My favorite food as a youth

I wrote this as part of the Writing to Wake Up group that met in the spring of 2012 at Marty and Jerry's home. Mark encouraged me to post it.

My favorite food as a youth

I knew immediately what I was going to write about when I heard that food was the topic for this evening. When I was young, we used to meet as a family for lunch. My father would come home from work around 2:00 pm and lunch was the big meal of the day. I can't remember what happened after lunch but I am imagining we did not go back to school or work 

My favorite lunch was (and still is) what we call mujaddira, lentils and rice and more. It is a very simple dish and we were always told it has been eaten in Palestine-- where my father grew up-- since ancient times. He said it was the poor man's meal and that it is mentioned in the Bible. 

The basic part of mujaddira is the lentil and rice part but that is only the core. On top of the lentils and rice (which are cooked together) you put a fresh tomato and cucumber salad with a lime/olive oil dressing and, then, on top of that, go caramelized onions. It think I particularly liked this meal because it was a kind of construction with lots of parts/pieces and one could be creative in building it like one builds a curry dish with all those condiments-- hot and cold, sour and sweet, crunchy and soft-- and burritos the way we make them at home, also with a host of add-ons like shredded cheese, sour cream, fresh green onions, cilantro, tomatoes, and lettuce. 

Another Middle Eastern meal that reminds me of mujaddira is mulukhiyya which is a green related to hemp and is very popular in Egypt but is also found in Palestine and other countries in the region. My Aunt (Tante) Marie had a very special way of building mulukhiyya and no one has ever been able to match it. She served it in a clear bowl so you could see all the layers. On the bottom went toasted pita bread which was topped with rice which was then topped with the mulukhiyya (usually cooked with chicken) and, finally, came a layer of red onions soaked in white vinegar (which came out looking pinkish). I loved those layers. Looking through the bowl was like looking at the geology of meal, the cross section of flavor and heartiness. 

Since Tante Marie passed I have never been able to recreate the magic of her mulukhiyya and I don't know anyone who approaches it. My wife grew up with mulukhiyya too. But, she is familiar with a very different style of preparation. When I tried once (only once) to suggest it be done Marie's way, I suddenly realized I was treading on dangerous territory. Mulukhiyya is one of those comfort foods one grows up with and which one one can never replicate the way it was made by your mother or your aunt. The best you can do is try to imitate. And if someone comes along with suggestions to make it different, well, that borders on blasphemy and sacrilege. It is like telling someone their childhood was a fraud. No, trust me, you don't want to go there...

SLU Is

SLU is Tony Albrecht (Law, 2009)

SLU is Josh Aranda (A & S, 2009)

SLU is Laura Aranda (A & S, 2010)

SLU is 783 Facebook friends

SLU is 14 years of life

SLU is 50-something courses I facilitated/animated

SLU is all the surrounding cafés (6 North Coffee, Laclede Coffee, Cafe Ventana, Na-Doz)

SLU is Fr. Biondi

SLU is composed of non-Fr. Biondi elements

SLU is Jesuit

SLU is corporation

SLU is men and women for themselves

SLU is men and women with others

SLU is My Name Is Rachel Corrie

SLU is making a splash

SLU is looking good

SLU is doing good

SLU is faculty and student intifada

SLU is the era of Mev as an undergrad, 1981-85

SLU is the Mev Puleo Scholarship

SLU is one long litany of woe

SLU is a thousand haikus of "Ahhhhh..."

SLU is Buddhas, everywhere I look

SLU is beer pong, whatever that is

SLU is SLUCAP, Saturday mornings

SLU is countless Karen House community members & volunteers

SLU is Avis Mayer

SLU is Lainey Trahan

SLU is John Kavanaugh

SLU is Romaytha Abdullah

SLU is Ignatius of Loyola

SLU is Pius XII

SLU is forgetting the Holocaust

SLU is SLU Solidarity with Palestine

SLU is Midnight at the oasis

SLU is School's out FOREVER

SLU is the many of  best people I know

SLU is making the path by walking it

SLU is gracias a la vida

SLU is more than I can write for three straight days on benzedrine

SLU is following Jesus

SLU is putting the gag on Jesus

SLU is worshiping the consumer society

SLU is palsy-walsy with Boeing

SLU is regular dalliances with Monsanto

SLU is trying to change the world

SLU is sweating to maintain the status quo

SLU is falling asleep so as to be successful

SLU is Lindsey Weston coming alive in El Salvador

--writing practice, Sunday 28 October 2012, at the Aranda home, Dogtown 63139

Magan Wiles, "My Name Is Rachel Corrie," Xavier Hall, SLU, Summer 2011

Two of the Most Welcome Words

The young activist was beside himself
But had the temporary smarts
To seek out Henry

