The Lost Art of Love Letters

Source here

The other day, I stumbled upon, and love, this excerpt of a love letter between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West (who also happened to be her muse in writing Orlando):

"I sincerely hope I’ll never fathom you. You’re mystical, serene, intriguing; you enclose such charm within you. The lustre of your presence bewitches me. I like the unreality of your mind; the whole thing is very splendid and voluptuous and absurd. "
  

Change Your Story, or, I <3 NY

The world is a projection of our minds.  

As I write this, I'm on a Greyhound bus on the way back from a lovely weekend in NY (where I got to see the lovely co-writer of this blog!).  

I was invited last-minute by two friends to join them on this trip.  I gladly accepted, always jumping at the chance to visit The Big Apple. 

Saturday afternoon I met up with a NY friend to see a men's cabaret show, complete with a plethora of musical numbers.  In the middle of the first song, this musical theater freak (yours truly) made a decision.  I was no longer going to talk about it.  I was going to move to New York.  Within one year, to be exact.

The music swelled, I drank my wine, I chatted with my lovely friend, and I knew this was where I wanted to be.  

The next morning, I missed my super early bus back to DC, but secretly rejoiced because this meant I had more time to walk around the city.  I sat at a table in front of the hotel, taking in the energy of the city, thrilled to have the whole day ahead of me.

I walked around for a while till I reached the Port Authority to see if I could switch my ticket to a later bus.  I was rolling my duffle bag along the way.  A lady walked by me and said "If I trip over that, you're gonna get punched.  Right in the face."  All of a sudden, the usual routine was set in motion.  The hurt.  How can someone who doesn't know me at all say something like that??  The urge to prove what kind of a person I am. 

Very quickly, my story changed.  What if this isn't my city?  The evidence that shows why I shouldn't move here.  The people who have said, "this city takes a toll on you."

I hadn't heard from my two travel buddies, who were going to travel back to DC separately from me.  I texted them to let me know if they wanted to hang out before they left.  I thanked them again for inviting me on the trip.  I asked if they wouldn't mind throwing my sleeping bag in their trunk so I wouldn't have to lug it around till my bus departure. 

They never responded, so a few hours later I texted them and asked them to confirm that they were alive.  No response.  I called them each a couple of times, knowing that they are usually attached to their phones.  Nothing. 

Again, my story changed.  I started to wonder if they were annoyed that I spent a lot of time with friends other than them on this trip.  I didn't think so, but I couldn't understand the lack of a response.  

I have seen both friends hold a grudge like nobody's business against other people.  I have seen them feed off of each other as they confirm why said grudges should be held.  Maybe now, it was simply my turn.

I began to lament the situation.  Why does this kind of thing always happen to me?  The familiar thought pattern appeared again - "I can only feel okay and safe if no one is mad at me."  A deep rooted, ingrained pattern.

But - the Universe knows what it's doing.  It delivers the same message over and over until you finally get it.

As I sat on the bus, I thought to myself, GET CURIOUS.  If they really are mad, what's it REALLY about?  

It has nothing to do with me.

They've had their own difficult experiences in life that have resulted in them creating a story in their minds about how the world works.  I cannot fix that.  That is their journey.  They may not know it yet, but they can change their story.  

And I can change mine.  

Once I started to get CURIOUS it was clear that whether I am okay and safe DOES NOT depend on others feelings towards me!!!!!  

I get it.

It is possible that the two friends aren't mad and all of this was the result of a couple of lost phone chargers.  Or it could be that my speculations were true.  The delightful point, though, is that it doesn't matter either way. 

And New York is either a magical land or a sea of bitter people.  I get to decide. 

Showtown, U.S.A.

Photo by Caterina Clerici via The Guardian 

The state of Florida is filled with fascinating small towns and tawdry amusements alike.  Traveling along its sun-soaked highways, there are always signs announcing the miles between you and Gatorland, the Magic Kingdom or the Fountain of Youth.

Gibsonton, Florida is just ten miles outside of Tampa, if you drive south on U.S. Highway 41.  It really is surprising that it has never been the subject of a Tim Burton movie (given his appreciation for the landscapes of Florida and circus-style theatrics).  

