for them, what wars we could wage with them, what ways we could wittle the last hours of the day before night came and we had to wait for next Friday to come along.

expecting from others

2011-08-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

People will do their best, given what they know, what they believe about themselves and what they can do, given their limits and their fears and their insecurities. People are human because they are not consistent, because they are not perfect, because they are incomplete. But they do their best, which makes them beautiful, and great, and worth bestowing compassion and understanding.

So being realistic about what what we expect of people - especially our brothers and sisters, our moms and dads - might be the most delicate and daunting skill we can develop. Having high expectations is a good thing and we should have them - they tell the people we work with that we believe in them, that we see something that maybe they don't...yet. Not having any expectations isn't an option either.

But given that they are human, I should be flexible, forgiving, even kind when they don't fulfill my expectations. I should be because, ultimately, I have to expect more of myself.

Ordinary Things

2011-07-25T06:28:00.000-07:00

Beauty truly is found in ordinary things and it takes a conscious effort to notice them.

As I sit here writing, I notice how there is a fold in the gold curtain screening one of the windows. That fold looks like a spine travelling vertically towards the curtain rod, almost perfectly balancing either side of the curtain.

There's a bejeweled metal crucifix sitting in front of a white candle and I'm impressed by how a source of spiritual light sits before a source of physical light.

One arm of our chocolate coloured leather love seat is reflecting all of the rain-muddied light that is coming in from the large window.

The traffic I hear sounds like ocean waves.

Looking to my left, down the short corridor between the dining room table I sit at and my bedroom, I can see my wife's feet hanging over the end of the bed.

There's a small bust of Nikos Kazantzakis in the display cabinet beside me, that reminds me of the busy market I bought it from when I was in Crete ten years ago.

There's a book with a close up shot of a gold Buddha on the cover - all I can see is his eyes and the bridge of his nose traveling down to the supple lips.

The spines of the hundreds of books we have peaking out from the edge of their shelves, almost seem like they are being pushed there by the books sitting behind them.

1o Year Text

2011-07-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

The text I would get from my 43 year old self would read: "All you had to do was do it. The rest was actually not so bad after all."

This text actually came quite easily. It's the schism I need to remind myself with until the hardened calcium of protectionism I have been protecting for so many years finally breaks enough to allow me the flexibility I need to try and do and experiment freely and fearlessly.

10 Year Text by Tia Singh

Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Imagine your future self, ie, you 10 years from now. If he/she were to send you a tweet or text message, 1) what would it say and 2) how would that transform your life or change something you’re doing, thinking, believing or saying today?

(Author: Tia Singh)

Overcoming Uncertainty

2011-07-15T04:50:00.000-07:00

The two goals that I have are: operating my own school and writing my novels. Both of these goals are pretty ambitious, and they're time-consuming ventures. Neither will be done in a year, necessarily, and both require discipline, commitment, passion. So let's look at these three things because there is a reason why these three requirements came out and I'm curious about where they might connect with whatever fears I have.

Discipline: It's something that I have been traditionally inconsistent with. There are times when I am quite disciplined and other times when I am not. What does the word discipline mean to me though? What comes to mind? My parents come to mind and their times in the past when they would discipline us with (shall we say) loud words. Discipline brings to mind harshness, meanness. But the other side of discipline is where my attention should be. The other side of discipline is enjoyment, success, satisfaction, triumph. The runner who gets up every morning to do his 10K job through the city knows that on the other side of his discipline is the triumph of success, of completing a marathon, etc. What word would, for me, mean discipline without actually using that word? Dignity. There is a deep self-discipline to working, and walking, and speaking, and doing things with dignity. There's an acknowledgement that you are doing things for yourself first. You do things from a deep, respectful place that honours and cherishes the life inside of you. So doing the little things that need to be done, whether it's waking up a little earlier (sometimes I'm good at this, other times I'm not), not wasting time on random websites (I hate you sometimes, Twitter), and actually putting away the random book from the shelf (I know, utter sacrilege to suggest not reading), and instead doing - with dignity - the things I need to do to get closer to achieving my outcomes and goals in life.

Commitment: Looking at this word doesn't bring up anything negative or fearful, per se. What does come up is the word time. I'm committed to my wife and family, I'm committed to doing a good job, I'm committed to feeding my mind with knowledge and wisdom and, of course, imagination and fantasy. There's the fear that committing to something else, despite the fact I want it, would take away time from doing nothing. Ahh. But not so ahh. I've known this has been lurking there for a long time. I wasn't the type of kid who took part in a lot of extra-curricular activities in grade school. I dabbled in a few clubs in high school. Most of my volunteer work was running a newspaper in university. Committing to something implies doing away with idleness. Being idle is attractive, seductive. The irony with me is that I hate being idle for extended periods. If I'm just sitting around reading my twitter feed, after a few minutes I start to get pensive and want to do something worthwhile, something that will make me feel...productive. The battle between idleness and productivity is often an intense struggle within me. But if living a life of dignity is a virtuous thing - and for me, it is - then being committed to something is far better than being idle and, more importantly, being attached to doing nothing.

Passion: This is an interesting one. I am a passionate person, all us Greeks are (nod to Homer Simpson). I want more out of life and I expect more out of myself than other people. I guess after reading and listening to Tony Robbins so many times, I've come to think that other people are far more passionate than I am. There's a weird feeling that comes over me when I hear others talk about how they lived and breathed their art or their dancing, or whatever it is: they talk about it as if nothing else existed for them. And that makes me nervous somehow. Maybe the word passion has come to mean foregoing the important people in your life. I'm thinking about my dad now and how little I saw him growing up because he was always working, doing whatever it took to keep us sheltered and warm and fed. Wasn't he living with passion? What's the difference between his passion and Lady Gaga's (I can't believe I let her into this!)? The other thing that comes to mind when I think passion is burning out. I'm afraid of getting to a point where I am no longer living and doing with dignity, with self-respect. I'm not afraid of pushing my boundaries, which seems to be the implication here. Passion also seems to carry with it a neglect of one's spirit. My dad worked three jobs, slept scant hours...for my brother and me. And I can't say with confidence that he lived a happy life for all that.

I guess I'm afraid of sacrificing too much. I don't want to look back and say, I should have done this, I shouldn't have done that. But then I'm just falling into living the perfect life, which is to say, having the perfect narrative about my life. But life embodies everything. It's not just a cliche, not just a truism. It should be a mantra. Because I have a hard time believing that most people authentically and truthfully live their lives accepting everything that life presents to them.

Overcoming Uncertainty by Sean Ogle

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down a major life goal you have yet to achieve or even begin to take action on. For each goal, write down three uncertainties (read: fears) you have relating to each goal. Break it down further, and write down three reasons for each uncertainty. When you have three reasons for your fear, you’ll be able to start processing the change because you know where the fear stems from. Now you’ll be able to make a smaller changes that push you towards your larger goal. So begins the process of “trusting yourself.”

(Author: Sean Ogle)

Alive-est

2011-07-05T07:29:00.000-07:00

I felt most alive on Sunday morning when I was talking to my wife's belly. I made sure that I spoke right into the skin, my lips stealing some of her warmth, conscious of every syllable, mindful of how my voice was coming from deep within my belly so that it would travel deeper, would resonate within, like someone speaking into a deep well to someone deep inside, unable to know for certain if what they said was heard until I turned my ear to her belly and held my breath and listened into the deep. There was movement amidst the rushing of fluids and my wife's shallow breaths, like someone shifting and looking around from left to right beneath the surface of a lake.

I spoke again, imagining that the vibrations of my voice would blend with and into the continuous formation of cells inside. I imagined the 20 week old life inside my wife's belly vibrating slightly to the sound of my voice, shuddering like a leaf does before a soft North Wind picks it up and gives it new purpose and a sense of adventure.

I can't wait until we see you, I said. Just grow healthy and strong and beautiful, I said. And my wife giggled, and her belly shook, and how could the life inside of her not giggle, too.

You're going to be a good daddy, she said. And was that her saying this...or someone else?

Alive-est by Sam Davidson

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. If we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

When did you feel most alive recently? Where were you? What did you smell? What sights and sounds did you experience? Capture that moment on paper and recall that feeling. Then, when it’s time to create something, read your own words to reclaim a sense of being to motivate you to complete a task at hand.

Personal Recipe

2011-07-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

In five years, I would never want to be someone who was quick to find an excuse. That person would be so weak psychologically,

and so timid spiritually. I would be 38 years old and would likely have two kids, at the least. I would be one of a handful of models for my kids. I want my children to know a dad who is confident from within the spine, from the energy and spirit that comes from inside the spine. I would never want to be a person who didn't walk his talk, who acted for himself and his family. I want to be a beacon. I would never want to be anyone who was angry or bitter over not doing what they want to do. I would never want to be dark, unlit, faded. Children pick up so much and I never want them to pick up the energy that would emit from someone who made excuses and was bitter over those excuses.

Personal Recipe by Harley Schreiber

I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think about the type of person you’d NEVER want to be 5 years from now. Write out your own personal recipe to prevent this from happening and commit to following it. “Thought is the seed of action.”

(Author: Harley Schreiber)

Call to Arms

2011-07-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

We are the trusted learning coaches that parents and students go to to find new strengths, expand existing strengths, and rediscover the joy of learning and creativity.

Call to Arms by Sasha Dichter

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What if today, right now, no jokes at all, you were actually in charge, the boss, the Head Honcho. Write the “call to arms” note you’re sending to everyone (staff, customers, suppliers, Board) charting the path ahead for the next 12 months and the next 5 years. Now take this manifesto, print it out somewhere you can see, preferably in big letters you can read from your chair.

You’re just written your own job description. You know what you have to do. Go!(bonus: send it to the CEO with the title “The things we absolutely have to get right – nothing else matters.”)

Most Ordinary

2011-06-28T18:41:00.000-07:00

Most Ordinary by Patti Digh

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are our most potent at our most ordinary. And yet most of us discount our “ordinary” because it is, well, ordinary. Or so we believe. But my ordinary is not yours. Three things block us from putting down our clever and picking up our ordinary: false comparisons with others (I’m not as good a writer as _____), false expectations of ourselves (I should be on the NYTimes best seller list or not write at all), and false investments in a story (it’s all been written before, I shouldn’t bother). What are your false comparisons? What are your false expectations? What are your false investments in a story? List them. Each keep you from that internal knowing about which Emerson writes. Each keeps you from making your strong offer to the world. Put down your clever, and pick up your ordinary.

So far, this has been the prompt that has touched home, that has really placed my inhibitions under a magnifying glass. False comparisons are learned, in my case from my parents. They meant well, but lacking any other more positive methods of encouraging us to do better, they relied too heavily on comparing us to our cousins, to the children of family friends. Look at them, I don't understand why their kids are so good. Why don't they make the same mistakes that you make.

And so on.

From false comparisons come false expectations. How can I be like others? Why can't I be like others, when I can't figure out how? Everyone else is perfect because I've been trained to see them as infallible. I see only a portion of their whole performance, their being who they are before my eyes, and that portion sees no wrong.

