Month: September 2019

Assignment for my creative writing class, see this post for context!

Day 4, 9/26/19
Daily writing prompt: “Obsessions”

Assignment:
"Your main obsessions have power; they are what you will come back to in your writing over and over again." - Natalie Goldberg
In my experience, writers tend to manifest an obsessive quality more than people who don't write. As Goldberg says, obsessions feed writing. And writing might be a way that unusually obsessive people find to channel their obsessions into something useful and concrete. Free write about an obsession or compulsion of your own. Something you feel (or felt) you MUST do, where logic and reason didn't really play into it. Be funny like David Sedaris if you want, or treat it seriously. Take whatever tone comes naturally when writing about this obsession of yours. It can be one that you've gotten over, or one that is persistent. Or you can make something up, attribute an obsession to a fictional character, if you prefer. 

Ever since I was a little girl, I have been obsessed with music. Listening to it, talking about it, playing it. The story goes that when I was two and a half years old, my parents took me to a record store. My eyes went wide when I heard the music of Michael Jackson playing over the house speakers, and I planted myself next to his cardboard replica, refusing to leave the store until my parents bought his BAD album on cassette for me. It was my very first album. Timeline-wise, this story lines up – I was born in 1985 and MJ’s BAD was released in 1987. 

I began piano lessons when I was four years old. Another of my earliest memories is of being dropped off at a strange lady’s house for my first lesson, sitting on the piano bench with my little legs swinging far off the ground, staring down at the keys while she pointed out “Middle C” to me. 

My mom told me that I used to lay in the grass of my backyard, and sing at the sky for hours. 

As an adult, this obsession with music has continued. This passion sometimes impedes on my day to day life. Case in point, if I am trying to have a conversation with someone at a restaurant or bar that is playing music, I have to fight to concentrate on the speaker and the discussion at hand. It sometimes feels as if I must force my brain to focus on the topic of discourse, rather than on the background music. My mind naturally wants to focus on the music filtering through the venue – to identify the song, the instrumentation, the artist. My thoughts naturally want to follow the thread of notes that are winding their way into my eardrum, and get lost in the melodies and the organic thought processes that accompany them in my mind. 

Oftentimes, it feels like music is the only place where I can leave my anxiety behind. Playing my instruments and making music with others is one of the only ways I can achieve a “flow state.” I become fully immersed in music and bask in the enjoyment of being fully present in the harmonies we are creating together, rather than ruminating on worries for the future or regrets about the past.

Assignment for my creative writing class, see this post for context!

Day 3, 9/25/19
Daily writing prompt: "Observe in words"

Assignment: 
Observation notebook (ideally daily) - this journal is a place to write down concrete things: images (things you see), lines and other sounds overheard, smells you notice, sounds, tactile sensations (what you feel), not abstractions (even if the concrete things you write down hold abstract feelings for you). You don't need to know why these observations matter, or even if they matter. It's a scrapbook for sensory observations. A sensory catch-all. Why? Well, we observe the world through our senses. And when we write, we communicate our experience of the world by finding the words to convey those sensory experiences. Also, the things you notice and find the words for probably are things that bring out feelings in you. There's a reason you notice them, even if you may not realize that reason when you notice them. In these notebooks, you will learn to observe in language. Later, when you’re looking for things to write about, I will invite you to mine these notebooks. They should be absolutely full of things that you can use .

What I did:

• Woke up, stared at my phone
• Made tea and muesli for breakfast
• Vacuumed and cleaned the house
• Practiced dance routine
• Ate lunch
• Walked to bus stop, hopped on the bus
• Took BART to the city
• Walked from Embarcadero to meet my friend Angela
• Took 38R together to Japan Town
• Scrub and oil massage at Korean Spa
• Udon dinner

What I saw:

• A tiny bright yellow bird hopping through the branches of the tree outside my kitchen window.
• A very stout pit bull with adorable wrinkles adorning his flanks.
• The kind and smiling face of the Korean Ajumma gazing directly at me as she very lovingly and gently dried my face, asking me if I am ok.
• A startlingly gorgeous gradient sky over Japantown, deep violet blending into a rose pink blending into saffron orange.