In the mid-1930s, an eight and a half-foot tall man named Al Tomaini, once billed as The World's Tallest Man, eloped from the circus with his two and a half-foot tall love, Jeanie, who was billed as The Half Girl.  They honeymooned in Niagara Falls, then toured together as The World's Strangest Married Couple.  Upon retiring, they founded a fish camp and nearby cluster of trailers, which would grow into the town of Gibsonton, Florida (called Gibtown by its citizens).  Al was its first fire chief.

Soon Gibsonton blossomed as a community for sideshow performers to spend the winter months or to retire.  The Ringling Brothers' winter headquarters were in nearby Sarasota and besides, you were permitted to keep elephants and dismantled carnival rides (a status symbol) on your front lawn.  Conjoined sisters Daisy and Violet Hilton (of Side Show fame) ran a fruit stand in town.  Perscilla the Monkey Girl, Grady Stiles the Lobster Boy and Edward Anato Hayes the Anatomical Wonder were among those who called it home.   

Photo from BBC via Pinterest

Since freak shows (with a fraught history all their own) are largely a thing of the past, Gibsonton may look like any other small town to travelers along Highway 41.  However, if you stop in, you can still find relics of the town's past, including a museum and plenty of colorful stories from the bartenders at Showtown USA.

The Distant Marvels

A Picture from 1963 Cuba by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Despite the old adage, I'm a sucker for book covers and the Italian press Europa Editions publishes beautifully designed books.

Picture by Marko Metzinger for The New York Times

There's a shelf dedicated to Europa Editions books at the trusty Mid-Manhattan library, which always draws me in.  And so, earlier this week I left with Chantel Acevedo's The Distant Marvels.

It's written in the same spirit as Isabel Allende's Eva Luna, but opens in Cuba in 1963.  As Hurricane Flora approaches, a group of women are evacuated from their homes to the top floor of a former governor's mansion.  Among these women is María Sirena, an eighty-something former lettora, who was once paid to read stories aloud as men worked in cigar factories.  As the storm rages outside, María Sirena spins an epic family saga.

I'm about a third of the way through and particularly love this passage in which María Sirena remembers her daughter:

"I consider her at fifteen, bookish and romantic then, writing poems on broad hibiscus leaves and floating them in the canals behind our apartment.  At eighteen, she fell in love with Mireya Peña's son, Alejandro, a poet, too, and her appetite for him was so crushing that he became all the food she needed; she lost the plumpness in her arms and dark circles shadowed her eyes.  'He is the best poem I've ever written,' she gushed to me one night, and I called her a little fool, and warned her about poets.  I told her a story about a poet, who died facing the sun, and she laughed and called me ridiculous.  She regained herself - her weight, her senses - when she left Alejandro the night before their wedding.  I got my daughter back, but in trade, I lost Mireya's friendship and earned her dagger eyes for the rest of my life."

Non Sequitur Thursday

Picture Source Here 

A funny, hypnotic web series about a pair of gal pals (featuring #girlcrush Gina Rodriguez).

Elizabeth Taylor ran a secret safe house to help HIV patients.

The lost Broadway musical starring Muhammad Ali.

An accelerator in Nairobi with an emphasis on sustainability and opportunities for women.

26 things everyone should do for themselves at least once a year.

Cold brew coffee with a "crème brûlée finish".

For your afternoon daydreams: five days in Venice.

Ten Easy Holiday Gifts

1. One of these irresistible DIY fruit slice umbrellas.  

2.  An ASOS star crown headband for all of the goddesses in your life.

3.  Felt mistletoe for your main squeeze - it's the gift that keeps on giving.

4.  Another stocking stuffer for the Twin Peaks fanatic in your life (or Gilmore Girls or Sherlock).   

5.  A Ghost Rose Candle - Catbird's ghost rose solid perfume, with notes of English rose, champagne and peony, has garnered a cult following.  I love the perfume's mysterious, romantic scent, but have found that it fades quickly.  Candles are something that I'm always reluctant to splurge on myself, but as a gift, the fragrance is a lovely addition to all of those winter hours indoors.  Bonus: it's named after a passage in Anne of Green Gables.