So finally comes false investments in the above stories, and false investments in stories about the stories (I can't do what these other people are doing).
And yet I have so much on offer. Others see it more than I do. I've gotten much better. I have. But I forget too easily. I get distracted from doing what I do best and focus instead on how it doesn't compare with so and so, how it doesn't meet what should happen. I get distracted, and therefore get tired with discouragement. Being tired from discouragement is quite a frustrated place to be. It's not ordinary at all.

Intuition

2011-06-28T03:48:00.000-07:00

Intuition by Susan Piver

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you could picture your intuition as a person, what would he or she look like? If you sat down together for dinner, what is the first thing he or she would tell you?

He would be sitting silently across the table with a glass of water before him, an empty plate, and his clasped hands on the table's edge. Those hands would be smooth. He would be dressed in white. Perhaps a button-down shirt. His breathing would controlled, comfortable, deep from the belly. There would be an ambiguous curvature to his lips. His face would be smooth, almost translucent. His eyes would be my eyes, free of knowledge and experience but still deep, fathomless with knowing. The knowing that comes with being. He would nod. A slow, mindful nod. His smile would dispel all doubt and deny all gravity and would be the wordless definition of triumph.

courage to connect

2011-06-27T17:42:00.000-07:00

Courage to Connect by David Spinks

Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who is one person that you’ve been dying to connect with, but just haven’t had the courage to reach out to? First, reflect on why you want to get in touch with them. Then, reach out and set up a meeting.

(Author: David Spinks)

I was dying to connect with my landlord and cousin, Strati. Finally I saw him yesterday and today. I wanted to see him to signal my intention to use the office space he offered to me almost a year ago. And to show him that things are happening. And it was great to know that he's still behind the idea. He's willing to go to bat for me and the venture.

Enthusiasm

2011-06-27T17:29:00.000-07:00

Enthusiasm by Mars Dorian

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” is a great line from Emerson. If there’s no enthusiasm in what you do, it won’t be remarkable and certainly won’t connect with people on an emotional basis. But, if you put that magic energy into all of your work, you can create something that touches people on a deeper level. How can you bring MORE enthusiasm into your work? What do you have to think or believe about your work to be totally excited about it? Answer it now.

(Author: Mars Dorian)

I think I practiced being enthusiastic in the face of criticism and doubt today regarding my current business venture. I visited our eye doctor to drop off some flyers and his first response was, "Isn't a little late to do a summer camp? Haven't parents already signed up for these?" Yes and no, I answered. He's right, the flyers should have been out about six weeks ago however I got sick and was out of commission for two weeks (a collapsed lung will do that to you, I have found, especially one that collapsed to a quarter of its actual size). I'm hoping that parents who haven't signed up for a camp will consider it. I am hoping that the camp I am running, a creative writing camp for kids, will be that thing that parents couldn't find (and judging from what is out there currently, didn't find).

This is a best case scenario, while also being realistic.

What made the biggest impression on me is that I didn't let my eye doctor's realism, and well-considered concern, get me down. Which, in the past, has been the default unfortunately. My enthusiasm for what I am putting in motion didn't fade. What do I have to think or believe about my work to be totally excited about it? Believe that it is still worth it - it is still worthy - of my doing it, of my putting it into the universe.

Slowly, surely, single-mindedly.

You Know

2011-06-25T21:20:00.000-07:00

You Know by Jen Louden

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

We live in a society of advice columns, experts and make-over shows. Without even knowing it, you can begin to believe someone knows better than you how to live your life. Someone might know a particular something better – like how to bake a three-layer molten coconut chocolate cake or how to build a website – but nobody else on the planet knows how to live your life better than you. (Although one or two people may think they do.) For today, trying asking yourself often, especially before you make a choice, “What do I know about this?”

(Author: Jen Louden)

I realize something now that the day has ended. I don't have to know everything. Not knowing doesn't necessarily mean I can't know. It doesn't mean that I'm stupid or unskilled or naive. Nobody knows everything. People screw up all the time and they don't magnify them. They don't make anything out of them. Now let me integrate that.

Speak Less

2011-06-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

Speak Less by Laura Kimball

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know I. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I once received a fortune cookie that read: “Speak less of your plans, you’ll get more done.” What’s one project that you’ve been sitting on and thinking about but haven’t made progress on? What’s stopping you? What would happen if you actually went for it and did it?

(Author: Laura Kimball)

Right now, it's finally getting the brochure and the sign done for my business. I've been talking about it for so long, it's taken on a mythology all its own. It's almost done. I finally printed the flyer for the summer programs. Who knows what will happen? Perhaps nobody will sign up. But at least I have stopped talking about it and have finally done it. Little steps. No words. Just little steps. It's good to take them. Talking too much takes too much energy and it's so that I can hear myself say it to other people, and so I can see them nod and so I can exaggerate what they think of my idea when they hear it. I'm tired of that. I really am.

facing (and fearing)

2011-06-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

Facing (and Fearing) by Dan Andrews

Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trusting intuition and making decisions based on it is the most important activity of the creative artist and entrepreneur. If you are facing (and fearing) a difficult life decision, ask yourself these three questions:

1) “What are the costs of inaction?” I find it can be helpful to fight fear with fear. Fears of acting are easily and immediately articulated by our “lizard brains” (thanks Seth) e.g. what if I fail? what if I look stupid? If you systematically and clearly list the main costs of inaction, they will generally overshadow your immediate fears.

2) “What kind of person do I want to be?” I’ve found this question to be extremely useful. I admire people who act bravely and decisively. I know the only way to join their ranks is to face decisions that scare me. By seeing my actions as a path to becoming something I admire, I am more likely to act and make the tough calls.

3) “In the event of failure, could I generate an alterative positive outcome?” Imagine yourself failing to an extreme. What could you learn or do in that situation to make it a positive experience? We are generally so committed to the results we seek at the outset of a task or project that we forget about all the incredible value and experience that comes from engaging the world proactively, learning, and improving our circumstances as we go along.

(Author: Dan Andrews)

The costs of inaction for me are living with the knowledge that I can do what I want and choosing instead to do nothing because of fear. The costs of inaction is continuing the pattern that was set out before me...The cost of inaction is unhappily - no, unsatisfactorily - doing whatever work I would be doing.

The person who I want to be is a model for my kids and my family. I want to be a model of action and hard work...not hard work at the expense of all else. But hard work and enjoying the fruits of the labour, enjoying the labour itself. I would love to be someone who also seeks the adventure, in whatever I do. Heros look for adventures, and being so immersed in the adventures that the thought of the goal, while still part of the picture, isn't the only thing. I'm going there (to that goal), but I'm in the adventure. It's the only thing I'm certain of. I would like to be the kind of person who models the beauty of seeking adventure in every day life.

In the event of failure, extreme failure, I could learn what I missed or what I didn't do enough of to make the venture a success. I'd have to remember that this was part of the adventure. Every hero has set backs. I would hate life, and I would hate myself for what I did or didn't do. And then I would will myself to dig for the positive learning experiece. As lame as it sounds, I have to understand that it isn't failure at all...it really is feedback that I should be looking for. What must I do different in order to get the result I am after?

Dreams

2011-06-21T19:29:00.000-07:00

Dreams by Michael Rad

Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down your top three dreams. Now write down what’s holding you back from them.

(Author: Michael Rad)

1. Be a bestselling author of great, thoughtful novels that are critically acclaimed.

2. Be my own boss and teach students how to be flipping amazing at handling anything life throws at them (and be awesome writers at the same time).

3. Believe in myself, through and through.

What's holding me back...

1. Taking consistent action

2. Fear of being laughed at and ridiculed

3.Not being certain if it's worth it.

Invent the Future

2011-06-21T19:15:00.000-07:00

Invent the Future by Cindy Gallop

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

My favorite quote of all time is Alan Kay: ‘In order to predict the future, you have to invent it.’ I am all about inventing the future. Decide what you want the future to be and make it happen. Because you can. Write about your future now.

(Author: Cindy Gallop)

My future will involve boundless creativity, boundless opportunity. It will be about making money, while doing what I love to do. Working with people I like to work with, people I like to be with. My future will have many twists and turns, where showing up to do what I love to do will create new paths and new people. My future will have me being a beacon for my family, where I'll get to teach my own children the value of going for it, to value trying and doing over valuing what other people think. I want my future to be filled of triumph. For it to have many triumphs, there will be setback and disappointments and faltering. Part of what I'm doing here, what I have been doing for the last, oh, my whole life, is to undo the conditioning I received growing up. My future will have so much laughter and happiness and will be - is already - so open and free and wide and new.

Wholly Strange

2011-06-20T03:48:00.000-07:00

When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name;—— the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Can you remember a moment in your life when you had life in yourself and it was wholly strange and new? Can you remember the moment when you stopped walking a path of someone else, and started cutting your own?

Write about that moment. And if you haven’t experienced it yet, let the miracle play out in your mind’s eye and write about that moment in your future.

(Author: Bridget Pilloud)

Walking your own path involves hard, possibly painful decisions...the greater the pain, the greater the decision. And should you continue that path, the greater the triumph at the end. The greater the sense of ownership, and the greater the wholly strange sense of life within yourself.

For a long time in high school and into my university years, I felt like I was walking the path of other people. I felt like I was so seldom my own person, doing what I wanted, treading my own way through my life. Instead of valuing my own wishes, desires, and dreams, I valued what others thought of me, what others might think of me if I did A or B, if I said one thing or the other, if I dated this girl or that girl. So much of my decision-making process was based on what other people (friends, family, acquaintances) would say.

One summer I was in Greece on vacation. I had endured many disappointments and betrayals with two of my closest friends, and as I was walking from my grandmother's home to meet my cousin, I decided that I didn't want to be friends with them. I had had enough of feeling shame, had had enough of feeling pain. I was by myself on that sidewalk, there was a park maybe a hudred feet to my left. It was late afternoon. The Greek sky above me. Making the decision that I would no longer continue my friendship was strange. It felt, even at that moment, like my life had somehow opened up. Like that decision caused a rift in the path that I was on. I felt like I was cutting my own path in life.

When I got back from my vacation, life truly rewarded me for the decision that I made. I met my future wife. And unsurprisingly, the happiness and support most people would expect from their friends during a time like this, was nowhere to be found. Instead of them being happy for me, they gave me disdain and shame. That is what sometimes happens when you decide to walk your own path and let life - your life - enter you and guide you: the people you thought had your best interests at heart reveal themselves to be the people that only had their own.

One Thing

2011-06-19T19:03:00.000-07:00

One Thing by Colin Wright

Do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take a moment, step back from your concerns, and focus on one thing: You have one life to achieve everything you’ve ever wanted. Sounds simple, but when you really focus on it, let it seep into your consciousness, you realize you only have about 100 years to get every single thing you’ve ever wanted to do. No second chances. This is your only shot. Suddenly, this means you should have started yesterday. No more waiting for permission or resources to start. Today is the day you make the rest of your life happen. Write down one thing you’ve always wanted to do and how you will achieve that goal. Don’t be afraid to be very specific in how you’ll achieve it: once you start achieving, your goals will get bigger and your capability to meet them will grow.