What I heard:

• HOA landscapers raking the leaves outside, the steady scratch against the concrete.
• Birds chirping and trucks braking as they navigate down the narrow street.
• Lively conversations in spanish under the window.
• Buckets of water being thrown, one after another.
• Multiple hairdryers blowing a cacophony of hot air.
• A comforting undercurrent of Korean grandmas chattering away.

What I smelled:

• The morning breeze tinged with the scent of diesel fuel and exhaust.
• The grape scented aloe gel that was smeared all over my face.
• The acrid scent of San Francisco’s financial district on an unnaturally warm day: a mix of hot asphalt, shit and piss, food carts, perfume, sweat-soaked synthetic fibers, and entitlement.

Assignment for my creative writing class, see this post for context!

Day 2, 9/24/19
Daily writing prompt: “Two lies and a truth”

Assignment: 
3 stories - 2 fiction, 1 non-fiction. Have fun writing these stories with lots of vivid details. Try to transport us there so that each paragraph feels true, and we have a hard time guessing which is the real one.

Story 1:

I’ve only had one celebrity encounter. My good friend George and I flew down to Southern California for a visit to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Before our day at the theme park began, we went to grab brunch from a Yelp-recommended restaurant. I don’t recall the name. We stood out in the bright Los Angeles sunshine waiting for our table, I remember the glare was so bright that I had to squint my eyes. I didn’t have my sunglasses on me because they didn’t go with my outfit. Being the nerd I am, I was wearing my handmade Hogwarts student uniform, proudly showcasing my Ravenclaw colors in preparation for the Harry Potter festivities later that day. 

While blocking my eyes from the intense golden light, I felt someone’s cold arm brush against me while they pushed past me to get to the hostess. She was a brunette woman, of slight frame, wearing enormous bug-like sunglasses (I was jealous that her eyes bore such effective protection) and Lululemon yoga pants. She looked a little damp, the fine hair around her face was beaded with sweat. I assumed she had just come from a pilates class. The rest of the brunch crowd was twittering, the rustle of their whispers rising up around me. I didn’t quite catch on right away. 

This tiny woman cast her gaze around, surveying the crowd and doing the mental calculus of determining if the wait was worth her while. Flinging her ponytail to the wind, she called out to her dining companion, “It’s too crowded, there won’t be any patio seats available, let’s try somewhere else!” And they were off in a cloud of expensive perfume. My brain was piecing something together, and it finally clicked. I turned to George, “Wait, was that – ?” and a woman next to me continued “PATRICIA HEATON! From Everybody Loves Raymond! Right?! Yep! I am pretty sure!” 

Story 2:

I remember the day my baby sister was born. At least, I think I do. They say that memories are malleable, that it’s nearly impossible for us to decipher which of our memories are real, and which are stories we’ve been told and have then adopted for ourselves, stitching them seamlessly into our minds eye. 

I was in my favorite pink romper. I liked it because it was super soft, but more importantly, it was festooned with bunnies. It was fall by then, and there was a crispness to the air. The wind had some bite to it when it blew past my ears. My aunt June had tried to get me to put on a coat before I went outside because it wasn’t really romper weather anymore, but I had refused, squirmed so much that she gave up. I was crouched in the grass, which was half brown by this time, yellowing in time with the changing of the leaves. I was on a mission to search for bugs. For what reason, I couldn’t tell you.

 I remember concentrating on each patch of grass with intense scrutiny, my little toddler fingers spreading deliberately between the green and brown blades. The New Mexico sunshine, which normally blazes bright and hot regardless of season, was muted that day due to the gray clouds that hovered on the horizon. This made finding the bugs more challenging, but I was already stubborn at that age. My aunt June called out to me, “Jessica! Come inside! We have someone for you to meet!” I looked up towards the house, my gaze shifting reluctantly from the myopic view of the ground. I saw that my mom was home, and she was standing in the doorway of our back deck, carrying a squirming bundle in her arms.

Story 3:

I have interviewed for many jobs at this point in my adult life, but one experience comes to mind. It was for my first job out of law school. I graduated earlier that year in June, and spent the summer studying for the bar exam. I needed to find a job while I waited to get the exam results, and I was sorely in need of cash. I was kind of desperate. Since I couldn’t get a job as an attorney until I received my license, I turned to a temp agency to find a job that could tide me over until then. The temp agency had sent me on an interview with a financial consulting firm in San Francisco, they needed a receptionist who could man the front desk, answer the phone and direct phone calls, and order lunch. 