6.  A Havana Lomo'Instant set for the winsome photographer in your life (and everyone has a winsome photographer in their life).  Doesn't it make you want to vacation in Miami Beach in the sixties?

There's also a Lomography shop in the West Village for many more options.  

7.  A classic home planetarium (or perhaps tickets to the planetarium at the Natural History Museum) for the starry-eyed nerd in your life.

8.  Beautiful old books with that intoxicating old book smell: Sometimes a charming edition of a favorite book is a comforting thing to have.  Go old school and write a note inside of the front cover.

Alibris is my go-to source for older editions of books.  Of course, there's always trusty eBay and bookshops like HousingWorks, The Strand and Unnameable Books.   For new copies of old favorites, special editions are available from the likes of Penguin.  If money is no object, Juniper Books offers beautifully designed or custom collections.     

Dre-e-eam, Dream, Dream, Dream

9.  A gift subscription to MoviePass:  Going to the movies is hella expensive these days.  I used MoviePass for some time before hitting a busy period.  For a monthly fee that equals two or three movie tickets in Manhattan, you can see up to one movie per day (with the caveats that you can only see each movie once and they cannot be 3D movies).  Tickets are obtained through a user-friendly app, which covers most theaters, including indie ones.  A three month gift pass seems perfect for a movie lover in the throes of Oscar season.

Still from the impossibly beautiful movie Blancanieves.

10.  And finally, an easy gift for the whiskey enthusiasts in your life: pourable Manhattans, a barrel-aged, ready-to-drink cocktail, made from a pre-prohibition recipe.  

For the more adventurous, there's also chocolate whiskey (made in Brooklyn from the cocao husks used to create Mast Brothers chocolate).

Three Things

December is nearly upon us!  First comes a few weeks of tinsel-strewn goodwill and awkward office parties, then comes that period of merry mischief between Christmas and the New Year.  And here are just a few other things to enjoy in the month to come.

Streaming: A Very Murray Christmas on Netflix

Friday, Friday, Friiiiiday!  This Friday, December 4, is the long-awaited release date for Bill Murray's Christmas special, directed by Sofia Coppola and with vocals by Miley Cyrus*.  In my humble opinion, it may be the greatest holiday classic since Scrooged.   

*If you can't appreciate that, may three yodeling spirits visit you on their way home from a rave this Christmas Eve.

Reading: The Trilogy of Two by Juman Malouf

So, the holidays make you sick.  You'd rather lose yourself in some sort of dystopian hellscape than listen to one more cover of White Christmas.  The recently released Trilogy of Two may be your antidote to the month of December.  It tells the story of two identical twins, both musical prodigies, who were born on Halloween.  Abandoned on a doorstep and raised by a Tattooed Lady, they grew up in a traveling circus (sold!)  Inter-world hijinks ensue when their music begins to produce magical effects on audiences.

On a side note, I heard great things about the book, but had no idea that Juman Malouf is a costume designer, who happens to be Wes Anderson's lady.  According to The New York Times, she collects traditional Bavarian sweaters that make her feel like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (are you my soul's twin?)   

Theater: Lazarus at New York Theatre Workshop 

David Bowie's Aladdin Sane Album Cover Outtakes, Photographed by Brian Duffy

I have wished for a David Bowie musical for years: a Labyrinth musical, a Ziggy Stardust musical, anything.  And lo, sometimes wishes do come true.  Bowie has partnered with playwright Enda Walsh (Once) and Dutch director Ivo van Hove to create Lazarus, which officially opens at New York Theatre Workshop on December 7.  The still-mysterious project is an extension of the novel The Man Who Fell to Earth (Bowie starred in its film adaptation).   

Tickets sold out immediately, but there is still hope in the form of a cancellation line and a Cheaptix lottery in late December.  Get thee to the East Village.      

