blogleahinwriting-blog

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A Plan

I plan because I was unplanned.  Not planning is irresponsible, but I am not irresponsible. So I plan.

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Thoughts 8/19/16

Since I’ve been in Brooklyn, I’ve consciously experienced my white privilege and was also able to hear Black people express their lack of.  Today in my team, we looked at a picture of a typical country/American lifestyle, a man with a gun shooting a bird on in a field with his dog.   Our team leader spoke up and said because she is black she feels she will never fit into the perceived image or ideals of an “American”  Thus wanting to identify as American but feeling as if she just doesn’t fit the mold.  I was fortunate to become educated in a classroom about racial inequality and white privilege.  Yet moving to Brooklyn and working at City Year has immersed me in racial inequality first time, it has allowed me to connect emotions and feelings that I couldn’t have before.  It has allowed me to develop personal relationships with people who feel personally outcasted, deal with discrimination, inequality, and gentrification on a daily basis.  Sometimes, I feel like it's my fault.  Like I am a young white woman moving into this Hispanic neighborhood, slowly degrading the culture that is left surrounding me.  I feel that I am allowed to go into the supermarket with my backpack on while my roommate is not because I am white and she isn’t.  I do not want to help, I do not want to be a savior.  The students I will be working with don’t need saving and aren’t defect or a problem.  We are both the solution.  They need someone to understand them, to create a safe place for them, to listen and to help them succeed.  I don’t know how to come into a school where poverty, discrimination, and failure has trickled down through generations creating a pool of disfunction.  I am not there to fix it.  I am there to listen and understand it.  I am there to assist in making this world a better place for everyone.  

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Subway

The smell of nicotine and caffeine

Waft through the cart

Doused in too strong cologne

They sit side by side

With no words to be said, just places to go

[blogleahinwriting-blog]

Brooklyn, NY 2016

86.7 Miles

From New Paltz to Bushwick

86.7 Miles to Spanish speaking families on the streets

To young men who call out as I pass them by

To bodegas

To gentrification

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Trump and Brexit: 2016

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Enjoying the Unenjoyable

I love taking hot yoga don’t get me wrong, but usually half way through class I am cursing at myself and wondering why I choose to endure such torture.  Today something clicked in my head, when the instructor said, “this moment will never happen again.”  I realized how content I was to be in that moment and no longer found myself counting down the minutes until the end of class, allowing me to be fully present and have one of the best classes ever.  I find at work as well, that when I stop thinking about it being over and accept that this is where I am now in this moment, it turns into pure enjoyment.  The idea of patience and long term gratification are important.  Without patience we are constantly looking forward or towards the next thing we have planned or the next best thing and are never actually living in the present moment.  

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What is Happiness (Well-being)

So I’ve always thought about what the key to happiness and well being is.  Was it money, balance, love?  After taking a positive psychology course at SUNY New Paltz, I was better able to form my own educated opinion on what well-being and happiness is to me.  There are so many components, but what I do want to point out is that happiness is not objectified or obtainable, it is ever changing from moment to moment.  Well-being and happiness to me is just that.  It is progress, setting goals, change, freshness, surprises, trying something new.  People who fall into a mindless routine become stagnant.  They lose their awareness of the beauty of the people, places and things that surround them.  By allowing yourself to become mindless, you stunt your ability for progress, growth, thought, thus limiting your ability to experience life.  Notice the little things, switch up the route you take to work, compliment people when you think something nice about them.  Change is scary and uncomfortable, but your ability to set goals for yourself outside of your comfort zone and watch the progression that takes place to who, where, what you want to be, are key to consistently living a life of happiness and well-being.

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5 Sentences

I tug on the rickety door, dislodging it with a groan from the wooden doorframe, I’ve been in this cabin a million times, but this time it’s empty.

The dark, damp, musk overwhelms unfurled sheets upon my bed.  Beneath the dust, the walls are decorated by years past, “Meredith slept here 2005” it says in black Sharpie marker.  

Bunk beds that were once monkey bars and secret forts now lie vacant and untouched, pining for summer to arrive once more.  Only but a day ago, the walls were infused and alive with laughter and love, now vacant and only containing forgotten Sharpie memories.

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What am I really but a piece of biology?