I arrived at the imposing concrete skyscraper on California street, and took the ear-popping escalator ride up to the 34th floor. I was wearing one of my cheap suits that I had purchased from H&M for one of my many past law school internships/clerkships. I remember that the lining material was scratchy, and that it left the tops of my bare shoulders (I was wearing a sleeveless blouse underneath the suit jacket) red and irritated. I tried to ignore my discomfort, and pasted what I hoped was a confident smile on my face. 

A man who introduced himself as Steve met me at the front desk. He was tall, imposing, and his hand was so large that it enveloped mine almost completely when he extended it for a hand-shake. He dressed casually in khakis and a button down, but I could tell that his outfit was rich in a low-key way. His watch gleamed, his shoes had nary a scuff, and I was willing to bet his belt cost more than all of my cheap suits in my closet combined. He asked me a steady stream of questions, where I went to school, why I was looking for a temporary job. His hand rubbed his jawline, which was covered in second day stubble. I found the sandpaper scraping sound to be annoying, but tried to act nonplussed as I answered his questions in what I hoped was an enthusiastic and cheerful manner. 

I really needed this job, my student loan money had run out, and I had to take out an additional private loan to float me while I was studying for the bar. Unfortunately, that revenue stream had also dwindled away to almost nothing. I got distracted, trying to figure out if I had the money to both pay my rent AND my electric bill that month, when I realized that Steve was looking at me expectantly. “Wha-what? I mean, pardon?” I stammered, realizing that he had asked me a question which I clearly had missed. “Does that sound ok, I said? Can you start Monday, 9 AM?” Steve asked, looking slightly bemused. I heaved a sigh of relief, “Yes, I definitely can do that, thank you for the opportunity!” I replied. Thank god, I thought to myself. I was gonna be ok. 

Assignment for my creative writing class, see this post for context!

09/23/19, Day 1
Daily writing prompt: “The one ironclad rule is that I…”

Assignment: 
From this prompt, write for 20 minutes (or longer), don’t put the pen down. Can be fiction, non-fiction, or hybrid.

The one ironclad rule is that I pursue intrinsic joy and motivation. For too long, I have done things because I felt that I “should” do them. I should go to law school. I should be a lawyer. Or, conversely, I have avoided doing things because I “shouldn’t” do them. I shouldn’t quit my job which makes me deeply unhappy, because I worked so hard to get to where I am, and because I have the privilege of having a good paying job with good benefits, and so many people would kill to have this privilege. I shouldn’t try a pole dancing class, because it’s “slutty” and people would judge me and stare down their nose at me. So many of my decisions in life have been dictated by what society says is right. 

Motivation came from outside of myself, from extrinsic sources that promised that happiness and fulfillment would come if only I followed the “right” formula – do A followed by B, then C, and before you know it BAM here comes joy. Get a doctorate degree, press your nose to the grindstone in your career, “prove your worth” and don’t take vacations because you can’t afford to slip up or relax, don’t you want to be successful? Following the formula did lead to “success” – in the societal definition, but I wasn’t happy. Is anyone happy when they make decisions that are dictated for them? I pondered the same question that the venerable Brene Brown presented: “Are we ‘should-ing’ all over ourselves?” 

Over the last few years, I have slowly decided to not follow this formula. I have decided to look inside myself to find direction, to tap into that internal compass inside me which quietly points me in the right direction. Not the “right” direction that comes from what society dictates is the norm, and what we “should” want in life. But the direction that comes from within, that says, “Hey yeah, try this thing you’ve always been curious about, sure it sounds a little crazy/weird, but doesn’t it also sound truly and purely fun?” It’s tapping into this “gut” sense, and determining what intrinsically motivates me, which has helped me to shift my perspective. If something sparks curiosity inside me, if an idea triggers excitement and wonder? That’s a good sign. 

Furthermore, if a topic or idea comes up and my “gut” responds with a “meh” or fatigue, even if intellectually the idea “makes sense” or “has value” – I will proceed with caution, or perhaps not proceed at all. 

I try to distinguish between this “gut excitement” vs “gut malaise.” Because this difference determines when my intrinsic compass is pointing toward true north and joy.