Unsolicited Advice: Keep a Journal

source: here

One of the best things that I've done for my personal sanity and happiness in recent years is to keep a handwritten journal.  I've offered this as unsolicited advice to just about anyone who will listen.  Whenever that advice falls upon a fellow journal-keeper there's always a hushed moment of recognition, followed by the sort of gushing usually reserved for Chicago sports fans.

I actually use two journals at the moment.  The first one, hardcover and neatly tucked in a drawer, is used when I am feeling inspired enough to carve out time at home for intensive journaling.  I carefully date each entry and can imagine reading it years from now.  The second is more petite, found at Albertine (a French-English bookshop, hidden away near the Met).  I keep in my bag at all times.  It's covered in blots and coffee stains at this point, but is always on hand for the long train rides and unexpected waits that are staples of New York living.

I try not to overthink either journal.  The former, however, tends to take on more of a narrative structure.  "We tell ourselves stories in order to live," as Joan Didion said.  There are also evenings when I just want to dig in - record a beautiful day or adventure, wrestle with frustrations, save anecdotes for later, recount every moment of some entanglement.

The latter journal is on hand for any fleeting notion throughout my day.  I've never bothered to date any entries; they just flow together.  I think that's because I appreciate the chaos of it.  There are no standards for what's written down, which invites me to consider everything. Being in communion with pen and paper, with fewer distractions than normal, allows me to engage mysterious parts of my mind and to catch seeds of ideas before they vanish into gray matter.

Personal journals have taken on added benefit in an age of social media.  So much of our lives are laid bare and despite our best intentions, it's difficult not to consider how they will be perceived.  I believe that it's healthy to consider your life warts and all, and to be able to embrace half-baked ideas without judgement.       

Oh Hello, World!

I'm ready to write.

As my dear friend Jamie-kins mentioned in her first post, I'm Susie and I'm really introspective.  Hold on to your hats.  We about to get deep. 

This year, 2015, the year I turned 30, has been a year of transformation, for me.  I experienced the worst anxiety I've ever had and then came out on the other side.  I got fired for the first time.  I joined a training program to become a life coach cause I sensed it would be an adventure, even though I felt I sucked hard at life.  

I've learned a hell of a lot, and as I step into a new way of being, I only see the learning and growth continuing. 

In addition to all of this, I literally just had an incredibly powerful journaling session.  I'm starting to finally trust my intuition, the voice that just KNOWS, and I let her spill.  By the time I was done, I had developed the awareness that the only thing holding me back from the life that I want - the money, the coaching clients, the love, the creative fulfillment, is the belief that people owe me something. 

 

I decided to accept that no one in my life owes me anything and that all of the pain and hurt I've felt in my life was 100% perceived - AKA...not real.  No one has done anything TO me.

Accepting this means truly knowing that others have no bearing on my experience.  Our minds create our world.  What people think of me literally means nothing. 

Accepting this means there's no reason to stall anymore.  I will create the clients now, I will create the money now, I will create the creative fulfillment.  "What people will say," the big fear that I felt was in my way - is no longer a factor.

I know all of this in my being, and I also know that I'm going to need support when I feel like reverting to my old ways of thinking.

But I know that as long as I keep journaling, I will remain in touch with my intuitive voice.  The voice that knows.  The voice that I believe is guided by the other side.  I will stay in touch with it so that I can continue to access this new way of being and finally step into my POWER.

The other thing I became aware of tonight in my journaling is that I am finally starting to align with my true energetic vibration.  Deep down I have always know that I come from magic, wonder, and possibility.  It's why I have always felt so out-of-sync with the mundaneness of life that I was taught is real.  

I've been lucky enough to meet a lot of people this year that also come from magic, wonder and possibility.  My people.  I'm finally starting to align energetically with the people around me.

I feel some fear creeping in, but that's because this is the unknown.  Seeing so much light and power and joy on the horizon is definitely foreign and overwhelming.  But I want it.

Not bad to have had such a breakthrough in awareness on Thanksgiving Day!

Happy Turkey Day, y'all. 

Have yourself a merry little Thanksgiving!

