Avenues away

We spend our entire lives consumed with who we are, but there is a lot to be said for who we are not. You, whoever you are, are not me, nor am I you. As much as you may want to be, it is likely that you are not a happy person and although you may argue that it is easier to classify the unhappy as sad, I believe that sadness is the lack of happiness, not the accumulation of a different emotion. The greatest unhappiness leaves its victims feeling empty, lacking. How often have you heard a discontent someone say that he feels like he is "missing something" or has a "hole in his heart"? I assume it is much more often than he claims to be "filled with sadness" or "heavy with grief". You cannot "be" sad. You can feel sad and you can think sad thoughts but in order to "be" a sad person, you must understand that you are missing happiness.


Also, this is an old picture from a few days ago which I spent with three amazing friends. Forgive me, but I like it better than where I am right now.

Shooting the messenger

I have been feeling very uninspired lately, thus the lack of blog posts. I wonder if this is what growing older feels like?

Pack rat

As a huge fan of TLC, I often find myself oozing over hoarders as I watch their sloppy homes undergo the infamous 'clean sweep'. I used to think about how gross of an existence those people lived in both physically and mentally. Although my mother was always on my case for having a messy room, I had little problem throwing away old things and was certainty not a hoarder.

At least not of anything tangible.

But, I think, we all hoard our emotions, habits, and memories - keep them around, just incase. Regardless of how terrible something makes us feel, how many friends we have lost over it, how deleterious and counterproductive it may be, it is so hard to discard something which was once a part of who we were. I know a boy who is completely aware of something he does that hurts him and the people around him. He wants to move past this thing, to forget how to do it and forget that he ever did it. But he can't. Instead, he is trying to dilute his bad habit, enough so that it will not bother others but will likely still swallow him alive. Because, like me and you and everyone else on this planet, he is a pack rat. He will keep this part of him around, just incase it proves necessary sometime up ahead. But, like the hoarders on TLC, keeping all of these unneeded and self-harming things around makes them readily available. If a past alcoholic smells wine, he will relapse. The only way to ensure sobriety is cut off contact with the source. But instead, we keep a bottle in the basement, incase we are not strong enough to move on from who we once were. Honestly, are we ever?

Venice (Villanelle)

I had a beautiful thought in my head
I dreamt of world made of heavenly glean
But it was gone when I woke from my bed

All of the darkness, the world learned to shed
Both conscience and virtues, of all were made clean
I had a beautiful thought in my head

Man put down his sword and read books instead
No need for a shield or a killing machine
But it was gone when I woke from my bed

With evil unheard and slander unsaid
No need for destruction when hate is unseen
I had a beautiful thought in my head

The coldest of hearts grew to know warming red
Creating a peaceful, lasting serene
But it was gone when I woke from my bed

And all of the best still lay up ahead
More greatness, I know, I did not yet dream
I had a beautiful thought in my head
But it was gone when I woke from my bed






My heart aches for all those involved in the Colorado shootings yesterday.

Thinking about people who did some thinking

So, as anyone who follows me on any form of social media should know, I am still in Italy. Yesterday and today I had the opportunity to emerge myself in the Italian renaissance first had, exploring museums, saloons, and plazas. As much as I was blown away by the expertise, originality, and sheer artistic ability of these great thinkers as portrayed by their sculptures and paintings, I couldn't help but consider the Renaissance from a non-biased perspective. After an hour or so of contemplation and discussion with my brother, here is what I have decided.

The Renaissance, the largest and arguably the most important revolution of ideas, was started by five guys sitting around a bar talking about ideas they stole from a civilization that lived centuries before them. Every museum I went to showed the revival of pagan ideas and expressed how these artists were so in awe of the ancient Greeks. When I heard things like this, I pictured Bernini sneaking into Athens and smuggling statues out under his toga so he could try to replicate them. I pictured Da Vinci saying to Michelangelo, "hey, man. So I've been thinking about this body I've got. You think I should draw it?" as they bonded over a couple of beers. I pictured Martin Luther and Thomas More and John Calvin gathering in Florence, having a couple too many drinks, and spitting out angry comments about their local priests as a young Des Prez sits nearby, wailing about how the music is too noisy. Now, I in know way aim to undermined the genius, importance, and veneration of the renaissance, but when I think of all of the things that a couple of saloon-bound men could accomplish, it makes me wonder what is stopping the rest of us from getting together, thinking, and starting the next great philosophical movement.


On a completely unrelated, yet equally as important note, I hope you will notice the attached picture to this post. I climbed the Spanish Steps in high heels. If that doesn't scream Girl Power, I am not sure anything would.