(Author: Colin Wright)

I have always wanted to write novels. To read my name on the cover of a book. Turn to the back and read other people's support of my writing. Feel the sharp edges of each page against my thumb. The smell and sound wafting up to my nose and ears. Know the feeling of triumph and pride. Then sneak a peek at my photo on the back flap and cringe.

To make this happen, I have to devote my free mornings to writing and to writing imperfect, bad, slow, redundant pages of story. To make this happen, I have to be perfectly fine with writing that is really really bad sometimes. I have to be kind and compassionate with myself when the words don't flow. I have to look at writing as a job, as a duty to myself...and nobody, nobody else. Waking a little earlier in the morning and finding a place where I can be in my own space, centered in my breathing and my chair, my ass uncomfortable, and so fucking be it. How much more specific can I get? I'm doing it to make me happy, to prove something to me.

Alternative Paths

2011-06-19T06:10:00.000-07:00

Alternative Paths by Jonathan Fields

When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name; the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world buzzes about goals and visions. Focus. Create a vivid picture of exactly where you want to go. Dream big, then don’t let anything or anyone stop you. The problem, as Daniel Gilbert wrote in Stumbling Upon Happiness, is that we’re horrible at forecasting how we’ll really feel 10 or 20 years from now – once we’ve gotten what we dreamed of. Often, we get there only to say, “That’s not what I thought it would be,” and ask, “What now?” Ambition is good. Blind ambition is not. It blocks out not only distraction, but the many opportunities that might take you off course but that may also lead you in a new direction. Consistent daily action is only a virtue when bundled with a willingness to remain open to the unknown. In this exercise, look at your current quest and ask, “What alternative opportunities, interpretations and paths am I not seeing?” They’re always there, but you’ve got to choose to see them.

(Author: Jonathan Fields)

Going for what I want, becoming an entrepreneur while teaching means that I would forego many opportunities that might exist within the school system. I could stay in the system and do what I like to do and might get noticed and might get pushed in a cool direction where I'm doing more of what I like to do without doing the shit I don't like to do (like report cards and dealing with the endless distractions and bureaucratic absurdities that occur at the school level). The thing is is that those distractions and absurdities will occur elsewhere in the system. They're unavoidable. Even the path that I'm pursuing now will have it's bullshit aspects. It's not perfect. But it's totally worth it though...worth it more than it's worth while in the school system.

Am I open to the unknown right now? Yes, I am. Mostly. I'm sure I'm being willfully blind at times and I that's not a bad thing as long as I'm willing to be flexible and open at the same time. The two don't have to be exclusive of each other - I can be willfully blind and open to the unknown at once and choose which is more beneficial and useful to me when the opportunity arises. When talking about my business plans with a colleague, he suggested an idea that I never considered but which would fit perfectly in the grand scheme of what I'm trying to accomplish. It's a different path, entirely different, but doesn't have to be exclusive from what I have envisioned. It could be a part of the grand vision. I'm choosing to be open to any and all ideas because the paths that they might open could be the ones that I should be exploring most.

Surprise

2011-06-19T06:02:00.000-07:00

Surprise by Ashley Ambirge

I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think of a time when you didn’t think you were capable of doing something, but then surprised yourself. How will you surprise yourself this week?

(Author: Ashley Ambirge)

I hate teaching math. I hate it because I don't have the grasp and the depth of the topic as much as I would like and it doesn't come as naturally to me as English does. Yet, most times than not, I surprise myself. I let go of the hate (which is really just the fear of fucking things up and looking stupid in front of the classroom), and something clever comes through, something even...entertaining. I've been conceptualizing for the last couple of years a new kind of tutoring business, one that will change the playing field in years to come. Quite a big dream, quite overwhelming in its implications, and in its potential demands. This week I'm going to pick up my first set of flyers. I'm also going to create my brochure. I'll place an order for a sign. It'll be quite scary because now I'm going way outside my comfort zone...but I've been doing that my whole life. Why should things change now?

Fear

2011-06-19T05:36:00.000-07:00

Fear by Lachlan Cotter

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is fear holding you back from living your fullest life and being truly self expressed? Put yourself in the shoes of the you who’s already lived your dream and write out the answers to the following:

Is the insecurity you’re defending worth the dream you’ll never realize? or the love you’ll never venture? or the joy you’ll never feel?

Will the blunder matter in 10 years? Or 10 weeks? Or 10 days? Or 10 minutes?

Can you be happy being anything less than who you really are?

Now Do. The Thing. You Fear.

(Author: Lachlan Cotter)

"Defending insecurity" - an interesting, painfully incisive metaphor. And a metaphor that is therefore painfully true. Do you remember driving home after a day of supply work in your beat-up Honda Civic, questioning whether you could in fact teach, whether it was truly part of your calling? Do you remember so many teachers, your cousin Marianne one of them, telling you that you were doing great work, that you were a natural in front of the class. And so enough, after some trials and much stress, you came into your own. You were no longer overwhelmed. Remember before that, when you were hired at Telus, and you'd drive to work with panic in your gut because you were afraid and insecure about what problems people would call in about? And after some trials and much stress, you mastered the work. Remember how quickly you mastered the work? Remember the opportunities that arose, the promotions that you got, the kudos that people gave you?

Isn't it time to see the pattern? Isn't time now to accelerate the time it takes for the loop to close? Isn't time to do it with a smile on your face?

Will it matter that you screwed up when you supply taught until you got much of it right? No, it won't. In fact, you'll be saying what everyone has been saying for ages: Without those mistakes, you would never have learned as quickly as you did. The blunders you made don't matter because they came and they went. What does matter is that you learned from them, and you moved on. You adjusted. You walked a little faster when it was time, and a little slower when it was time.

You can't be happy being less than who you really are - you were never programmed that way, you were never born that way. You've always wanted the best for yourself and never accepted less. You know it now as much as you'll know it later. Fuck everything and just go for it. Do what has to be done. Be what you were destined to be.

Divine Idea

2011-06-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

Divine Idea by Fabian Kruse

Imitation is Suicide. Insist on yourself; never imitate. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down in which areas of your life you have to overcome these suicidal tendencies of imitation, and how you can transform them into a newborn you – one that doesn’t hide its uniqueness, but thrives on it. There is a “divine idea which each of us represents” – which is yours?

(Author: Fabian Kruse)

I have the tendency to imitate other when I'm not sure how to do something from scratch. For example, I found myself imitating other people's ads for my business instead of trusting my instincts. I've certainly gotten better at not imitating others when it comes to my teaching. Great things, great spontaneity, has come when I've insisted on myself, when I have trusted myself, when I have let go of expectations and let amazing things happen. The divine idea within me is that (and I hate myself for forgetting so often): I do amazing things when I trust myself and let go of what should happen. Trust myself trust myself trust myself.

My Personal Message

2011-06-14T19:22:00.000-07:00

Your Personal Message by Eric Handler

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is burning deep inside of you? If you could spread your personal message RIGHT NOW to 1 million people, what would you say?

I'd say that it's all worth it. Every triumph, every wound, every struggle, every attempt, every laugh, every doubt, every setback, every triumph...it's worth it.

2011-06-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

Afraid to Do by Mary Jaksch

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson says: “Always do what you are afraid to do.” What is ‘too scary’ to write about? Try doing it now.

(Author: Mary Jaksch)

What's too scary is looking stupid. Going for it, and looking stupid. It's something ancient in me. Something that keeps me so focused on the approval of others. Instead of focusing on myself, instead of working on myself, instead of trusting myself. "The eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them" - how true this is. What's too scary is that I'll do something and I'll fail, I won't live up to someone's expectation. What's scary is that when my parents or my family compare me to others, I won't live up to...my idea of what they expect of me. Is that what slows me down?

Five Years

2011-06-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

Five Years by Corbett Barr

There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What would you say to the person you were five years ago? What will you say to the person you’ll be in five years?

(Author: Corbett Barr)

Five years ago I was in a job I didn't like (big surprise) and I challenged myself to pull every stunt I could think of to make becoming a teacher a reality. It didn't take much challenging per se, and the end result was quite successful, though there were some close calls. If I knew that I would be in the spot that I am in right now, feeling right this instant like I'm transitioning into a new chapter of my life, I would certainly be frightened and excited and curious, too. I would say to the person I was five years ago that when I put it all on the line, things happen - good things happen. I would tell that person that the opportunities I have created for myself, the new friends and contacts I have made, are a result of my going for it, putting it all on the line. Maybe it doesn't always feel like it, but in truth, I am doing whatever it takes to make my dreams a reality. I would say thank you, thank you, thank you to that person as well. Because they risked a lot and it is paying off. It's paying off indeed.

To the person I will be in five years, I'll say..."I knew it." I knew things were going to work out the way they did. You're already enjoying greater and greater benefits and rewards to your business. And you're completing the novel. Now it's time to publish it. It's time to hear those doubts and weighty rationalizations, and those heckles and scoffs and scornful giggles. It's also time to smile and look at your kids and your wife and the life you are building with your own two hands - by yourself, through your own will, through your desire to make a better life for your self and your family, to leave a legacy behind. I'd also say that he looks happier than he has ever been in his life.

dare to be bold

2011-06-07T17:45:00.000-07:00

Dare to be bold by Matt Cheuvront

Our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us. We are parlour soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Next to Resistance, rational thought is the artist or entrepreneurs worst enemy. Bad things happen when we employ rational thought, because rational thought comes from the ego. Instead, we want to work from the Self, that is, from instinct and intuition, from the unconscious.

A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. Its only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.” - Steven Pressfield, Do the Work

The idea of “being realistic” holds all of us back. From starting a business or quitting a job to dating someone who may not be our type or moving to a new place – getting “real” often means putting your dreams on hold.

Today, let’s take a step away from rational thought and dare to be bold. What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to accomplish but have been afraid to pursue? Write it down. Also write down the obstacles in your way of reaching your goal. Finally, write down a tangible plan to overcome each obstacle.

The only thing left is to, you know, actually go make it happen. What are you waiting for?

(Author: Matt Cheuvront)

I have always wanted to start my own business - something small and manageable, with the intent to make it something large and worthwhile, something that would make people's lives better. My obstacles are that I fear ridicule and failure, I fear the pressure and the loss of my freedom. It's ironic, that fear of losing freedom. Fearing the pressure comes from buckling under the pressure and having other people's scorn and ridicule. Hearing people scoff and laugh. Such perfectly ingrained behaviour on my part. What will people say? What if things go wrong? What am I waiting for? For everything to fall into place, and it won't until I throw everything out, everything that holds me down, everything that keeps me chained to the muted chains of comfort and safety.

Come Alive

2011-06-07T17:31:00.000-07:00

Come Alive by Jonathan Mead

Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you had one week left to live, would you still be doing what you’re doing now? In what areas of your life are you preparing to live? Take them off your To Do list and add them to a To Stop list. Resolve to only do what makes you come alive.

Bonus: How can your goals improve the present and not keep you in a perpetual “always something better” spiral?