Saturated with guilt
He unburdened himself
And was crying after one minute--

All he hadn’t done since he returned from the West Bank
All the emails and phone calls and texts not returned
All the hopelessness that pounded his intestines

All the…
Beholding him, Henry responded
“You, too?”

Beautiful Anarchists

For Lalenka

Those photos of Dorothy Day-
Like the one you saw in the office at Karen House
Where you were first scouted as a model
(six years ago)-
Dotties’s scowling, old, weathered, as if she’s saying,
“Don’t have too much fun
Don’t you know people are being crucified even now
By this filthy rotten system
While you are playing hackey sack?”

When  he was a mere youth
Marc Ellis lived a year at the NY Catholic Worker
One day that spring as his year was coming to an end
(he had to move on to become an unapologetic intellectual)
He saw Dorothy coming down the stairs toward him
She greeted him with enthusiasm and planted-
As she stepped off the last step onto the linoleum floor-
A big, wet kiss on his mouth.
He told me she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen.

Which brings me to Emma.
Ah, Emma.
Emma–firebrand
Emma–threat to the established order
Emma–orator and organizer and anarchist
Emma–still vibrating in those words easily quoted 659 times a day somewhere on planet earth
“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution”
Emma–disillusioned and relentless critical of the stale Soviet rehash of domination of the workers
Emma–familiar with beatings, intimate with jails
Emma–such  a woman of multitudinous strengths
Right?

She was all for worker autonomy and liberation
She was all for girls and women living a full human beings not re-usable toys
She was walking the walk and getting stoned for it
AND
Along comes Doctor Reitman with his charms, political oddities, and powers of bewitchment
And Emma…
“How I want you! I want to devour you”
“I forget everything for want of you”
“I was ashamed of my craving for you, and yet I couldn’t stop.”

At a friend’s home in Clayton
On one of the living room walls is a 4’ by 4’ painting of Emma Goldman
She rather resembles Dorothy in those grim photos at the Catholic Worker
So I resort to my imagination
And there picture how radiant she must have looked
As she was walking to meet the good doctor at the café full of émigrés

– Scribbled on index cards at the London Tea Room, 7. 9.2010

There’s just something about raking leaves

There’s just something about raking leaves. Pretty, yellow, orange, once-upon-a-spring green, autumn leaves. Maybe it’s the joy in manual labor. Maybe it’s that raking involves neither a laptop screen nor organic chemistry. Maybe it’s the glorious return to being an oblivious suburban teenager doing chores around the house, watching my parents have cute petty arguments about picking the wrong tomatoes. Maybe it’s having the first real conversation with my father that I've had in a while. Maybe it’s the homo sapiens in me that rejoices at some faint notion of returning to some semblance of agriculture. Of living as one with nature instead of putting up walls to defend against it. Maybe it’s the wet, slightly mushy touch of the leaves that will turn mushier and mushier and "to dust you will return" and might make bright new green leaves someday. Maybe it's the satisfaction of finally seeing a task through from start to finish. Reaping the rewards of your efforts in twenty minutes. Oh instant gratification, thou art almost as pretty as these leaves. Maybe it’s that, in running the rake through the grass, cleaning up leaves that reveal the relatively groomed suburban front lawn, I fulfill some human tendency to create order.

