I exist and there is really nothing to it
I exist and that's a fact
I know I take up space
With my curvy Black body
My kinky hair, my smushed up nose
And I know you turn and look around
At the new girl taking up space
And you know what
I am fine with that
Taking up space is fine
I belong here on this planet Earth
Thanks very much.
It's not elementary school, my dear Watson
I can sit wherever I damn well please.
I can sit with the cool kids regardless
Of whether you think I'm cool or not
So with that, Tommy, can I have your
applesauce?
Our society has grown to be more accepting
And yet everyone has their demons they fight
School bullies fight them every day
And every day they keep losing out to the inner demons
Who are the real bullies
Psychology can mess us up.
So I'm going to stop watching the news
And embrace my Black womanhood.
While aware that plenty of women like me
Feel this way.
Feel that they take up space.
When I dance around the room
That simple chic studio
When I sashay in my worn pink flats
When I curve my body to the sweeping sounds
Of Tchaikovsky's Sugar Plum Fairy
I don't see many ballerinas who look like me
But I am fine with that
Because what matters is that I show up for
the work
I take up space
So get used to it.
Success is fleeting
It is but a dream
A mystery shrouded in gossamer
One minute you're bussing tables
Laden with dirty dishes and pathetic pennies for tips
The next thing you're kicking back
In your multicolored sneakers
And dapper woolen suit
On a silver platinum leather sofa
Talking with a toothy grinned talk show host about those early server days
Laughing away like you'd never laugh again.
Success is a temporary solution
To the pain and suffering we go through
Day in and day out
We convince ourselves that everything is bigger and brighter
Cooler and shinier
Healthier and prettier
When we have a mansion, a 2,000 square foot jacuzzi, three kids
All attending private schools in the Berkshires
And a six-figure salary, complete with a kiss-my-ass CEO title to match
While we revel in our success
The planet burns slower and slower
The ozone hole getting wider and wider
Darker and scarier by the minuto
Earthquakes in Ohio shaking people's houses
Tornadoes uprooting millions of tall trees in Dallas
Wildfires ravaging Los Angeles
Meanwhile kids are dying of suicide bombings
Crying tears of anguish
As the government refuses to put down its weapons of
Mass destruction and send those same kids to school
Depriving them of a life of their own.
I don't know what my own take on success is
And I don't really want to follow society's definitions of success
I don't know if I want to be a celebrity
With paparazzi throwing themselves at me like dogs
I don't know if my core is strong enough
To take the trolls, the critics and the self-doubt
My heart aches when I think about the polar bears
Trying to survive on less than a millimeter of ice
While I travel the globe in my private 747, sipping a glass of pinot grigio
Feeling guilt but not doing anything constructive to process that guilt
When I make it to Carnegie
Will I still tense up with fear?
When I get on that gilded stage with my cello
Will I taste bile coming up from
The Charybdis of my throat?
At that moment, will I surrender my ego
To the sweet sounds of Dvorak's Cello Concerto in B minor
Or get so bogged down by the inner critic
That shouts at me to stop playing and just give up already?
Life is a learning process
Not everyone finds their passion when they're 3
Success is not a straight line
But a complicated labyrinth, a Rubik's cube that is hard to solve
A stray cow-lick that is hard to pin down no matter
How much gel or hairspray or cement you put on it.
Success has its ups and downs
It is a heart monitor, zig-zagging day after day
Minute after minute
Hour after hour
Success is what you make of it
It is like a technicolor dreamcoat
Not a black and white cookie
Success has its ups and downs
But in the end, it means not giving up
It means showing up whether you feel like it or not.
The words on this page are utter crap.
Yet I have shit to say and I'mma damn well say it.
It means, this definition of success,
Celebrating each victory, no matter how small
Going to bed feeling grateful
Even just having lived another day
Feeling appreciation for life itself
Success is what you make of it.