(Author: Jonathan Mead)

I certainly wouldn't be doing what I am doing now, which is coming home at seven thirty, only to mark some assignments on data management and having to input artificial, hollow grades into a computer that say very little about the students that I am evaluating. Am I happy? Probably not. But then again, I'm not a "happy" person by nature. I'm I content? That comes and goes. Usually it goes. I'm preparing to be a great writer and to be an entrepreneur. To be a creator. These things make me feel happy. They make me feel in touch with my life, with the spark of genius that I'm certain every person has at their center. I talk about my teaching job and I reply, "It's okay." My voice is subdued, low and heavy, like clumps of feathers on the ground. I talk about my writing and the idea for my business, and I can feel the flight of my aspirations.

How do I put all my preparing on the "To Stop" list? By stopping asking "How." How do I do this? How do I do that? Too much thought because underneath it all...there's too much fear.

Travel

2011-06-04T19:10:00.000-07:00

Travel by Chris Guillebeau

If we live truly, we shall see truly. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Not everyone wants to travel the world, but most people can identify at least one place in the world they’d like to visit before they die. Where is that place for you, and what will you do to make sure you get there?

(Author: Chris Guillebeau)

I'm always beguiled with things, places, people, and events that will never be again. Things that were that are no longer. My grandfather lived in a village west of Constantinople, and his village still exists, no longer inhabited by Christian Greeks. They left before slavery or, worse, death plowed through them. I'd like to walk through and imagine what life might have been like for his family, for the people who lived there before they left everything behind. To get there, I'll keep lit within me the desire to make that place real again. Within the pages of a novel, I'll make those places real again.

One Strong Belief

2011-06-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?

(Author: Buster Benson)

Things can happen without forcing them too much to happen. It's a weird belief to grasp because it can't be modeled per se . It implies that doing nothing can actually yield some kind of positive result, some kind of intended result. It's a concept called wu-wei, something I came across in my studies of taoism back in university. It's something that i practice and don't practice - it's amazing when things get done without my forcing the doing. And when I try forcing the doing, so little gets done. Natural progress, for me, often happens when I let go of the striving. There's something that I've been working on that hasn't gotten off the ground because I've been insisting on it happening faster than I want...I wonder if I let things happen and stop forcing the doing, and let things be done....what would happen then?

today in one sentence

2011-06-01T16:18:00.001-07:00

Today's writing prompt from #trust30

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. The force of character is cumulative. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tracks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.

(Author: Liz Danzico)

And here goes...

Yesterday's thoughts and yesteryears fears will never stop surfacing, so it's better to stay here knowing things will correct themselves eventually.

15 minutes to live

2011-05-31T18:54:00.000-07:00

I took the pledge and I'm going to write in this blog for 30 days, each day based on a new prompt from the domino project. The first one is:

Gwen Bell – 15 Minutes to Live

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.

1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.

(Author: Gwen Bell)

I nod. I count the lines of the plank of laminate flooring directly beneath my bare, knobby feet. I touch my right side, where the top of my repairing lung would be, where it's felt bruised for the last few days, though there is no bruise there. Like foreshadowing, that bruised feeling. I look from my feet and from the floor, my count already faded, and I walk over to my wife and kiss her and make sure to smell deeply of her neck. Gardenia, patchouli, vanilla. I'm on my knees. Beneath my knees, the day's heat rises from the ground. Once upon a time, I speak into my wife's belly, there was a boy who wanted to climb the gates his parents put at the top of the stairs, to keep him from falling down. He wanted to climb those stairs because at the foot of them stood his grandmother, who called out to him with her singular voice, in her singular way, and his whole body shook with excitement and love. That boy grew up, finding that those gates were everywhere he turned. Those gates seemed to follow the boy at many stages and moments in his life. And sometimes he could climb them. Sometimes. Other times, he could not. He forgot how to climb them. Or, more correctly, there wasn't a voice to thrill him with love. And as you listen to my voice now, little one, my sweet unborn, you'll remember the timber of my voice, even if you don't recognize the tongue with which I speak. The vibrations of my voice will quicken the cells of your body to climb the gates that others put before you. You'll know that my voice will christen you, and will haunt you too. But your mother's smile will remind you, that it was all worth it to know you, even if I never did. Because the moment I met your mom, was the day that you were born, and every word worth repeating ends with the letter 'a'. Mama, baba, yiayia, gia panta.

breakfast with yiayia

2010-07-28T18:08:00.001-07:00

I've shared this story with others but it's still one of my favourites. When I was in elementary school - I probably would've been in Grade 4 - my maternal grandmother used to live with us. Actually, we shared her with my mom's two sisters. She was like Carly Simon or Avril Lavigne, on tour, except her shows weren't two or three night engagements, but more like two or three month engagements. Sometimes, if there was no familial bickering, she would stay longer at a given sister's house.

When she stayed at our house, it was yiayia's breakfast that I loved the most. She would make me a soft boiled egg for breakfast, but, as any good cook knows, it's all about the presentation. The egg would be sitting in its own cup, a yellow Tupperware one that my mom would have bought during one of those Tupperware parties from the eighties. It would sit in the cup and the crown of the egg would already be spoon-cracked for me. She did this because my brother and I only had so much time before we had to get to school, I think. I also think she did it because she knew that the egg shell would be too hot for us to touch. I think she knew that by the time we salted the top and sliced it off with the side of the spoon, and by the time we salted the sticky yellow yoke and scooped it out on the second bite (the spoon streaked with the yoke), that the shell would be cool enough to touch and break down. And if, by chance, it was still too hot, then she would be there to break it for us.

But it didn't end there. There would be two slices of white bread, toasted in such a way that the crust was crispy but not so crispy that you had to break it off and leave it under the rim of the plate. It was golden brown, like the wood on our guitar, perfectly buttered from edge to edge, but lightly so, a thin melting film that soaked the bread enough so that you could fold it into your mouth if you wanted (something my dad did all the time [including folding his pizza slice into his mouth] and which, to this day, I associate with manly eating).

The best was when she would butter our toast and then spread some Merenda on it, and man was it like biting into caloric heaven. Because the Merenda was equally distributed, was equally melting into the crevices and micro-pockets of the bread, and if you looked before you bit, I mean really zoomed in your camera lenses, the Merenda would sweat a little from the heat. And the mixture of butter and hazelnut spread would overload my tastebuds...not to mention leave a sugary, buttery film on my recently brushed teeth.

And to wash our breakfast down, she would often make us instant coffee ("English coffee" as she called it). It would be light, of course, maybe half a teaspoon, and it would sweet and creamy from the milk she poured in to cool it off (we always bought homogenized milk then, which is why it was creamy).

It's probably why I don't like hard-boiled eggs for breakfast. It's probably why I buy Nutella (I can't find Merenda anywhere here - it's sold in Greece only) and why I get upset when my toast is even slightly overdone (and why I'll sometimes throw it out and make another batch). And it's probably why I drink my coffee triple-triple to this day: sweet and creamy, four degrees above lukewarm. Like yiayia used to make for my brother and me.

Like I hope I can make for my kids one day, wondering if they'll write about breakfast, as I mindfully watch them eat.

sitting with my grandfather

2010-07-27T18:59:00.000-07:00

I remember when my paternal grandparents visited from Greece. It was the first time I met them. They weren't just pictures housed in plastic frames behind Windexed glass; they weren't just voices that echoed over thousands of kilometres of distance. They lived with us for six months or so, but it felt longer than that. They just became a part of the fabric of our household, as usual and characteristic as the rose vines and beige background that made up our family room wall paper, as specific as the creak that always existed on the fourth (and largest) step that wound up from the main floor to the bedrooms. The toughest thing about having them around was finding ways to keep up conversations with them in a language that neither my brother or I were particularly strong in. When we called them (before they came to stay with us), we'd separate ourselves from our parents but we could only get so far. This was in the days when phones were still corded, and caller ID was still relatively new. We'd pace back and forth as we spoke, my brother and I, something about the pacing helped us think better, helped our brains translate what we were thinking in English into what we wanted to say in Greek - often with comic results. Our parents seemed to always find some faulty verb conjugation, and they'd shake their heads, snickering: "It's tee-leh-phon-o, not teh-leh-phone." To this day (thank God for cordless technology) I still separate myself from any bystanders.

One day I decided to take my grandfather to Woodside Square, a mall that was just across McCowan Road and made up most of the view from our west-facing upstairs window. It was a nice eight minute walk and my mom thought it would be a great opportunity for my grandpa, my pappou, and I to bond. And so we went. I didn't know what we would do there, my pappou wasn't a shopper, I didn't have disposable income (we worked for free, ladies and gentlemen, none of this allowance horseshit I heard my friends raving about). We walked around staring at the store windows (and it was staring, no window shopping here, thank you very much), glancing at the customers. I would try to bring up different themes to talk about, but it was always difficult. I was naturally an introvert, quiet and uncomfortably shy at my best and worst, and he was naturally strong and silent, too. I remember being nervous, fumbling with the right words, hating my lousy accent, hating that I didn't know all the words. I was thirteen for crying out loud, I went to Greek school once a week, spoke Grenglish at home (hey, my parents were guilty of it, too!), and...well, I went to Greek school once a week.

I remember we sat down on a bench, we might have had a hot chocolate or something in our hands. It was winter time. I remember wearing an Atlanta Falcons hooded winter coat (man, we looked high and low for that coat; it was my prized possession at the time). My grandfather wore a grey, three-quarter length winter coat. I remember how it hung off the edge of the bench. I remember how we sat next to each other, legs parted, feet planted to the ground. Watching people go by. We had spoken, had shared stories, had listened to each other. Suddenly, sitting with him, comfortable in his presence, I didn't feel so nervous anymore, didn't feel the need to say any more. We were sitting next to each other, and I'm not making it up when I say that we were both smiling, we both had this blithe curve hanging from our cheeks.

my nephew Leftheri

2009-07-25T20:24:00.000-07:00

my nephew Leftheri (Terry for short) is sure to give my wife, his father, and I, a quick but sustained glance, before stepping onto the baseball diamond. Our waves and upraised thumbs give him permission to go out there and get a hit. He adjusts his oversized helmet on his curly haired head and adjusts his stance once dad reminds him pull in his elbow. Even from this distance, with the day draining into night, you can see how he holds that nervous tension in his chest and torso, how his throat refuses to let any air in or out. There's something in his light grimace that betrays the trepidation he senses with all these eyes focused on him. Please let me hit it, I hear him think. Please let me get a hit.

My wife also promised him ten bucks if he was able to collect a base hit.

We're not his aunt or uncle, you see. To Terry, we're always referred to as his friends, which is a status that many aunts and uncles would kill for, let me remind you.

The last time I saw Terry play professional sports was 3 years ago, when he and other five year olds chased after a soccer ball and cheered and celebrated when one of them actually kicked the ball towards the opponent's goal. I remember how big their heads bobbled on their tiny shoulders.

And what a rush when his elbows straightened and his bat spat that ball between the outstretched gloves of the short stop and third basemen and he dashed towards first base, his cleets casting pebbles behind him,and they fell to the ground in a triumphant cascade. And the satisfied smile on his face, and the deep exhale he snorted out his nose, and how his eyes sought and found our adoration was simply amazing.