Or maybe they’re just pretty leaves…

1993 Hand-Written Note Found Tucked in "The Chomsky Reader"

“Dear Mark
You asked, ‘When can I see you?’ Here’s my answer …

10 minutes after you wake up
At 9:30 p.m. on the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th of each month

By the tower in 88 degree heat
A January walk up the avenue after the sidewalks have been shoveled

Every Tuesday at 3:35 pm
Saturday morning at 7

When you're gritting your teeth so hard you think they will shatter
At Mavis’s Diner at 10 am when nobody’s there

After classes
Before dinner

When you get that sudden urge to head out to the river (walking five miles an hour)
At the nearest bus stop (reading Hadji Murad)

When sleepless, at Espresso Central
When effervescent, the outdoor tables at Stella and Bella's

Three times a week
Twice a day

When aroused by history, at the Jewish Book Store
When disturbed by humanity, among the igrets in the park

Soph”

--Dear Layla/Welcome to Palestine

A Thief

Her name is Rahma,
Arabic for Mercy.
She is a witty, irresistible
eight year old prankster,
and a beautiful little thief.
One day, she tricked me
when she asked me
if she could tell me
a little secret.
And I, without a hint,
leaned over a little
to lend her my ear.
But the little thief
instead tricked me
by planting a light feathered
almost imagined kiss
on my cheek
before running off
skipping and laughing
as free as an autumn leaf,
leaving me totally baffled
and at loss for words.
Rahma had no mercy on me!
Along with the kiss
she stole my heart,
the little kiss thief!!

The Saturn Poem and another

Saturn

I sit on the interstellar

ring of Saturn and stare

at revolving hugeness

a turn strong and timed

And all the things of this life

seemed to turn slowly

with Saturn

and I, staring from this

mid-halo of ice

Uncold, quiet

a blackness, no despair

these girls and family members

these back pains and weakening knees

these elections and news and

these irritable mornings and fleeting nights

these visits to the hospital, each sterile room

these soggy papers below these text-reflecting eyes

and formaldehyde reminders...

Saturn kept turning

Strong and timed

I sat and stared from solid water

and the ring, and I, 

turned too

My Obit

What if my obit mentioned

The time I cheated on my wife

And not just the number of

My sperm that found home?

What if my tombstone told of

How I hadn’t been a brother

or a son to my mother for 9, 10 years?

I read more unwritten than written

I and you, we’re slow to trust

Our depths to you

I have no fun

In shallow waters

(I’ve long outgrown the kiddie pool)

Let’s dive deep into the dirt

Of our graves, dance with

Our skeletons, give it away

While we’re still free.

 

Action

“To translate Victor Jara’s El Derecho de Vivir en Paz into Arabic and action.”

Action. I like that. A lot.

I sometimes wonder what the future will hold.

(Actually I think about that all the time.)
Will I be able to put Victor Jara’s words into action?

To get a job means to do work.

To do work, hacer mi trabajo. Action.

In a field along side a woman who never went to school.

Who can teach me more than professors with PhDs.

Action.

Day #1. Introduction to Social Work

Lesson #1: Social Workers won’t make a lot of money

Thought #1: Oh…

Thought #1 gazillion and 1: If I move away from the US I’ll make even less.

Thought #1 gazillion and 2: That’s what I want.

Action.

*In response to a selection from Mark Chmiel's Dear Layla 

Reading Can Change Your Life (Or At Least Your Friday Night)/Patisotagami*

“So last night I went with my friends to this bar
The same bar they’ve been going to for two years
Drinking the same overpriced drinks they always drink
Making the same chit-chat with the same guys who always come up to them
Listening to the same unbearable music
And people were making fewer intelligible comments with each passing minute
And the air was so thick with insecurity and false bravado
And I looked at my watch and realized I’d already been there for two hours
And I looked around at all the gaming and fretting and distraction and sadness of it all
And what popped into my mind was the time you used the expression ‘American Samsara’
And then I remembered that April day you asked for two volunteers
And one person was to be herself and asked a question to the other person
And I was the other person who was supposed to channel Chân Không
And in that bar with its mindlessness and midnight mayhem
I breathed in
And breathed out
Just like Chân Không would
Breathe in
Breathe out
In
Out
Deep
Slow
Calm
Ease
Present moment
Only moment
And I walked out the door
And back home

Smiling.”

--from Dear Layla/Welcome to Palestine

                                                                         Chân Không
* "swimming against the current"

Publish Your Diary

(Reading Let Me Stand Alone, the journals/writings of Rachel Corrie)

Rachel's got a fire in her belly.  She's an aries. I'm an aries.  I have a fire in my belly too.  I remember the first time I read her words, her journals, her questions and doubts, her passions, and I desired so much to know this girl in person.  We are very similar in many ways.  Rachel's Russia is my El Salvador.  I wonder if all artists think they are crazy?  I can't tell you how many writings I've composed over the years thinking I was raving mad, but so cool and composed on the outside.  My madness only showing through in my private journals where it was safe.  And it makes me wonder how much more I would love the people in the world if I could read all their journals, all their private thoughts.  That's how we realize how similar we really are.