The Incomparable Wednesday Addams

It's here!  It's time to brave Penn Station on Thanksgiving Eve and catch a crowded train out of town.  I hope that you enjoy your Thanksgiving, wherever you may be.  I'll be in a tiny Delaware beach town and figure it's as good of a time as any to embrace a break from technology.  In the meantime, here are a few things that piqued my interest around the internet. 


I've decided that this will be my first foray into the world of piecakens when I'm back home next week.

Heyyyy, Arnold.

Performer, director activist and long-time #girlcrush Sarah Sophie Flicker co-founded At Once, which explores the intersection of feminism and motherhood.

The origin of that mysterious Katharine Hepburn-esque American accent of the 1930s and 40s.

This lovely Canadian couple got hitched at City Hall and used the money they saved to sponsor a Syrian refugee family.

And fittingly, Oliver Sacks on gratitude.

Carol and the Past I Never Knew

Cate Blanchett in Carol, Picture Source Here 

After hearing all of the buzz around the premiere of the Todd Haynes film Carol, I picked up the Patricia Highsmith book that it was based on, The Price of Salt.  I had every intention of loving it: a travelogue and thriller about the then-forbidden love between two women.  By the book's end, I found the central characters elusive, their chemistry arbitrary and the narrative a bit slow.  Still, I can't wait to see it in the hands of two brilliant actresses, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.

For me, the book is most interesting when considered in its social context (particularly its place in LGBTQ movements when it was published in 1952).  Patricia Highsmith's 1950 Strangers on a Train was a wildly successful first novel.  It was made into an Alfred Hitchcock movie the next year, catapulting her to literary stardom.  She followed that debut with The Price of Salt, about three-dimensional gay women.  In a bold departure from the lesbian pulp novels of the time it had a hopeful ending.  When the book was released as a mass-market paperback, billed as "the novel of a love society forbids", it sold more than a million copies.

Carol/The Price of Salt is a story that exists firmly in its time.  Its sweet romance was revolutionary.  Its women were forced to endure the indignities of a bigotry that has subsided to some degree.  Still, another aspect of the past that makes movies like this all the more captivating.  There's a quality, beyond the photogenic nature of cigarette smoke and full skirts, that draws us into stories like say, Mad Men so fully.

In a perfect line from his review of Carol, critic Anthony Lane writes, "The time is in the nineteen-fifties, perhaps the last epoch when, as a movie-goer, you could still believe that some enchanted evening you would see a stranger across a crowded room, and somehow know."

I look forward to a Carol/Brooklyn double feature soon.

An Early New Year's Resolution

From the swoony movie The Young Girls of Rochefort, recommended if you happen to have a weakness for the technicolor musicals of the sixties, Gene Kelly's dance movies and singing French sailors.
Picture source: Design Sponge's "Living In" series.  

Starting this blog led me to unearth another that I kept during my early New York days (it feels like a relic of another era now).  I evidently trailed off after a list of New Year's resolutions for 2011.  As with most resolutions, I haven't thought about them much since then.  It tickles me that more than four years later, I've finally accomplished most of them (some just recently; I still need to work on keeping plants alive).     

I'm a resolution enthusiast, even if my resolve can be fleeting.  I used to approach each new year fanatically, with hand-written pages of good intentions TO LIVE MY BEST LIFE OR DIE TRYING.  Over the years, I've learned to stop fooling myself into believing that I'll give up refined sugar, hit the gym in the early hours or read a Russian epic every month.  Instead, I've found what works for me is one or two goals that add something to my life (as opposed to restricting habits).

In the year to come, I've decided to finally learn the guitar.  Years of choir, band and forcing karaoke upon friends have assured me that I have few discernible musical gifts.  That feels liberating, no?  To pursue something with no real practical purpose or plans to master it - simply for the joy of it.  

I'm considering a class at Jalopy, a roots music gem in Brooklyn that offers an incredible range of shows, along with reasonably priced community lessons.  And of course, YouTube remains an invaluable, endless resource for tutorials in anything, as well as for talented duos who melt your heart with their guitar Beatles covers.