I wonder if he'll remember this day, when he got, not just one base hit but three of them, and when he made twenty bucks, and when he got the Player of the Game award, and a ticket for a free popsicle at the next game. When he's consumed with grades and girls and getting a car...will he remember how proud his friends were of him?

the guy with the gaps in his teeth

2008-11-24T11:26:00.001-08:00

As the guy with the gaps in his teeth tipped the gun sideways at me, I was shocked by the fact I could see his face. He wasn't wearing a mask like his partner. His eyes glowed against his black skin, and his teeth were long and white and thick. I raised my hands because that's what you did, you raised your hands and let your eyes glaze over like a lamb's, because when someone with white feverish eyes is pointing a gun at you, you have to make like you are overwhelmed by your helplessness, made stupid by your helplessness.

Fourteen seconds before that, I was doing a skim on the register and was counting the excess bills we had. There were three one hundred dollar bills, four fifty dollar bills, and thirty-odd twenties. I had just finished counting them when they came in, the maskless guy staring straight at me, grimacing, and I thought, Oh no. He took three strides into the store and his buddy, fully masked and hooded, was locking the door behind him and pulling down the blinds in the large front window. Two strides after that, he was swearing at me and showing me the small barrel of his gun.

Five minutes before they came in, I turned to one of my co-workers and wondered aloud how it was too bad we couldn't close the store a little early. There was one customer inside already, a Chinese gentleman who spoke little to no English. I think he was paying a bill or something. My coworker smiled and agreed, playing along with my fantasy, which wasn't a fantasy at all. I really did want to close the store early. I felt that the night was over as far as customers were concerned, and who gave a shit if someone knocked on the door to return their cable box.

Four hours before I was filling up garbage bags with boxes of cell phones, parked my car in the lot west of the Rogers store. I was ten minutes early. I got out of my Suzuki, locked it with a single button, and instinctively felt my pockets. I forgot my wallet. The thought crossed my mind like a suppressed cough: That's okay; if we get robbed at least they can't take my wallet. Then I forgot about it. Walked past the locked glass side door from which the two guys would later drag out at least five full garbage bags of product and hundreds in cash, after one of them jabbed my spine with the gun, screaming at me about where the cameras were.

For ten minutes we waited, and there was silence, save for our breathing and the delicate whimpering from the customer. When I looked up at him, his eyes were squeezed tight and he was holding the back of his head. He was shivering. And all the while, a sense of fucking calm inside of me, like I was born for this, like I had rehearsed this scenario a hundred times before.

Twenty minutes after they left, and the paramedics and cops came, I looked out the front window to see a cameraman looking right at me.

The invasiveness I felt watching the barrel of his camera stare at me was identical to when I gazed into the deep barrel of the gun held by the guy with the gaps in his teeth.

a dream

2008-11-12T03:27:00.000-08:00

I saw my grandmother Chrisoula in my dream last night. I'm not sure why. She was leaving for somewhere and I was writing on her hand because she asked me to. Like I was signing a farewell card or something.

My printing was neat, in Greek capital letters. I can still feel the warmth of her palm and how soft and weathered her skin was as I wrote in blue ink. The ball point pen pulled at her skin as I wrote.

I wrote three aphorisms on her left hand. I don't remember what the first two were, but the word ΟΔΗΓΕΙ - guide - was written. Something guiding something else.

I even made some spelling mistakes because I tend to when I write Greek in capital letters. My grandmother patiently, lovingly, pointed them out to me.

At first I was embarrassed that I made the mistakes, but I wasn't customarily angry with myself or anything. I hate making spelling mistakes, especially when I'm writing with pen...and making them on my grandmother's hand before she leaves...well, you can see how pissed I would get. Something in the way she corrected me made me forget about it; I actually forgave myself the mistake. I think she laughed when she saw them, and it was okay.

The last aphorism was: Η ΑΓΑΠΗ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΑΠΛΗ. Love is simple.

When I woke I still held the warmth of her hand in mine.

on the occasion of my grandmother joining us for supper

2008-10-29T19:09:00.001-07:00

My grandmother Chrisoula just left about eighty minutes ago; my parents offered to drive her to my aunt's house in Ajax instead of me having to drive her there. She was supposed to come for dessert but as fate would have it, we had a simple supper together: my wife, my grandmother, my parents and my in-laws. Steamed dandelion, three barbecued chicken breasts, four mild sausages, and eight pieces of beef liver (for the old folk, ultimately - I tried a bite and loathed it being between my teeth; my wife doesn't touch the stuff). I cut her food into bite sizes, wishing I could remember her doing this for me when I was small. A last supper of sorts: she's leaving for home this Friday night, and I wanted to have her over here at our place. The next time we'll see her is when we visit Greece.

My grandmother, eighty-three, at the head of the table with a glass of water; my wife and I at the opposite end, sharing a can of Coke and a perfect view of my beautiful, old yiayia.

Na ta ekatostiseis, says my mother-in-law, May you make it to one hundred. And my yiayia's face looks stunned, like a child's face when they've been informed there will be no cookies until they've eaten another bowl of pea soup. I ate this much, and now you want me to eat more?

And she's so loving, my grandmother. She grabs my mother-in-law's hands and says, Na hareis ta heria sou, kissing her hands, thanking her for a wonderful meal. Loosely: May you take pride in your hands. Because hers are now so tired. She doesn't cook anymore. The little pleasures she took in preparing a meal for her family are now memories. She spends much of her time in bed watching shows she can barely hear, because she can't walk very far anymore either.

Between the competing words of my dad and father-in-law, I stare at my grandmother, whose wrinkles are like hundreds of eyes sealed shut against the world. Like sealed lips along her face. Those lines along her face are most beautiful when she laughs at the absurd and speaks sarcastically.

Her blue-rimmed dark eyes welling up with tears as I put her coat on, and as she says goodbye to my father-in-law, thanking him for his hospitality between futile sobs, insisting that he come and visit her next time, in Greece, because she will not be coming back to Canada to see her children and her grandchildren. This visit back was the last one. And he says to me how she reminds him of his mother, God bless her, and his voice can't help but crack a little. My mother-in-law forces another coat over her shoulders, to shield her from the cold, crying a bit herself at my yiayia's melancholy.

Walking my poor old grandmother, husbandless for more than half her life, with three of her daughters an ocean and three seas away from her; walking her to my parent's car, holding her arm, reminding her where the short steps are. My wife behind us reminding her to be careful.

Love one another, she says to us. Like a woman who has seen too much, has agonized too much, has lived too many years missing her husband and children and grandchildren. Like a woman who is older than she wants to be. Like a woman who means it when she says it.

I helped her fasten her seat belt and kissed her on her head, and her hair was smooth where my lips were, and smelled clean.

my grandmother Elpiniki

2008-10-17T20:07:00.000-07:00

My father's formative years were fatherless. My grandmother raised him under a careful eye and under the gaze of my grandfather's picture, perhaps his army photo, wrinkled and colourless.

My grandmother's first concern is the well-being of others; truly, she pushes herself to limits beyond her years and physical ability, to make sure that whoever stays in her home, humble and old as it is, feels welcome and warm. Greeks have a word, philoxenia, which could translate to hospitality...but hospitality doesn't encompass the duty a Greek has to ensure a stranger in his home is taken care of, is provided for, and is bestowed safe harbour. I read somewhere that the custom dates back to the time of Homer, which is quite a beautiful thought.

And my grandmother is quite a beautiful woman, in many ways like clean, subtle lines from Homer. Her eyes are an uncommon blue-hazel, and reveal her feelings fully. And I love how small her teeth are when she smiles.

I sent her pictures, this is going on two years ago, of my wife and I, from our wedding photos. Months later I spoke with her on the phone and asked her if she had received them well. She said she had..."but I speak to them and they don't reply". I think about that day, those words, and how can I not feel rage at the distance that force people apart, sometimes for decades.

My dad left his mother and father, left his country and village, at the age of sixteen. To make a better life, as the story goes. Her only son left her much like her husband had left her fifteen years before, for a better life. And what of her life? Alone, husbandless at one moment; alone and sonless, the next. Each time, a bus would have held a damn seat for the men in her life, would have a dusty pane of glass from which she could look up at them as they were taken away.

There was a song she used to get my father to request from the only radio station in Greece, back in the day. "An Empty Plate On the Table" was the name of the song, and should you hear it and understand the words, you're overcome with the feeling that so many mothers in Greece, so many mothers around the world, feel when someone is missing from the dinner table. She would get my father to request the song, and they would sit around the radio and listen to the song, and truly listen to every sound, without the benefit of reply. An empty plate on the table/ A chair always bare/ They await when you'll return/ From abroad our dutiful child.

When my father left, she most likely would have had her daughters request the song for her again, while she sat with her husband, who had by then returned from abroad, listening. How was she to know that it would be decades before he would return?

We went to Greece as a family for the first time in 1999. My father hadn't gone back to his home, hadn't slept on his bed nor kicked the dust from the streets of his village, for what amounted to almost 28 years. My grandmother and grandfather visited Canada twice within that time. I wonder what it was like for her to see her son walk out of his room after so many years, not a child of sixteeen but a grown man with wisps of grey in his hair. I wonder how sweet it was for her to ask him what he wanted for breakfast, and how her hands must have trembled slightly as she prepared his food. I think about how that old song must have been the furthest thing from her mind as she set the plates on the kitchen table.

I last visited Greece in 2001. I was napping in my father's old room the day I was departing. Thinking back, I could have gone without the nap, I could have spent those hours talking to my grandmother. Such a little thing, but in my mind now, so immensely selfish to have sought sleep instead of sitting beside my grandmother. She woke me up and I could tell from the tremor in her voice that she had been crying.

It's weird: While I know that my uncle came to drive me to the airport in his small sedan, for whatever reason, my memory has me waving at her from an old bus, smiling down at her through a dusty window. Looking down at my grandmother who, with familiar (all too familiar) tears, chases after me with knees that can no longer bare to run anymore.

papou stogiannis

2008-10-12T23:55:00.000-07:00

My paternal grandfather is the epitome of distinguished, refined, and sincere. He speaks in a quiet, calming voice that demands attention by the authority in his shoulders, and the way he breathes deeply from his chest. He is at once very fragile and very solid - you sense that if he saw you crying, he would encircle your sobbing like a halo and would cry with you. I'm certain however, that he would breath with you in such a way that you'd have no choice but to forsake your tears for the certainty that exists in the angles of his arms and in the pattern of his respiration.

And I miss his stories. He saw many things in his life and many of these were not so pleasant. I'm reminded of him now because last night we watched our wedding video and there's a part where our family gives us warm wishes and advice. and every time I see him on the video, I can't help but miss him, and my eyes can't help but well up. Because he wishes a long life, with much success, and while his words are simple, the way that he says them make me feel so proud to have him as my grandfather. And because he is a man of so few words, when he does speak, people notice; when he speaks, it is something of value.