It's a technicolor dreamcoat, not a black and white cookie
When you make that big break, it's okay
To shed tears of joy, jump around the room in squeals
Run over the allotted speech time until the pit orchestra cuts you off
(Next award announcer please.)
And when you fall hard
Cry it out
Just get back up and go at it again
Even if you're crawling like an earthworm
Who has baked in the 100 degree heat and
Fried like a Sunny-side-up egg
Tries to make the most of even
The smallest ounce left of its life
Even if your body is trying to brandish its sword
Against the dark demons in the depths of your mind
Even if your body spears them
Even when that bitter wormwood voice shouts at you
To throw in the towel and quit on life
Keep going
Keep crawling until you get to the door
Keep crawling until you open the door just a crack
To bring in the sunlight
And ward away the black
Even when you are screaming a blood curdling cry
At your body
Crawling, screaming, pleading at your limp noodle body
To go just one more day without taking those pills
Without putting that blade to those wrists
Without knotting that rope
To fight the demons that feast upon your limp noodle body
Day after day
Night after night
Hour after hour
Year after year
Minute after minute
Second after second
If you crawled even just an inch
Congrats you have made it
But there's no endpoint
Keep crawling
And trust me, success will feel like dining at a five-star restaurant
Success means continuing to drive
Even when your engine keeps sputtering and retching empty fumes
Success means different things for different people
Success is success
And it's what you make of it.
It all started out with an email
I was missing you.
You were missing me.
We were missing each other
When I was around you
I felt so free
Like I was racing through the sky on Cloud 9
You live in the city of dreams
The concrete jungle
I remember my visit there in the summer of 2017
It felt like i had taken a fresh breath of air
The yellow taxis, the Times Square
The green lady statue standing alone in the middle of the sea
It was just so free to be me
In the big apple city
Months passed without word from each other
I wanted to give you time
But my heart ached and ached
With a pain worse than I have ever felt in my life
I imagined us having children, being your wife
It was a beautiful fantasy of life
In my future
And it gnawed on me like a 6,000 year old beast
Dripping black blood each time it bit into the flesh of my lonely heart
With its long ancient yellowed teeth
This fantasy savored the delicacy of my emotions
Smiled each time it took a savory bite
It salted them, sautéed them, enjoyed them in a sweet and sour sauce
But we're in a pandemic and i don't want you to get sick
Just in case i am asymptomatic
I also don't know where you rest on the social distancing rules
And yet when i wake up
The song of you
The paean of my passion for you
Plays perpetually in my mind
And all time
Is gone
As i think and think and think of you
Finally i can take it no longer
I book a ticket
To come to see you in the wilderness
Of skyscrapers and artist dreams
On the flight i call myself stupid
For being so in love with you
For feeling all these mushy feelings
And not being able to understand
Why i am just feeling them now
After so many years of keeping them buried under the surface
The pain of not being with you throbs at me
It shakes me
Until my head is spinning
My travel is a fuck you to new social norms
I know i am rebelling against what society wants me to do (e.g. not travel)
But my head is filled with you and that's all
I can think about
My animal instincts take over
I wondered whether I could still call myself an asexual
After my sexual attraction for you grew and grew until
It suddenly and unexpectedly blossomed right before my eyes
My love for you is a monster that haunts me in the night
It came running for me, snuck under my bed
And when i got up to get a midnight snack
Of leftover chocolate cake
The beast grabbed me
And begged me to see you
Or else risk becoming its prey forever.
6:00 pm I am leaving JFK airport
With my suitcase and cello in hand
I pass the brownstones
The busy streets
The passerby wearing PPE
The ambulances racing past with covid patients
And my mind races back again to
You are stupid
Why the fuck are you doing this
You could have waited
You could have said no
You weren't ready for children yet
You were too young to know what love is
Besides you're asexual
You're not supposed to fall in love
My mind fights back
With all sorts of sassy responses
As i watch the riveting rain fall on the window panes
Of the taxi.