Maybe the truth is I wouldn't have been Rachel's friend while she was alive.  Maybe I wouldn't have known how similar we really are because I would only have had what's on the outside to go off of.  Maybe I would have been intimidated by her like I am of so many people with passion, who live alternative lives, who dare to dream and follow those dreams.  And how many more people might I connect with if we all just opened our souls, put our works out their, especially that which we are most afraid and hide, and realize the profound truth that I am not alone, I never have been.  This person suffers and I suffer.  This person has dreams and hopes; so do I.  This person has fears, has demons they fight with, has a desire like I do sometimes to just run away from it all to a place that is completely new, completely different, where no one knows you and you have no responsibilities; you can just be whoever you want to be.  This person desires freedom as I desire to be free.

But instead for the most part we all pretend.  We pretend to be someone we aren't or feel something we don't.  Most of us are fabulous actors.  I always loved theater growing up.  It was a chance to escape, to be someone different.  I loved getting to put on a different character and have it be ok.  I didn't have to be this boring, smart, obedient, everything-is-perfectly-fine girl, that was my normal role.  I wanted something different, and found that in acting.  The stage is really just an extension or microcosm of larger society.  Anyone can act; they do it every day. 

But what if we all took our masks off?  Maybe just for a day to try it out... We wouldn't have to pretend to be stronger or braver than we really are.  We wouldn't have to pretend to be dumber than our naturally brilliant selves.  We wouldn't have to pretend like the things that make us come alive aren't important, or aren't the best use of our time.  We wouldn't have to pretend to be all put together when we are falling apart.  We wouldn't have to pretend to be better or worse than anyone else.  We could all just be human together.  And know that just like me, my sister wants to be happy, my brother doesn't want to suffer.  We all want to be loved, but not for who we pretend to be, for who we really are.  Maybe if we all published books about our lives, our real lives: the stuff recorded in notebooks that we think no one will ever read, we would realize how much we really have in common, how much we really want to be friends, be in each others' lives.

In the discussion about community I participated in the other evening, what was most important or special about living in community for me was that a level of safety, trust, and love was established so that I could be vulnerable with a group of people in a way that I never had been before in my life.  We could share who we honestly were, and love each other even more because of that.  I think that may be the foundation for changing the world.  That... or publishing our diaries.  

Passing

I get a daily Google Alert
For Harold Bloom
One of my favorite writers

I read this morning of a brilliant, gifted, recent Yale graduate
Named Marina Keegan
Who died Saturday in a car wreck

In today’s edition of the Yale campus paper
Bloom said that he “can think of only a few other women and men
I have taught whose presence always will be with me”

Bloom has had countless thousands of students
Having been at Yale for 57 years
For two years Marina was his assistant

Like Bloom I have had students whose presence is with me
They appear in disguise in Dear Layla
It was one way I chose to pay them tribute

The photo of Marina in the newspaper
Had that Mev and Magan look of confidence and poise announcing
“Get ready, World, here I come!”

The T’ang Dynasty poet Hanshan wrote
“Though they say life last a hundred years
Who has seen a full thirty thousand days?”

Written at Spiritual Exercises, facilitated by Sarah Bollinger, hosted by Becca Gorley, shared with Elizabeth Driscoll on 25 May 2012

Arabic Mantra

When you feel like you’re far from home and you are
When you choose to breathe in and breathe out
When you approach a preoccupied stranger in the sooq
When you see a five-year-old boy who is restless in the street
When you can’t stop thinking about Nawal and her situation
When you notice an already contentious middle-aged woman sitting in the front row before you give your talk
When you realize that emptiness seems to have taken up permanent lodging in your soul
When you meet up with a friend who’s had enough of her life and is taking it out on you
When you have a searing memory of how bad it all really was
When you can’t seem to get on the exit ramp from the Via Dolorosa
When you sit down to write and nothing comes out
When you hear the knock on the door at just the moment the words begin to tumble forth
When you understand you’re no longer needed at work
When you grasp that no one even realized you were gone
When you understand that this, here, now, is it
When you know it tolls for you
When you remember how the Bedouins fed you
When it occurs to you on Michigan Avenue at 2 p.m. that you’re a nobody to everyone whichever way you look
When you get another email filled with vituperation
When you are sipping espresso on a sidewalk café with Pandemonium coming right around the corner

The mantra to cultivate
Day in, day out—

“Ahlan wa-sahlan”

--Dear Layla/Welcome to Palestine

Hold it ALL

Through our class I have also been inspired to go back and re-read the diaries of Rachel Corrie in her book compiled by her family Let Me Stand Alone.  This reflection came after reading an entry by Rachel about caring too much...