Which reminds me of a story he once told me, of when he was in Canada in the fifties, I believe. He worked in various restaurants along Spadina Avenue, before there was a Chinatown of any kind. They called him Johnny, which is actually my middle name (Stogiannis is my given name, after him - "stow-YEAH-niece"). Everyone loved me, he says. He did a good job, never complained. He worked with a smile on his face, and picked things up: how to speak English, how to serve ham and eggs, how to wash hundreds of dishes with his bare hands.

He learned also that people can be cruel. He told me once of a time when he was walking down the street and someone driving by decided to throw tomatoes at him. "Go home, D.P.," they screamed. What is a D.P. you ask? Ah, its a term our culturally sensitive times no longer uses. Greeks were called DPs back then. I'm not sure what we're called now. We were known as Displaced People. DP for short. So it goes.

He tells me the story without an ounce of complaint. Regret, perhaps; no complaining though. He speaks of it as if it happened to someone else. He has his dignity, and his dignity will not allow the intolerance and jealousy of others to affect him.

He left Canada not because some Canadians didn't want him. He left Canada because of his bones. And he looks down at his wrists and hits them, like disobedient children. His bones refused the climate, and he was in constant pain as he worked 12 and 13 hours washing dishes and serving people, many of whom viewed him as one only fit to serve them their liver and onions. And nothing more.

And still he wanted to belong. He had what so many people in our times, both natives and immigrants, poor and rich alike, lack. He had class. He knew they didn't want him, and still he rose his shoulders and the corners of his mouth, and nodded at their requests, and nodded when he fulfilled them. He saw many things, put up with many things, and he had the class to deal with them all with equanimity and dignity. Not because he was Greek, or he was a man, or any other such reason.

He put up with so much intolerance because to complain was to waste one's energy. To complain was to try to change people at a level in which they were not prepared to change. To return their words with words of his own wouldn't solve anything. Dialogue is not always the answer.

He held his body upright and acted as one unperturbed by the narrowness of others. He acted. He nodded, and smiled, and accepted. He thought of his wife and his son, who he never got to raise because he was here, in Canada, trying to make a better life for them, sending money back to them, while they were in a tiny village in the north of Greece. Maybe he was a displaced person, maybe he didn't belong in Canada. Maybe he didn't belong in Greece, either. Maybe. But he never let others decide for him whether or not he belonged. His focus was all consuming. He wasn't interested in rights; he was consumed by responsibility. The responsibility he had to make a better life for his wife Elpiniki (which translates to "Hope Wins"), and his son George. The responsibility to do whatever it took to find his place in a foreign land that viewed him as a foreigner. The responsibility he had to live with dignity.

And as I write this, hunched in front of my laptop, the TV yakking away, I imagine him sitting in his living room with the white walls and the pictures of his children and grandchildren in their wedding portraits, in a small house with a black wrought-iron fence, in a dry village of 800 souls in an often-ignored province of Greece. Maybe he is watching the evening news while my grandmother washes the dishes. Maybe he is waiting for his eyelids to soften. Maybe he is thinking about the four houses he would have built here if it weren't for his brittle bones and the dull, constant pain in his joints. Or maybe he is sitting there, thinking about how I have his nose and cheeks, and how our downcast eyes defocus when we tell a story, and how I inherited his smile, and how I have his name.

My Wife, on our fourth year anniversary

2008-10-10T06:37:00.000-07:00

My wife hates it when i look at her while she sleeps. I mean, she'll wake up (I won't say the force of my gaze stirs her from sleep), notice that I'm looking at her, and frown, withering down the slope of her pillow, her hair like a long shadow behind her. I like it though.

I'll stare at her, look at her, see her, and breathe. I don't have to say anything. The breathing and the focus are enough; the room's silence a backdrop; the distractions beyond our window an unreal protest against the wordlessness and soundlessness I seek.

And here I can simply be. The disappointment, the clumsiness, the ephemerality of words, are nowhere. As much as I love words, words truly are meaningless and forgetable, as the old Depeche Mode song goes ("Enjoy the Silence" if you're not sure which song, and if you haven't heard it, please do). But being needy, meaning-seeking souls, we grasp for them because without them we're faced with our own wretched aloneness.

And so words like Love keep us from the abyss, an abyss that stares into us as much as we stare into it. And as much as a distraction the word is, loaded with disappointment and clumsiness, still, it is all we have to express that something inside of us that seeks expression. Ephemeral, clumsy, disappointing...yet beautiful.

And staring at my wife as she sleeps, motionless, her serene beauty has no bottom, is unfathomable, as we all are unfathomable, without bottom. And perhaps therein is where Love - not the feeling or the word, but the being of Love - waits and makes its final promise. In the silence of one person, wholly apart from you and still wholly yours, still wholly yourself...the promise of a million bells, tolling.

my papou Pantelis

2008-10-09T14:35:00.000-07:00

"We were just getting our lives together when it happened..." My grandmother doesn't finish the story, has probably told it and lived it so many times. They were both in the prime of their life.

What happened is still fragmented in my mind - part of it in English, parts in Greek, others have been translated from Greek to English, so that it appears before me like a chimera, speaking in different tongues, all at once. I've heard the story at different stages in my life as well, so the picture is taped together by the will of my memory and imagination.

They were home, doing some kind of work around the yard, and the horse came home without my grandfather on it. It carried its carriage behind it. They knew something had happened. They ran along the dirt road. I imagine my mother, bony, simple, insecure; my uncle Stratos, equally skinny, overworked from a decade old. My grandmother, classically Greek in her beauty, running, breathless.

He fell from the horse somehow. Did something scare it? Did my grandfather do something wrong? When they found him fallen on the road, he was paralyzed from the waist-down. He was in his late forties, I think. The prime of life, we'd call it nowadays: the new thirty or something like that.

My grandfather had just gotten their lives together, when he fell from the horse and became paralyzed from the waist down. By the weight of the horse? By the wheels of the carriage? It doesn't matter. I'm sure I could find out the details, the precise details, and my description would still be indistinct as it is now.

I was a baby when I met my grandfather. I have no memories of him. He was strong, though, thick brow and thicker hair, and a square jaw that no doubt was clenched like a bitter vise on nights when he drowned in the lot that life cast him.

I asked my cousin Vicky once about him, what she remembered of him, and she started to cry. The beads of saliva that kept her mouth from wailing let no words out. I never asked her again.

He told my grandmother one day to move on. She was still so young, so much life, so much love to give. Their marriage was arranged, more or less; she could still find love out there, of her own will and volition. Instead she travelled with him from doctor to doctor, specialist to specialist, across Greece and Europe and Canada, spending money on opinions that they didn't have, trying to find out if there was anything to be done. Stupid villagers, hoping against hope that there was some cure somewhere out there. That maybe he would feel my his toes when he asked my dad to pinch them, to prove to my dad that he felt nothing at all, not even a shadow of a sensation.

When he died, my grandmother wore black. She's been wearing black for forty-plus years. All her skirts are the same. I think she still wears the same blouse she wore when we lived in our townhouse.

My younger brother chews his tongue all the time. So did my grandfather apparently. Yes, ghosts do exists and sometimes they don't whisper but leave behind clues in later generations. My brother was supposed to be named after my grandfather, which is customary in our culture, but something happened and they didn't name him Pantelis. I wonder how one man's habit skips a generation and becomes his grandson's habit? Nobody else in my family, as far as I know, has this habit.

I thought I saw my grandfather once at a wedding. He was dancing the zeimbekiko (don't worry, it's tough to pronounce in Greek too). If you've seen Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek, then you might know it as the "drunken man's dance." And this man danced, and he circled, and he smiled, his arms in the air, elegantly stumbling along the brown hardwood, and I just stared because it looked so much like my papou, my grandfather, that if I dared to look away to wipe my eyes, he might not be there when I looked back.

my giagia Chrisoula

2008-10-06T19:43:00.000-07:00

"If I had enough time and paper, I'd have too many things to write about..." Those words are my grandmothers, not my own. She's 83, losing her hearing, the cataract building over her eyes like a ceaseless watermark foreshadowing our own long mile to old age, and how she cannot visit Canada anymore to see her grandchildren (6 in total) and great-grandchildren (7 in total). We would have to visit her from now on. My grandmother's eyes are like no ones: brown ringed with a pale blue and made all the more innocent and lost because those eyes have little to hear with anymore. Her eyes are of a refugee lost under a foreign sun, asking us to speak slower and louder.

When I saw her a few weeks ago, for the first time since I got married, she lit up as I embraced her. And she told me a story of when I was younger, when life was much better and less burdensome. And I actually remember the event she was referring to. How when we were little and she lived in our town house (the corner unit with four pine trees out front, each bigger than the next, each named after the members of my family), she'd get braekfast ready for us. Hot milk, thick hand-cut slices of bread, nutella, a soft-boiled egg (already half peeled). I can taste the warm milk right now, and I swear to you, I can see her serving us right now, her hand might as well be to my right bringing me my plate as I type. Soft wrinkled skin (the softest God ever made), and overworked knuckles (because God had to take something back for the softness he gave her). I realize now how much I loved when she made us breakfast in the morning, and how safe the sound of her collecting our plates as we finished really was.

She'd call us down and my brother would run down but I would stay back to fix my bed; I didn't want her to have to tidy up after me, felt bad that I would leave my bed in shambles, felt worse about what my parents might say about my laziness.

"What a hazouli you were," ('little dummy' in Greek, but I swear in the most endearing, most compassionate way possible), "I was home all day and I could have fixed your bed but you wanted to fix it." And I did want to fix it before I left for school, despite my stomach's grumbling. Because she was old and I didn't want to burden her. I didn't want her to tire out because I truly liked having breakfast made by her in the morning.

"So many nights," she said, "I close my eyes and memories of you all pass before me, and I think how they were like yesterday and we were near."

comedia

2008-09-22T05:56:00.000-07:00

I was at a comedy show last night. Three Greek-Canadian comics were on stage trying their best to keep their acts clean but, in the end, we knew the pee pee jokes would come out eventually (that my parents laughed at them didn't make me feel any less uncomfortable!). They were all hilarious, might I add. I left with that rhythm of standup comedy in my head, and at how that rhythm keeps you smiling, and how hard it is to say something funny, but more importantly, to say it with style, with the right pace and intonations, with the right gestures and glances...it really must be hard, and so rewarding because of it.

I then reflected on my own writing and how there have been times where the comically absurd has crept into my writing (to say nothing of my thinking which is almost always absurd). I started placing myself on the stage, letting stupid stories of my youth and our Greek upbringing peel off the wall of my memory like old wall paper. There was material there, to be sure, and good material. Material that I should start incorporating into my writing at times, which at times might lend itself to over-seriousness but not in a "look at how seeeerious I am" kind of way. Shit: at least I hope it doesn't come off like that.

I was thinking of the audio book of Stephen King's "LT's Theory of Pets." If you haven't, read the story (I think it's in Everything's Eventual, available in paperback) It's a live recording in England at some book fair, and he talks to the audience beforehand. He discusses how he gets the ideas for his stories, and at how they usually sre born when he asks himself the innocuous question, "Wouldn't it be funny if...?" Which is pretty hilarious for someone who has made clowns eat children through sewer grates, has killed off 90% of the world population with plague, and so on. Wouldn't it be funny if a woman was handcuffed to the posts of her headboard and her husband, all excited, suddenly has a heart attack and dies? (Gerald's Game). You get the picture, I'm sure.