The rain falls like the tears falling from my heart
By feelings of homesickness for you
I walk up the brownstone
Pay the driver
I knock on the door
You open
And i kiss you
Wide mouthed
Without any common sense or regard for social distancing
What the hell am i thinking? i ask myself.
I scream this question in my head
As you settle into the kiss
Lock your lips with mine
Your grizzly brown stubble grazes my smooth brown cheek
And your tongue plays mind games inside my mouth
You lace your right hand around the back of my head
And lace your life hand around my waist
Your arm settles on the seat of my derriere
And your hand navigates its way around the left and right of my ass
You sigh with pleasure
"This feels good"
I feel you tip toe back
Tip toe
tip
toe
tip
toe
Til the lighting gets darker
And we now wrestle
Like lovesick canines
With each other's hair
Each other's bodies
I feel a gentle tugging of my shirt
My hands gently lift your woolen sweater
We take turns being gracious to one another
Oxytocin breathes a sigh of relief
And lets it all hang out like a brickhouse
As we enjoy the release of the oxytocin
And cling our naked bodies to each other
Your body heat a blanket warmer than your woolen sweater
Our eyes close
Our lips stay locked
I feel a sudden painful lump in my throat
A lump i cannot swallow
It is a boulder lying in my esophagus
That won’t budge unless i release all of the emotional pent-up pain i feel
At having been gone from you for so long
A fresh stream of hot tears falls down my face
And my body heaves with the muscle spasms
And rise and fall of my lungs
As they struggle to breathe
Suffocating under the raging river of tears
Bitter pain
I feel your callused thumb brush away the tears with a whisper
You slowly release your lips from mine
“It’s ok”
I let myself continue to let it all out
Eyes blocking out anything but memories of long distance love
Thought to have been too little and too late
I cannot see you at the moment
Because i wrap myself, snuggle in the barbed wire blanket of
My pain.
The sound of my sobbing silences itself
As we bask in the quiet intimacy of our chemistry
With one another
-I am sorry
-for what?
-for not getting the signs
-What signs
-that you loved me
-i didn’t want you to love me until you were ready
I look away
And sit in silence
My head lolls
My eyes close
We fall asleep together
Intertwined like two ivy vines
On a college tower
Is this what I am feeling true love?
You looking at me up and down like I was a whole dessert
A slice of black forest cake
You wanted to eat out
Me looking at you
With flutterflies in my stomach
As I played my cello
My heart sang a song of you
And danced that night in the bliss of the intimate concert hall
Not knowing why I couldn't finish
My breakfast in the morning
My fork gliding through the archipelagos
Of fresh scrambled tofu in a sea of ketchup
The tongs unable to make their way to my mouth
Love was a 36-week-old fetus
Taking up space in my belly that morning
Breathing all the air out of my lungs
Heartbeat beating faster than my own
The second I walk in the room
You give me a smile, look me up and down
"Hot damn" races through your mind.
These feelings make me so light headed
That I feel dizzy, love-sick to my stomach
I vomit all the feelings of love that remain
Jumbled in my heart
Wound up like a 1,000 year old screw.
All night i think about your last letter
You life in another city
Love took reign
And reigned Bey-Supreme
Over my heart
I practically wrote a novel
In response to you
And as my pen raced across the pages
Shitting trails of black ink on the way to the finish line
My heart sang, "O happy day"
Louder than any angels ever sang.
My heart raced at presto speed
A galloping horse
And I found myself drowning in the
Quicksand of love
As i lay in my bed sleeping
My eyes open
Pondering
I wonder: is this love or a mere fantasy
I conjured from our past interactions
You stole my heart
Then mentioned your love
My heart sighed in relief
Feeling happiness for you and your love
I later got my own
during a hot night of chai and chatter in
The land of saris and samosas.
I am cool.
You are cool.
We are friends
But can we ever rekindle that magic spark
That night
When your eyes caressed my breast, hips, thighs, dark brown eyes?