The thought just popped in my head, 'How do you hold it all and not break down weeping continuously?'  Rachel writes how she would be unstoppable if she could quit caring.  Would it really be such a ball?  Mark first introduced me to the quote "Hold it all."  Can't remember where it comes from but I feel it has very Buddhist vibes.. hold it all... be one with it all.. really let is all sink in and fuse into the particles of your being.  That makes me want to SCREAM and cry all at the same time!  When I hold it all I feel the suffering of my sisters, broken and abused by so many for so long.  I feel the hungry stomachs of starving children.  I feel the isolation and despair of the rejected.  And I feel the hurt and confusion of those whose homes and families are destroyed and ultimately those who do the destroying.  It's too much to hold it all.  But ALL is NOT all suffering.  All means joy and dreams.  All means there is celebration despite difficulty.  All means little and big achievements.  All means places where those who have nothing give to the stranger.  All means being witness to the tears, sharing a drink, and joining in the dance.  ALL isn't all sadness, just a part.  It is still overwhelming to hold it ALL, but it is all LIFE.  I imagine God as a big mama with a bountiful lap gathering us, gathering it all, into her lap and just holding us.  I am held, even as I hold it all... We hold each other. 

rediscovering community

Below is the latter half of an email (stream of consciousness) I wrote a couple of weeks ago while in Nicaragua. There's a little bit of desire for the current me (the one with more time to edit and perfect, and one who's aware now that more than just mom, dad, and husband will be reading these words) to change some things but I decided to copy and paste it here, "as is".  I'll preface the sharing below by saying that my time in Nicaragua was initially very difficult---I was homesick and felt isolated outside of the familiar and safe spaces I'd created in St Louis. At first, I didn't want to push into and explore this discomfort.

______________________________

 

Don't forget the way the nurse purses her lips to indicate direction. Don't forget shared nervousness (mostly over language). Julio's laugh. Christian's love for God, his smile ("...created, and God saw that it was good"). Cassandra's boldness. Sonia's soft hands and the way they reach for mine. How she reminds me so much of my own grandmother (that this is not a coincidence, that my grandma is somehow always with me--a guardian angel--and Sonia hands me this truth as real and tangible as the song she wrote for me; as her permed hair, her always made face, her ritual of sitting outside her casa on the sidewalk for hours talking to anyone who passes by). The sweat on all of us, all the time, and how it just doesn't matter. Gina's ability to relate so (immediately) intimately with me. Alexander's torrid love affair with his ex and how he handed me his broken heart ("Please, fix this. Walk with me. I need you now.") The way we need all each other. The sound of the birds, the dogs barking, the cool of the breeze blowing over us as we practice asana. There is sometimes a human connection so natural/innate that no words are needed. (of course, verbal communication certainly nurtures a relationship) But the draw itself is undeniable. Something inside the other promises "you are safe here with me, I want to receive you, I want to share myself with you." 

Why not? Remove the fear of judgement, be truthful, and fully you. Do not hide anything. The broken places in us can allow others to enter. To help us put things back together. (As Leonard Cohen put it: “There are cracks, cracks, in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”) Or just to sit with us. Be with us inside ourselves (tortured or at peace) and recognize things as they exist in this present moment. Who cares what the house inside your soul looks like. Let them in, offer them water, coffee, coke, food, leche agria*. Let them use your bathroom. Laugh with them. Who cares if there aren't enough chairs for everyone to rest on. Allow them to sit anywhere. Offer them your food. Don't mind the smell. Don't mind the hour. Let the time pass as it does, because you will not change it. Enjoy. Revel in the moment, in those people you've let in. Those people you love. And they love you, too. You and your stinky soul. 

