Day, shift

How do you describe what it feels like to rejoin society, to reconstruct what was formerly habit into routine into lifestyle? At times I feel like I haven't left the conventional daytime work hours at all, but at the same time - so much has happened in this past year that it's impossible to discount the memories.

It's kinda like this. Wandering through unfamiliar terrain in the pitch dark is terrifying when you can't identify what's around you. Your brain panics and it feels as though your imagination will run wild for miles into a million different directions. And you're literally just stuck.

It's hard to even tentatively move any which way because you don't know what the rules of this place that you occupy are - what if living in that space defies some law of physics? What do you reach toward when you're without direction?

Having an odd schedule, I often felt a mild variation of that. Working on a different timetable from the rest of the world was like being in the dark, with barely recognizable figures, reaching out into pitch black spaces. It's difficult to gauge where you are relative to everything, get a sense of rank or placement, when you are bound to one spot.

A starting point.

From there on, however, wherever you move to, it'd still be uncertain. But at least you'd know that it was okay to move. It didn't matter which way, but you could...MOVE.

This past year, whether of my own volition or because it really was the case, I've felt caught. Stuck. Immobile. And frustrated because I questioned whether I was the one who was creating and contributing to my own mental block without realizing it.

The thing is, if you can define the root of a problem as either internal or external, you can do something about it. But if you balance on the precipice of "it's you, not me," then you don't know the rules. And then you don't know how to react.

People say to react to how you feel. I say it's more important to feel how you act.

Really feel it.

Absorb all the consequences of what it means and why you did it and what will propel you to do it again.

This past year has truly been unlike anything I have ever been through before. I was at times lonely, frustrated, self-conscious, prideful, stubborn, jealous, possessive. I think I saw myself at some pretty low points, but I also think that forced me to venture out and feel my way back toward a semblance of a self-created path.

And though I'm treading lightly, at least I'm moving.

How bout them directions?

Just last year, a few weeks into my new schedule at the time, I wrote about how it felt to be living in opposition to the mainstream, to have my own bubble of New York life. And rereading it now, the sentences still ring true.

Solitude will be my best learning tool.

It's easy to get lost in New York City. But last night/this morning, as I glanced over my shoulder at bedroom lights flickering on in high rises as I crossed the bridge, people starting the day just as I was about to end it, I felt found. Their dawn is my dusk. My reality is only, really, in my head. And I was very much aware that I was coming home -- on my own terms.

Here's to personal realities, and redefining them over and over again.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Profrock, revisited.

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats 5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go 35
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— 40
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare 45
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all— 55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 60
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress 65
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while, 90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— 95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while, 100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . . 110
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use, 115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old … 120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me. 125

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

She (For Liz) by Parachute

Something about this song is so appealing and so ... 90s.

The Ego of Journalism

Are true artists those who forgo ego altogether and just seek to inspire and influence other people's ways of thinking or is that just too idealistic, as art is at its essence tied to that person's self? The beauty of art and writing and any form of creative expression is not just that it exists, but that its creation is so intricately tied up with its creator's point of view.

What do you lose by giving up claims on your own work?

Being a journalist in this day and age is a constant uphill battle, and I don't say this in a "woe is me" sort of way, though I know it can come off as such. Rather, it's a time when ego and aggregate and production are all amorphous terms trying to describe this network formerly known as the news.

Part of creativity, admittedly, is ego, the ability to claim your work as your own without being too proud or pretentious, to demand a byline while still understanding that that's not the point at the end of the day.

But isn't this the debate that's raging on in corner offices all throughout the city? How do you keep up with the business-side demands of an industry that runs on timeliness, competition and "winning" while still producing quality content that people are willing to pay for? What's obvious, and what's annoying to said executives, is that quality takes time. Taste takes time.

If you want instant, quick-fixes, you have Twitter. You have typos. You have news feeds. You have questionable sources and shoddy reporting. You get email interviews, not in-person, shoe-leather investigations.

The ease with which everyone is able to find information and regurgitate it for all to see these days makes journalism a lesser-regarded form of art, and I think this is just so unfortunate. When people make off-handed comments about how "anyone" with a computer, an Internet connection and two thoughts in their head can become a journalist, I'm pretty insulted.

The truth is, the days when journalists only knew how to write and report and edit are over. Storytelling isn't so much the focus any more so much as it is a certain kind of afterthought, or so it feels like sometimes. Nowadays, being a journalist is more about competition, hits and clicks, the number of papers sold each morning. It's about "winning" but not in the classical way - it's not so much who's the best, who has the most depth, as it is just the most mentions, retweets, page views - numbers that are the driving force behind the industry, but also, really arbitrary.

What is quality journalism? And can the craft survive in a world that is quickly rendering it a trade?