The things They do

They make the rules of grammar, what goes where and when it doesn't. They decided that "I" should come before "e" except when it shouldn't and that, although I may have either one cow or many cows, I always have just sheep. They know the difference between a dash and a hyphen-- in fact They invented them both. They advise us to see their sea over there, exactly that way. They are the reason my teachers are right and I, once more, am wrong.

They are always talking. They say it might rain tomorrow and that the girl who sits behind me in English has a thing for the boy who sits beside me in math. They talked, and decided that classical music will make your baby smart and that soda will rot your child's teeth and that video games will make your teenager dumb. They are undeniably right, at least that is what They tell us to believe.

They wrote the dictionary and the encyclopedias and all of the anonymous quotes that hang unattributed in doctor's waiting rooms. They made blue a boy's color and pink the daintiest of them all. They invented the paper clip and the bouncy ball and the numbered dice and once They had invented them all, they called them knick-knacks. They discovered all of the fruits and decided which ones we would eat and which ones we would grow in our gardens. When we were younger, They did a lot but as we grow older, we find new answers for the things They did.

They have done all that we have not and They have done it namelessly. And, I think, They deserve a round of applause.

My bench is older than our constitution: a silent contradiction on my first blog post

Walking around Italy is exhausting. So, like many other tourists, namely Americans, I liked to take a seat and admire the nearest fountain, statue, or cathedral from ground level. Basically, I am too lazy for this city. Specifically, I took a seat to ponder the vastness and ostentatiousness of the shrine to Julius Caesar. Caesar, I learned, was the first mortal being to be given a shrine. And let me tell you, his was fit for a god. After a few minutes of thinking about all the good he must have done to revive such a monument, I stood up, only to notice the ancient Latin inscribed on what I was using as a chair. No, I was not a disrespectful tourist; I was completely in place to be sitting where I was sitting. The thing about Rome is that EVERYTHING is outrageously spectacular so ancient artifacts get used as misshaped chairs. Countless were the times that my family and I walked right passed a building that, if in any city but Rome, would have been the center of our guided tour. I don't know if this is saddening for cities that do not stand up to Rome's elitism or marvelous for Rome itself, but it is a fact that has been following my every step. The buildings I am using for shade, the paths I am slugging across, the fences my brother stuck him garbage behind, these are things that have amazing yet overlooked stories.

In this way, Roman artifacts are a lot like people. When we read history, we read of Julius Caeser and other men who have been deemed shrine-worthy. But, how many great human stories go overlooked, just like the Latin inscriptions I used as a bench? How many silent heroes have gone unnoticed because of a simultaneous overshadowing figure? Just like these marvels in Rome, a persons greatness is relative to that of those he is surrounded with.

But, I guess, there is only so much we can take in, and some just get the short end of the stick.

Italiana: as seen from room 515

Bonjourno world! After hours of delay, I have finally arrived in beautiful Italy. We spent the day exploring Rome, which is extremely interesting when we have such a well traveled person with us like my step-father. I know the sacrifices he makes to be as experienced, multilingual, and cultured as he is and am so grateful that he shares some of those experiences with me. I have such a desire to travel the world and learn languages and this trip is a precursor to that. I will get more into how amazing Italy is soon (probably tomorrow), but for now, I would like to discuss the side effects of jet-lag.

My lack of sleep and impatience with being seated for extended periods of time has lead to extreme slap-happiness. In this picture, I fell between my step-sister's and my beds and was stuck there for half an hour. I passed the time singing Lizzie McGuire and begging my stepsister to turn on Disney Channel, a request to which she never reciprocated. Anyway, I just wedged myself out of the slot and decided to blog a picture she snapped of me because, you know, it had my feet and all. Alright, well sorry to the lack of depth to this blog post. Perhaps an hour of sleep and some well deserved gelato will revive my sanity.

Waiting to stop waiting

We are always waiting for something: waiting for the right time, the right person, waiting for answers, waiting for him to make the next move, waiting to be older, waiting for something worth waiting for. Even when we are acting on a situation, we are waiting for something else. And it makes me wonder, do we even want the things we are waiting for? If we did, why don't we just take them or go after them or do them right now? Why do we expect that something is going to change that will make a situation better or a risk more worth taking if we sit around and think about it long enough? Maybe waiting is just an excuse for not doing the things we are too afraid to do.

I just got home from a memorial service for a classmate of mine who recently lost a long-fought battle with cancer. He was an inspiration to so many people in so many ways and has taught everyone he touched something valuable about living. But he didn't get to wait for the things we are all waiting for now. He lived his entire life in 17 years and I am still waiting for mine to start. It agonizes me that I am sitting here waiting for the right time and place to do what I want to do, as if time is some sort of luxury, while his time was so limited. What gives me the right to waste so many hours that he doesn't even get to live in? I wish I could stop waiting; I wish I would hesitate less and go after the things I want. But most importantly, I wish Andrew would have had more time to wait.