And truth be told, I miss seeing my characters do or say funny things. It takes a certain rhythm and pace, involves crucial glances and gestures, but when you see and hear that laughter on your audience's face...nothing is better.

Why She Feeds the Birds, draft two

2008-09-15T05:31:00.000-07:00

She stretches her neck to leave a dry kiss on her husband’s bare shoulder. Lingers there, his warmth seeping into her thin lips. His paperback lies against her knees. Beyond the rising and falling slope of his shoulder is the window, beige blinds hanging below the white frame. Morning sprawls its thin fingers upon his stubbled cheek and neck. She feels it cupping the side of her weary face, forcing her eyes to close. To find a few more hours of rest. You can stay here, it says, you do not have to go.

She has been waiting for light since four-thirty this morning. Subtle taps at the window startled her from a dreamless sleep, fading as she opened her eyes. The night was windless. She lay there listening to her thoughts, to her breath, to the sounds of the house, unable to find the borders between them. Unable to find sleep again.

She rolls her covers off, like tin. The room is colder today, it pulls on her arms and legs to return to bed, to the swell of her husband’s breathing. She shakes her head, focuses her gaze upon the aging hardwood. Biting her lower lip at the brittleness in her ankles. She steadies her toes only where she will find silence, as a child does travelling over rocks in a motionless pond. Around the foot of the bed, to the window. Bends open the blinds with two fingers, inspecting the morning. Clear skies.

What are you doing over there? Lefteri’s tired voice startles her.

Nothing, Love. Close your eyes.

What time is it?

She looks at the digital clock on her bedside table. It’s almost ten minutes to seven, she whispers. Now go to sleep. It’s early.

Then what are you doing up? It’s Sunday. She hears him turn his back to the light.

I am going for a walk. I will be home to make you breakfast. Close your eyes.

The little one was asking for pancakes...with lots of syrup, he says. She hears the sly smile in voice.

Sleep, matia mou. I will be home to make you breakfast.

Be careful, he says. She turns from the window, and listens to his heavy breathing. Her gaze rests on his white hair. His right arm cast over her pillow.

on dis-ease prevention

2008-09-15T04:41:00.000-07:00

Says Vonnnegut: "If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia." If you open a window to a new born in mid-September, to let it gets some air, what might happen then?

Greek mothers, upon giving birth and returning home, do not go outside for 40 days. Mom and baby, in the house. For religious reasons, yes. But also so that the child can build its immune system first, without having the smiles and spittle of the world smother it too early.

I've decided to post the revisions I've made to the first part of the story, then stop it there. I'll repost the story again, in its entirety, later. As an experiment, posting the story was, albeit paradoxically, successful. Getting feedback allowed me to confirm some of the suspicions and uncertainties I had about the initial draft. It also made me think more about the writing, instead of letting the writing come out of me. Self-consciousness is the cancer of creativity, there's no denying that now.

Incubating is a writer's best friend. Silence. Aloneness. Loneliness. Just your eyes hearing your thoughts write themselves on the palette of your awareness.

I thought a lot about the story this weekend. Especially the first part. I thought about it and stared at it, and staring at it made me anxious. It didn't want to be stared at. It asked only that I write it. And to write it means to write it alone.

Hemingway never talked about writing with others. I realize that now. Writing is hard enough to do with only the sounds of your own voice echoing the clicks of the keys or the scratching of the pencil. We can shut out the voices of others only so much before they creep in under the closed door. Good or bad, helpful or not, too much contact with the world isn't necessary, in fact shouldn't be desired. I hear C. P. Cavafy in my head:

Even if you can't shape your life the way you want,

at least try as much as you can

not to degrade it

by too much contact with the world,

by too much activity and talk."

Again: I'm reposting the revisions I've made here, then nothing more from the story until it's done. Better you get the real thing in hi-def (or in digital at the least) instead of some bullshit bootleg from the Pacific Mall.

a day's reflecting...

2008-09-12T08:06:00.000-07:00

It's been well over ten years since I've seriously written anything, which is to say, anything that I'd want anyone else to read. This experiment, of publishing a work in progress on this blog, has been quite a learning experience for me, and it's been barely a day. I've learned the importance of objectively contemplating the opinions of others - which, let's face it, is the hardest thing to do. We've all drawn a picture that the teacher didn't like, and felt like shit afterwards. We're human: pathetic and needy, but more so resilient and adaptable. I've realized that it's important for me to find out exactly how this story is _____, and further evaluate whether its being ____ serves it or not, based on my criteria for what makes a good story.

Speaking of the story... yes, it starts slowly; I know that, and I know why. Some of the early responses confirm this. That's okay though. It's okay because once I tighten up the writing, it will flow much smoother. And I know where it needs tightening. All afternoon and evening, I was nervous about the responses I would get and struggling with the responses that I got. This is new for me, after all.

my wife was cool and uncertain to the idea, and still is, seeing as it is a work in progress, it needs editing and tightening, and who wants to be swayed by the opinions of others? Another friend of mine, Tim (http://www.timnasiopoulos.com/) was also concerned about the idea. Being someone who puts himself in front of others all the time (he's a comedian), he knows how the opinions of others affects his completed, and in-progress, art. He never shares a joke before he knows its completed. With this story, which is actually half-done, I will need to resist the urge to let myself be swayed by the thoughts of others.

This is an experiment for me because in the past I've been plagued by the self-doubt that comes from an other's harsh criticism. It might be an experiment that I'll pull the plug on early, or see it through. What I wanted from this is to really gauge who likes what I've written and why, and who doesn't like it and why.

And as you read story (if you continue to read the story) keep in mind that the story quickly picks up steam, and that it is in short scenes, almost like frames. As such, I'm being deliberate with how each frame is painted because it's a story that's very close to me. My outcome is to write it as truthfully as possible.

Why She Feeds the Birds, A Story

2008-09-11T08:13:00.001-07:00

She stretches her neck to leave a dry kiss on her husband’s bare shoulder, lingers, motionless, leaching whatever heat she can. His paperback lies half-read between them. Beyond the rising and falling slope of his shoulder is the window, beige blinds hanging below the white frame. Morning climbs over the shallow roof of their house, down the brick wall, through the slits, sprawling its fingers upon his stubbled mouth and neck. Now cupping the side of her weary face, gently caressing her hair, forcing her eyes to close with its thumb, to find a few more hours of rest. She has been waiting for this light since four-thirty. She was startled by four light taps at the window, like the sound a branch makes as it steadies itself against an inriding storm. As she forced her eyes open, the sound faded, perhaps it was something she heard in her sleep, loud enough to wake her. The night was windless. She lay there listening to her thoughts, to her breath, to the sounds of the house, at times unable to find the borders between them. Now, she removes her bedcovers, rolling them off like tin from her shoulders to her waist. The room is colder than last week, she can feel it pull on her arms and legs, beseeching her to return to bed, to cover herself, to let the sunlight caress her. She resists, lowering her gaze upon the brown hardwood. Biting her lower lip at the brittleness in her ankles. She steadies her toes only where she will find silence, much like a child does as it travels over rocks in a motionless pond. Cinching her breath in her throat, glances behind her as she slides through the open door. The time is 6:57. She can’t be late.

the first evolution of the dafosphere

2008-09-11T07:28:00.001-07:00

I've decided to try something different today. It's something I've anxious about and deliberating since, well, since I decided to start this blog. A friend of mine Will O'Neill (http://willoneill.com/) left a comment on one of my last posts asking whether I would be including some works in progress on my blog. As much as I'd like to, I'm actually quite nervous about it as well (what will people say? what will they think of me? do my words look fat on this page?).

My concern is copyright, obviously. I kinda like the stuff that I write, and while it doesn't follow that others will like it as much as I do, who has ever stolen something that they really didn't need just because it was there for the thieving? Yeah, but John, you'll have a copyright thingy at the bottom with your name and the year beside it...it's okay. If that was enough, then Napster wouldn't have been able to castrate the music industry.

Then again, who the hell gets their license, only to avoid driving because other cars might run into them and kill them? A little faith, baby - that's what a little birdie (not a sparrow, as you'll see in the coming weeks) whispered in my ear.

So...

Here goes. The first part of my current work in progress, "Why She Feeds the Birds." Please give me your feedback and any critiquing is much-welcomed. Please be ruthless and sympathetic no matter what you say. Pwease? It is raw, its more or less a first draft. You'll probably find a typo, it might even be non-sensical at times...if you react to it, you must comment on it, right? I want to know if it moves fluidly, if it sounds true, if the images are clear. I listen to and digest all critiques, and truly, truly, your two cents mean everything.

Enjoy...

the impression of things to come

2008-09-08T07:06:00.001-07:00

a magical thing happened yesterday as I was finishing the last 10 pages of Stephen King's Duma Key. I was thinking as I read how I'd like the current story I'm working on to be a little longer than the ones I've finished so far, which have been 10-12 double-spaced pages. I was thinking that I wanted it to be a fuller story, somewhere around 20 pages, and that it had to be connected to the first story that will make up my book-length collection of short fiction. As I read Stephen King's story, really getting lost in the emotions of it, I glanced out the rain-streaked window and a full-on vision came of my story's climax. I was stunned, literally hard of breath. I was a stone bobbing up and down in a river and image after image flashed across my mind like reflections on the face of waves. I don't know where the vision came from, was totally shocked at how painful the emotional punch was. I saw the vision at once through my eyes and through the eyes of my unnamed main character.

I got up, put Duma Key down (I had't finished it yet), walked over to my wife and whispered into her ear, I just saw how my story is going to finish. She looked up at me and could see how emotional I was (and truly, when you read what I envisioned, I'm certain you will be moved as well). She looked at my face with sympathetic eyes, asked if it was good, if the wetness in my eyes was good, and I said it was.

I went back to the couch, and finished the last several pages, utterly amazed. I was reading the words on the page, not in the voice of Stephen King (which has changed quite a bit since The Stand) but reading them as though I had written them, as though they were in my voice. I read the last line several times. I decided there that I would write him a letter, thanking him again for being a conduit for my creativity.

I got up, big book in hand, and wordlessly walked to the basement and read the last ten pages again, stitching the images into my mind. Even as I write this, I can feel a light patter of gooseflesh along my left forearm. And I can't help but hear the climax of my story, the rhythm and meter it will have, the hushed breath that will dress every word...I can't help by hear all these things and feel a lump in my throat as I wonder how quickly my story's heroine will make it to her destiny. I hope she takes her time.

On Delivering (...not deliverance...)