A replication of two sets of genes split through meiosis to form me.

I am not anything less than

DNA guided like a GPS

To program everything from my skin cells to the color of my hair

And I struggle to understand what is in there

That makes me who I am as compared to who you are

I reach far, but in reality I’m standing in a vat of tar.

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Someone Else’s Paradise

Here I am

Stuck in someone else’s paradise

I am encased in a bubble of crunch and liberalism

Beautiful scenery and fall foliage

Endless miles of trails to explore

Is it wrong of me to want to leave?

What else is out there?

I want to see.

Here I go.

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Wallflower

I hung in her house on the wall,

brought into this world from oil paint on canvas.

He created me, then sold me.

She bought me,

and put me on display for the world to see.

Oh, how I felt special!

Everyone fawned over my magnificence.

Until,

She took me off that wall

and put me in the attic,

With the other forgottens.

Now I grow old with each new layer of dust.  

And my colors fade away.

I hope someone will want me again, someday.

[blogleahinwriting-blog]

Cancer

Yesterday, I had just gotten out of the shower and noticed a large brown mark on the bottom of my foot.  immediately, I thought of the worst.  Melanoma cancer.  I should have put more sunscreen on, I shouldn't have gone tanning, omg what do I do?  I abruptly made a dermatologist appointment to get it checked out as it continued to sit in my mind as I went about my day.  I started thinking about cancer.  More or less the worrisome of what could be causing cancer-should I stop falling asleep with my laptop next to me?  What does carrying my phone around with me all day really do? Should I wear more sunscreen? Should I stop microwaving my food?  Should I stop getting gel manicures? etc.  Then I started thinking about what I would do if I had cancer.  I started thinking about my bucket list, run a half marathon, swim with dolphins, eat a waffle in Belgium, get kissed under the eiffel tower, sell a painting.  The list goes on.  While I often feel invincible, shit happens.  A lot of people get cancer.  I witnessed the effects of my mom’s horrid freak rode bike accident.  No one is immune to injury or sickness, not even the most prominent rock in your life, not even yourself.  I also always think about why certain people die early or get sick and others don’t.  Is there some type of cosmic karma or a system of rewards and punishments.  Doesn’t seem likely,  The universe takes it’s course and we are merely a long for the ride.  To what extent do people try to bend the laws of nature to prolong a life that is only here for a short period of time on this earth.  It is so hard to think beyond ourselves, to get out of our “monkey mind”.  It’s frankly unnatural to not be obsessed with our survival and reproduction.  Our genes sole purpose is to perpetuate themselves!  Our body will do anything to survive, both physically and mentally.  

Cancer doesn’t think about the person.  Cancer is like our genes, it wants to survive and reproduce in a very similar way to human beings.  It is a very interesting epidemic in our country, something yet to be taken down by all of our technological advances in the year 2016.  

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Reasons to Write

As I was in the midst of chaos that was cleaning out my apartment to make the deadline of my June 1st lease being up, I stumbled upon a small cheaply made notebook on the floor of my hall closet.  I had purchased it in the airport on my way home from my trip to Costa Rica last summer.  As I started to read my diary like logs of each day, suddenly memories and intricate details flooded into my mind.  Oh yes, his name was Tim.  Oh yes, that tree we climbed was called the strangler tree.  Oh yes, we stayed at Ranchos Tinamu.  Many events came back into my mind-looking at frogs at night, putting Lizano sauce on everything.  Then I remembered the emotions.  The kindness of each new face we passed, the unspoken communication when there was a language barrier.  The struggle of hiking with giant packs in the pouring rain, yet the ecstasy of arriving to our home for the night.  The laughter and relaxation of the beach.  The fear of being pulled over by Costa Rican transportation police.  The sincere bonding and appreciation for something greater than myself that I acquired and built upon during my time with Outward Bound.  

Writing makes things real.  It creates something subjective and solid out of all the intricate, tangled, intwined thoughts that swirl around my mind.

Writing has been amended and modified by time.  Technology has made writing less necessary than it used to be, especially hand written, grammatically correct writing.  I feel that many people don’t benefit from the ability they have to write down their thoughts and communicate through writing.  Writing does not need to be poetic, or grammatically correct, or coherent.

So here we go, this is my writing.