Crack open the windows to your soul and breathe deep. You are alive.

* http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leche_agria&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dleche%2Bagria%2Bnicaragua%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D680%26prmd%3Dimvns&sa=X&ei=6PpwUMS0G4mk8gSI3YH4Dw&ved=0CCQQ7gEwAA

Steal Like an Artist -- by Austin Kleon: A Recommendation and Response

In lieu of last Thursday’s Writing to Wake Up, 10/11/12
Steal Like an Artist -- by Austin Kleon: A Recommendation and Response

I recently stumbled upon this book (Priya, it was indeed at Left Bank!) and began reading it a few weeks ago. When Dr. Chmiel presented the prompts regarding creativity at last Thursday’s writing class, I immediately felt this book was well on point with what we discussed, and that others might want to read this book.

The author’s objective is to share things about being creative that he wished he’d known sooner. He writes in a tangible and matter-of-fact way, so that I feel as if he’s discussing these ideas with me at my coffee table, and occasionally using my dry erase board to show me his various charts and cartoon clarifications.

 FRONT

 

 BACK

His list of ten things that “nobody told you about being creative” is on the back of his book for all to see, available as posters on his website, so you can gain a rudimentary understanding of the map of his ideas by looking this list over. His discussion of each topic pulls the reader into a deeper level of understanding, and through suggestive exercises, makes you want to deconstruct the material and apply it to yourself, which brings about an even deeper level of understanding. For example, in number 1, he discusses that everyone is a conglomerate of what they take in, and if you want to embody good work that you admire, look to artists you admire, then find out who they admired, then who those admired, and so on and so forth. Each chapter has working suggestions like these, which makes me want to get out my notebook immediately and consider my muses and research them more fully, becoming more self-aware of my artistic leanings.

If you’d like to learn more about this book, you can check out the artist/writer’s book trailer and webpage for more information:

Book Trailer for Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

Artist/Author's Web Page

Below, two quotes from Steal Like an Artist paired with two journal responses regarding my biggest hang up with creativity:

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” - André Gide

“Conan O’Brien has talked about how comedians try to emulate their heroes, fall short, and end up doing their own thing. Johnny Carson tried to be Jack Benny but ended up Johnny Carson. David Letterman tried to copy Johnny Carson but ended up David Letterman. And Conan O’Brien tried to be David Letterman but ended up Conan O’Brien. In O’Brien’s words, ‘It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.’ Thank goodness.” -- Steal Like an Artist

Why is it that I feel like other people have important things to say, but not me? Because it’s already been said? Because people may not understand or because they might disagree? You compromise your inerrant truth when you restrict or constrict. Not everyone will agree, nor should they. And even if they have an appreciation for what you say, they might not want to read your essay, novel, song, quote, poem 100 times over, but that does not mean it’s not good or valid. So difficult this is.

I wish I had remembered my art book -- do I have it? I am always wondering what I have to say that has not been done. It doesn't need to not have been done before, it goes along with *#5 that once executed, the idea will never be as good as it is in my mind, that no - you are not discovering a new element, and even if you were, it is still not “new” in that others (scientists, etc) have discovered other elements too. In my art book, it says that everything has been said before, but no one was listening and so it must be said again. It must be said again. In a new way, reflecting our current generations, with your vision merged with technology that wasn’t there before. Don’t put previous generations to shame! Don’t not do it. Look at it. It’s OK that someone has done it before. Do it YOUR way, and it will still be good! And if it sucks, oh well. Don’t worry.

Naivete. Naive to think you are the first and the last. Who do you build from? Those who came before you, and they build from those that came before them. Each with their unique vision and style, -- unhappy accidents included. The Cobb salad, Kleenex tissues and instant mac and cheese, were all, in a way, a mistake! Happy accidents. Set out for something.  So, you do know this. Why do you have so much knowledge but you do not act? I should have been a preacher -- it’d have been easier.  It’s the DOING that is hard. So throw off what others have done, because even if you try to do exactly as others have, you still likely will not.

But I want to be a people-pleaser, to do it right!  I don’t want to copy; I want to be original.  But I don’t want to get it wrong either. You. Cannot. Have. Both.  Contradictions abound.

 *#5 is from the list of Twyla Tharp’s (choreographer) list of artistic fears, discussed in class.