2008-08-31T09:02:00.000-07:00

My cousin's son is a couple of years old now and I think back to the last few days she was carrying him. If memory serves me, she was actually overdue - the boy refused to come out as per the doctor's orders. They tried various methods of inducing her (I don't know how many exactly, probably not many at all, probably only two, hell, it was likely one way; I wasn't there, so sue me), and as the boy was coming out, they realized that he had...pooed. The doctors were in a state of panic at that point...I didn't know, though it makes sense, that a in medias res born baby excreting while exiting from the birth canal is dangerous for baby and mother.
They kicked everyone out and decided to deliver the baby through cesarean section. Everything went well, thank God, baby was healthy and crying, mommy was healthy and happy, daddy had a new baby boy with, to quote the doctor, big Greek balls.

which leads me to the struggles I've been having with writing "Why She Feeds the Birds." I wanted to write the story in a different style than I normally do. I was trying to adopt the Cormac McCarthy's method. Having read The Road (a wicked, unbelievably heart breaking read), I wanted to take the best elements of his style (sparse, lyrical prose; restrained attention to detail; full immersion in the present, devoid of pretext and past; the narrative coming in and out of focus through short paragraphs) and apply them to the writing of this story, about an old woman who makes a deal to feed a flock of sparrows in return for her grandson's soul.

while writing it though, I couldn't deliver the words with a flow that I was happy with. The essentials were there but it was missing something. Actually, the story was resisting me, resisting the way I was handling it, resisting the manner in which I was trying to bring it into the world. Words came out, perhaps the right words even, but I was forcing them out in a manner they did not agree with.

It's been days since I've touched the story and now its overdue. Now it's time to go back to basics, as it were, to write the story in the way that isn't someone else's but is in fact mine. The other day I actually caught myself talking to the story, as if it were a real entity (which it is), and the story spoke back to me, whispered in fact. No, not whispered. It was a freakin' Vulcan mind meld between my conscious and unconscious minds. That's what it was. It's not working this way, is what it said.

And as I write this, days removed from working on the story, I can sense that the story is standing there watching my conscious mind work here. Watching me deliver these words, dammit, and how easily I'm delivering them, how right they feel beneath the tips of my fingers, behind the blinking cursor. I can sense it has its arms folded, an internal smile in its posture.

And it's waiting....

why Stephen King is an addiction

2008-08-27T13:34:00.000-07:00

I'm always amazed at how much I learn from reading Stephen King. Here is a writer who has truly set himself apart from everyone, doing exactly what others say you should not do: he fills and overfills every page with details, pretext, subtext, conjecture; truly, he's like a teenager alone and confidently mischievous and in the science lab, playing with how many layers he can add to a character or to a theme or to a situation before it all explodes...and the blood and guts and ghosts with it.

I find a deep part of my mind activated and stimulated whenever I read him, more so than any other author. He has a wellspring of imagination that my imagination reaches towards, tries to pattern and emulate. I'll find myself simply reading the synopsis of his book and instantly my creativity is triggered, I can hear my imagination read the synopsis of another story, one I didn't know existed. And all because I read the back cover of King's latest.

And how addictive his method is! Even if a part of you says, Another three hundred pages to go? Or I'm 460 pages in and we still don't know where the ghost is from? you can't resist the concoction he's created. Everything is so real, so intimate, to close the book prematurely is like closign the door on someone you just spent the last hour promising you would help.

writing as re-membering

2008-08-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

A lot of writing is remembering. Things present themselves on the page that you didn't expect, making you wondering where they came from. And as you think about it, images from the past come up, literally come up. Sometimes, you remember things and you know at some point your memory will resurface as a scene in a story, or it will be a flashback for a character. You'll take that memory and re-piece it, re-member it, until it looks exactly as it did at some level while looking precisely as it didn't at another.

I've been finding old friends from my public school years on Facebook. It's amazing seeing people you haven't seen in 15 or so years all of sudden having kids, looking older, some are acting and owning Porsches, other have done their MBA.

I found one person who I was less than friendly too back in those days. In fact, you could say I was a bully to her at times. I messaged her, commenting on how great her family looks, and then asked her for forgiveness. I spoke for this younger self, too weak to not get sucked in by other people's meanness ("Other People's Meanness": there's the title of the story I alluded to earlier - it just came up).

And there is the connection between writing and memory. It's like finding an old trinket in the box of a closet beneath heaps of old papers and mementos and pictures. Finding that trinket with a strange thread (red in colour) tied around it, and that thread traces its way along the floor and under a baseboard behind your bed. And as you follow it, trinket in hand, breathless and trembling, something tugs at the string, makes it taut. Something is under that baseboard that needs to be found... that needs to be written.

deliverance

2008-08-16T05:37:00.001-07:00

I just finished my short story, "What the Magazines Did."I've been up since quarter to five, and its about 840 right now. I woke up because my stomach was bothering me, I think. I woke from a dream where I was planning an amazing training program with a colleague of mine (she doesn't know she's a colleague yet, but she will!).

I was determined to finish the story, after putting it off for several days. My goal was clear: I saw the sun come up as I finished the last paragraph; I felt the smile on my face; I heard only silence.

I'm proud of this story in a different way from the previous ones I've written because for years I saw it ending in a particular way, and while the feeling is still the same in this version, I'm amazed at how much richer it is from the way I imagined it. I'm amazed at how Zara, the protagonist, developed before my eyes. And it's always unexpected, the way a character develops. She's so much deeper, more complex, than I would have been able to see consciously. I know that, I intuit it.

I committed myself to writing a story that was a little shorter than the last few I've written, but that still had an emotional impact and still looked at the magical inside the mundane. While I didn't weep at the end of this story (yes, I'm a weepy baby when it I finish delivering a story...and yes, it is like delivering), the story seemed to be much cleaner. It left me without the sense of loss the other stories felt when they left me.

Or when I let them go? I'm not sure which.

ask and ye shall receive

2008-08-14T18:27:00.000-07:00

So I had one of my wife's nieces read and critique one of my stories "The Reason for Wooden Frames". And I'm trying to think about why I asked her to read it in the first place.

Consciously, the reason for giving her the story was nothing more than to have someone read and enjoy my story. But there's always another part of us that knows beyond knowing where to go and whom to ask for help. Because hanging out with her and her siblings, having her take an hour to go through her impressions and thoughts on every sentence was truly a rewarding experience. I got more from her than I could have expected.

I got exactly what my deepest self was asking for. There was no extrinsic reason to ask my niece to read my story, anymore than asking anyone else to read my story.

Thanks to her input, I can define my focus as I write, and really appreciate what I do that doesnt work, and develop with greater attention the things I do that do work.

Ask and ye shall receive, we've heard. Thank you Christina for gifting me a great afternoon. :)

what's simple isn't always easy

2008-08-13T19:16:00.000-07:00

so I'm working on a new short story that is entitled, "What the Magazines Did." It's another story that's been in my head for ages now and that I've attempted to write a few times in the past with no success.

Now, however, it's coming along quite nicely. The best thing about writing is having some action in the narrative happen you didn't anticipate at all. And it's usually something small, something that nobody but another writer would appreciate. But all the same, it makes me smile and gives me a great rush, a feeling like I can shake the world from the ground of the entire earth, like someone shaking crumbs from a table cloth, make everything new - destructive and creative at once. It's truly intense and empowering.

Until a few days ago, when I came along a hiccup in the narrative. Not writer's block, thank God, but what I wanted to write wasn't coming out the way the heroine saw it. i was trying to fit into something that I had no business fitting into. It was a difficult paragraph to write because i was trying to make complex and sophisticated something that most people who read magazines wouldn't think of.

Anyway, for two days i was struggling with how to properly word the paragraph so that it flowed, so that it was continuous with the action before and the action to come. Two days, dammit, for six lines, and finally a break through. But how did it happen? Well, the moment I surrendered myself to the need to have the structure and syntax of the words be perfect, I mean literally lowered my shoulders and my eyes from the screen, that's when it happened.

My fingers were working and she - the heroine - started talking. I was listening to her thoughts via my thoughts funneled through the fingers and the clicking of my keyboard. Mildly psychotic? Certainment!

But that's kinda how it happened.

And with the drone of seinfeld and kramer in the background (writing with distractions is something i hate to do), the words came. They flowed. Stephen King used the metaphor once of a hole opening in the page, and what a sublime metaphor it is (even if it did come from a shocking book like Misery). The hole opens in the page and the words come out and the writer is grateful.

The hole opened up and the words came and my fingers joined them somewhere half way and my mind was there too, and through it all my eyes were simply witnessing and smiling, and everything else simply got misty on the periphery. The paragraph wrote itself.

And I was pleased with it simply because it came out so simply.

Pleased and ...

grateful.

la musika

2008-08-12T16:41:00.000-07:00

how is it that music moves us to such amazing places? there are no words, nothing to hook the mind and carry it along, yet, are we ever more carried along into somewhere better (or worse; there's always that) than with music. I think I remember Nietzsche saying that music is the purest form of communication. I'll have to find the exact quote.

And truly, when I think about the etymology of the word "music"(can't resist doing that), it comes from the Greek word for "Muse." Euterpe ('Efterpe' if you want to pronounce it properly) is the muse of music and lyric poetry. The etymology of her name is "well rejoicing" or "delight" (to quote wikipedia: "from ancient Greek εὖ (well) + τέρπειν terpein (to please)).

Today and yesterday I found myself scoring my challenges to the most delightful music that I'm attached to right now. I was really just seeing the hunched and kneeling body of my challenges lifting up with the music, music I identify with sea, Greek light, a breeze like kisses, family, my love, and let the music lift the shoulders and straighten the back and unfasten the knees of my challenges. And I smiled; couldn't resist smiling, in fact. Couldn't resist feeling overwhelmed, and compassion for this part of me that has atrophied (Greek: a-trophe; without-nourishment).

Hey, music = nourishment! Eureka!

Yes I'm here...so what? :)

2008-08-11T16:56:00.000-07:00

Alright, another attempt at a blog. But for what? What do I want that's different from the other times? Let us list some...

First, I got the idea of using a blog to "publish" my creative fiction and poetry from a friend and colleague. And I've been mulling the idea over for the last few weeks. I like to hallucinate that I'm a good writer...people who have read my stuff assure me it's no hallucination at all. Let's test them out - I'm guaranteed to read it, but will they? Ah, there is the rub. :) So then let this blog be for the people who have read my stuff, who I trust, and who I want to provide me with feedback and criticism (of the constructive kind...the stuff an artist can make a castle with!).

I'd like something that last more than just a few posts. Throw myself naked (electronically, people; you can thank me later) into what Dr. House sarcastically calls "The Interweb."(I can't remember the name of the episode, but it was on Showcase a few nights ago). Why not try to go the distance and leave something of myself for all of posterity to adore! ...Yeah, vanity never suited me.

To entertain would be good, too! Firstly, myself; secondly, you, oh blessed Reader. I'd like to entertain myself with the stupid shit that's sitting in my head (stuff you won't find so stupid, I certain...I am my own toughest critic). Stuff that would better serve me if it was in black ink on white paper but given the rising price of gas and soaring food prices, the computer screen will be a fine alternative.

Lastly, I want this blog to be a sort of therapy, in a secondary, vague kind of way. Something that will grow as I grow, where perhaps I can see my growth, to say nothing of the other people who will read this. Let me look for patterns that make music in my life, that I can listen to in my head over and over, and smile.