Saturday's Wanderlust

Catherine Deneuve bidding her true love farewell from a train platform
in Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

A Scene from David Lean's Impossibly Beautiful Brief Encounter

And here's Katharine Hepburn in David Lean's Summertime.  He just gets it.  

I have this thing about trains.  Like many other things in this world, I'm entirely too romantic about them.  And this is after countless trips along the Mid-Atlantic vying for a place in Amtrak's dining cars during holiday weekends.  Having spent too much of my formative teenage years glued to Turner Classic Movies (in between trashier fare), part of me still believes that train rides should involve pillbox hats, chance encounters with mysterious strangers and tearful goodbyes on platforms veiled by clouds of steam.

I spent my first year out of college in Bandung, Indonesia: a city in the mountains of West Java, surrounded by volcanos and tea plantations.  Among my most vivid memories are the train rides throughout Java, most frequently to Jakarta, three hours a way.  The railway wound through the mountains, past emerald green rice paddies, the occasional water buffalo and children living in rural areas who would gleefully wave and chase the train.  The trains themselves, though occasionally crowded, solidified my belief in the beauty of train travel: cars neatly appointed, surrounded by breathtaking landscapes, barreling towards unfamiliar destinations.

To this day, many of my bucket list travel destinations center around train travel.  There's the Trans-Siberian Railway from Russia to the Sea of Japan, the Danube Express from Venice to Istanbul and most recently, The Glacier Express: a day trip through the Swiss Alps.

Billed as the slowest express train the world (traveling 180 miles in eight hours), it boards beneath the Matterhorn.  From there, it traverses 291 bridges, 91 tunnels and naturally, some v. high mountain passes.  Best of all, this is all experienced beneath panoramic glass ceilings.

The Glacier Express, Picture via Twisted Sifter 

The Glacier Express, Picture via PureWow

P.S. A date once recommended this West Village bar, a throwback to the golden era of train travel.

Style That's Giving Me Life: Celia

Telemundo recently began airing its 80-part series lovingly (if loosely) inspired by the life of the unequivocally fabulous chanteuse, Celia Cruz.  I've only caught one episode so far, but it brings all the high drama to the backstage of Havana's Tropicana Club that you would hope and expect from a telenovela.  At this point, the show follows the boundary-breaking Queen of Salsa in her early career.  Needless to say, being set in Havana in the 1950s, the costumes and sets are to die for.

To add a little Tropicana Club realness into your life, first and foremost, start with the gorgeous Chico & Rita (or Celia, if you're so inclined!)   Otherwise, here's brainstorming.

counterclockwise from top right: stamp heels, Orelia simple star hoops, Red or Dead glasses, Asos dress with fluted sleeves in retro print, clarinet in the air dress in rouge, Selecciones Favoritas de Celia Cruz

Sure Beats Tinder

Vera Nabokov - Picture by artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

I love reading about the lives of writers (Elaine Dundy and Colette's own stories are my favorites).   The summer before last, I was in an Infinite Jest book club and while I don't think I made it halfway through, I happily devoured David Foster Wallace's biography in its place.

The details are what do it for me.  Case in point: the courtship of Vladimir Nabokov and his wife (partner, muse and protector) Vera, described beautifully in a New Yorker piece on the book Letters to Vera.

Vera was born into a prominent, highly educated Jewish family in Saint Petersburg.  Her family fled during the Russian Revolution and eventually settled in Berlin, by way of Odessa, Istanbul and Sofia.  In Berlin, her father established a publishing house where she worked, while teaching and translating for the literary journal Rul.

The New Yorker says:

"One of its star contributors was a young aristocrat, ladies’ man, chess player, dandy, and lepidopterist who was earning his living as a private tutor. He signed his poetry with the pseudonym V. Sirin, but literary insiders, including Véra, knew his real name.

On May 8, 1923, Véra Slonim and Vladimir Nabokov met at a charity ball, or so he recalled. Schiff sets their meeting on a bridge, “over a chestnut-lined canal.” All accounts, including Véra’s, agree that she was hiding her features behind a black harlequin mask that she refused to lift as they meandered through the city to the Hohenzollernplatz, rapt in conversation."