We are selfish creatures yo

There was a week, about three months ago, that I like to refer to as the "Michael Renaissance". My brother called me to tell me of all the modern art he had discovered, the instrument he was learning to play, the sound-heavy music he had downloaded, the hours he had put into perfecting his handwriting, and his new found respect for British authors. The familiar silence that usually snuck its way into our conversation was replaced with his well-educated chatter about culture and rebirth. He was a new Mike that week, a Renaissance Mike. And although his enrollment in harmonica lessons and lengthy analysis on the development of soccer were shockingly impressive, nothing left a more memorable impact on me than his farewell sentence. He said to me, "Julie, can you imagine how humanizing it would be to get through an entire conversation without using the words 'I' or 'me'?"

Think about it, almost every conversation we hold revolves around something that is directly related to ourselves. I will be the first one to admit that when I am not talking about me, I am talking about my friends or my ideals or why you should read my blog. It's always about me. And it's always about you, too. I think that a lot of us try to be selfless by talking about whoever it is we are talking to. We ask "how was your day?" instead of saying "here's how my day was." But, I don't think that is what my brother was trying to say.

When was the last time you had a conversation about a worldly event? Probably yesterday. When was the last time you did it without giving your opinion on whatever happened? I don't know that I ever have. I wish I knew how to have a conversation (or even a thought for that matter) that didn't somehow relate back to myself. That famine over in Africa isn't about what my friends and I can do to help. It is about starving children and broken families and miserable lives. EVERYTHING in the world is BIGGER than what I know and the connections I can make to it. I know maybe 800 people out of the 6.5 billion people on this planet. Yet those 800 people are a part of every conversation I have. And one single human being, someone I call 'me', is unavoidably at the center of every decision I make.


A first person pronoun was used 31 times in this blog post. That is sickening.

A quick take on satire

Who you are today is just a product of the choices you made yesterday. The choices you made yesterday were simply a projection of the influence of experiences in your past. You experienced the things you did in the past because of decisions you made that put you there. You learned how to make those decisions because you watched someone make those same ones before. So, basically, if you hate yourself, blame everyone else around you. Blame the people who you watched hate themselves just as much. Blame your neighbors and parents and friends and aunts and uncles for not teaching you differently. Blame your teachers and doctors and cousins and brothers for not stopping you when you were still young.

That makes sense, right?

But if you love yourself, well, that is all your own doing. After all, you are in control of your own destiny! The world is your oyster! You somehow managed to make it through the banter of your parents and neighbors. You saw the lies in your doctors advice, knew when to disobey your teachers. Only you have control over who you are today, and honestly, you did a fucking great job.

That makes sense, right?

Worthless

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This one is not.

Yes, this picture was taken tonight- but this picture is not tonight. Not even close. This picture only shows the fire, not its warmth.This picture does not show the smile on my face or the laughter in my heart. It only shows my feet, not those of they much more interesting, much more important girls I was surrounded by. This picture does not capture the games we played, the stories we shared, the hugs we embraced, the memories we made. I'm not sure any picture could.

Even if this picture was worth a thousand words, that would still not be enough to describe the sincere respect and compassion I have for the girls I spent tonight with. One thousand words could not begin to explain how I would sacrifice anything to ensure these girls' bliss because they deserve to be the happiest group of human beings. They are poised, smart, witty, amiable and outright halarious. And this picture shows none of it.

When I think of all the things this picture does not express, I cannot help but wonder if it is worth anything at all.

There's hope!

I have two thoughts on my mind right now:

1. I absolutely love being goofy. As much as I desire to be seen as poised and respectable, I have yet to encounter a situation worth approaching in all seriousness (besides death, that shits real). Take, for example, my summer job (which is where my toes are). Today I spent about six hours of the eight hour shift laughing. Really corny jokes and goofy dance moves just get to me. Because, why the hell not? Laughing is the most amazing feeling because we can't control it. We don't have to work for it- laughter just comes. It's like blinking or sweating or sneezing. When something is funny to us, laughing reminds us that we are powerless to natural instincts. And having a natural instinct to goofiness is amazing. Even the most serious of things, like biology and anatomy, have room for fun!

2. I am so glad I am not at the Dave Mathews Band concert right now.

Remember that one time...

I was, as my grandmother would say, at my 6's and 7's tonight. (yes, it's a Friday night and I had zero plans. JUDGE ME, WORLD.) So I decided to stop my boredom induced eating and went for a bike ride. And in the most cliche way possible, I would like to call it a trip down memory lane. As I traveled down the streets in Westmont and Downers Grove, I was amazed at how many experiences I had had on those streets and how poignantly they came back to me. On Richmond, four of my friends and I threw ice cream cones in the street and watched them get run over. On Eastern, my neighbor and I peeled tree bark and left it in a pile that stayed there for months. On Wilmette, a group of my old friends and I turned cartwheels down the entire block. On Des Moins I flipped over my bike and was nearly run over by the girl riding behind me. On Quincy, I took a two hour nap underneath a tree, only to be woken up by a group of amused teenagers. It seemed like almost every street I rode down had a memory linked to it. But not all of them. On these memory-less streets, I couldn't help but think of all the strangers who did have memories on them. Could Iroquois be the sight of my dad's secretary's first kiss? Did my waiter from Egg Harbor break his knee on Irving? Even more, will I ever have memories on these streets? Or will they always just names on a post to me? Will I ever think to myself, "wow, great times on Warkwick Street". I guess, after taking that bike right, I just might.

It's funny because I drive down these streets at least once a week. But, in a car, by the time I look out the window, I have moved on to the next street. There is no time to remember when you're moving 8 miles per hour above the posted speed limit. No, there is nothing wrong with traveling by car. In fact, with heat like today's and places to be, cars are 100% necessary. I'm just saying, if you plan on taking a trip down memory lane, you better get peddling.

Why don't you stay behind

Why does the color blue have such a negative connotation? When someone is sad, why are they not pink or brown or turquoise or cyan? Why blue? When I think of things that are blue (actual blue, not metaphorical blue) I think of the sky and the sea. True, both of these things are vast and daunting to from human perspective, but not in a negative sense. Huge bodies of water provide an opportunity for adventure, a place to discover what lies at the horizon and what awaits us beyond. So too does the sky, because its blueness represents a barrier between the familiar ground and the mysterious yet exciting outer universe. Where is this link between adventure and sadness?

Perhaps the reason that the unifying factor for the two greatest archetypes of mystery has adapted to represent gloom is because people fear the unknown. We like to stay put and enjoy our routines. We wake up to a blue sky and fall asleep under the same hue, accepting its consistency with no desire to know what lies beyond it. Or, perhaps, it is just the opposite of that. Maybe we all long for the adventure that lies beyond the sea and the sky but have become so tied down with our routines to be able to venture past them. Perhaps we are all so "blue" because we are forced to accept the horizon and the sky as the end of our perception. At least, that's how I feel. The color blue does not make me "blue" but not knowing what comes after it certainly does.

Just to stretch the metaphor slightly further, I want to see the world's purple. I have seen the red and orange of the flame, the yellow of the sun, the green of the trees and, obviously, the blue. But what in nature is purple? Perhaps we can find it just beyond the blue. Perhaps past the sky and beyond the horizon, there is something new, something purple for me to discover. Not seeing purple, that is what makes me most blue.

Wake up, you sleeping!

Did the flowers stop growing?
Are we missing them bloom?
Has the wind stopped its blowing,
While we lay in this room?

Does the earth not still turn
At this hour of night?
So there's still things to learn
Still more wrongs to make right.

For the jays and the lark
And the wind and the seas
Still chirp when it's dark
Still blow in dusk's breeze

So why stop your being?
Why stop just to snooze?
Think of all you're not seeing
All the time you misuse.

So wake up, you sleeping!
Arise from your dreams!
Tell me what's keeping
You from doing your things.

Here I am

Ask me why I am starting this blog and I could not give you a justifiably respectable answer. What I can tell you about this moment right now is that I am sitting at home on my couch listening to Morphine and thinking about how cool it would be to be able to play two saxophones at one time. But then again, I wonder if Dana Colley (the sax player for morphine) ever got sick of only being "that guy who can play two saxophones at one time" and never "just that guy". When someone has a defining skill or quality, they become that one trait. This may just be me being envious of people with talent, but I really do think being a mediocre human being is more enjoyable than being elite. Because I am average (or less than that) in everything I do, I can be "that girl who wants a pet puffer fish" and "that girl who loves making jello" and "that quirky girl with the green bracelet" all in the same day. People can see me for everything I am, not just what I am best at. So, Dana Colley, I feel for you. I wish I could see you for all the other things you do other than play two saxes at once. Do you cook? Can you juggle? Are you really into 1950's 3D comic books? I wish I knew. So here I am, world. Here I am, sitting on my couch thinking about saxophones and all that I am. Here are where my toes are.