When i sat alone in my dorm in the beautiful April
Self-harm scars faded from a fall semester
Of self-hate and suicidal ideations
I wrote of fantasies, dreams, imaginations
Of you kissing my taut dark-skinned belly
Caressing it every time our unborn child
Communicated his existence with kicks and punches
You coo softly to my stomach, whispering words of love and hope
To a biracial child
Soon to awaken in a world
Where the first Indian-Black-Female VP runs the
White House with a leader who also
Fights for justice and respect for the dignity of life.
We lock lips and have a beautiful conversation
A conversation that transforms so delicately
Into a nonverbal dialogue
Of intimacy
Physical attraction
Sensual pleasures.
You get a handful of my chocolate cakes
And you're in heaven
You taste dark-milk-honey-caramel chocolate
As you nibble my lips
You wipe away my salted caramel tears
And nibble on my Duncan Hines ears
"Mmmmmmmm," you whisper as if you were
Speaking into an ASMR microphone.
Then I imagine everything that might go wrong
Stillborn, umbilical cord wrapped around the neck
A new mother and father's lived nightmare
Fights in the kitchen end up with bruises and black eyes
Broken dishes strewn around the room
Our son standing there, watching, observing
Wondering why his parents
Yell words filled with acid at each other instead of words filled with love
A chance encounter with the pretty
Brunette standing behind you in the grocery
Store line
Becomes a one-night stand
Back at her studio apartment
And a white, fair-skinned, straight-haired baby that got achance at life
That our son did not.
A flirtation with another guy I just met
At a company party
Becomes a one night stand with me
You watching the clock to no avail
waiting for me to come home
So we can put the kiddo to bed.
Or both of us simply get tired of each other.
Those memories of being infatuated are thin air.
You get back with your ex
Get married, have kids, retire
Nice life
While I'm nursing the memories of my unbridled passion
Swaddling the crying, pooping, smelly, ga-ga-ing
Mess of love
The burden of betrayal
Is this love permanent?
Or just a thing of the past?
Honestly, I tried to take notes during this film, but this film reminds me of A Ghost Story in the sense that you miss a lot of important details if you take notes during the film. When I just put my pencil down and quit taking notes on every detail like I do for a lot of movies, I was able to appreciate the silences and the dialogues so much more, and just as I did at the end of A Ghost Story I found myself in a river of tears, wiping away snot from my face and sniffling these melodramatic sobs. If you haven’t seen A Ghost Story, it’s a film about how a young woman (Rooney Mara) must grapple with the death of her husband (Casey Affleck) after he passes away in a car accident, and how her husband, as a ghost, grapples with how his death has impacted his wife. The film doesn’t have a ton of actiony stimuli so for me I really liked this film since I don’t like films with tons of blood or frenetic action (unless it’s a chosen few Marvel and DC films. Or Get Out.) It did require me to sit and reflect rather than write too much during the film about the plot because the film’s power relies on its silences and these silences force us to grapple with our own memories of loved ones we might have lost.
To be honest, I’ve been wanting to see Paterson for a really long time, ever since it came out. But I didn’t know if I’d like it. Then I saw Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 96 percent rating, and then I knew I’d be missing out if I hadn’t seen it. Although if you’ve seen Adam Driver’s other films (The Rise of Skywalker, While We’re Young, Frances Ha, What If, BlacKkKlansman, The Last Jedi) this is a very different role than I was used to seeing him in. His roles usually involve a lot of dialogue; this role he didn’t say much, and spoke mostly through facial expressions and eyes.
Although there is not a ton of dialogue in Paterson, that’s what makes it so powerful. Paterson, the main character (also the name of city where he resides) is an introspective quiet person, and listens in on the conversations that people have on the bus he drives every day. He is also a good listener when other people are talking to him; his coworker, Donny, who always makes sure he is ready to get the bus going, opens up to him about his problems at home and Paterson, without making any kind of judgment beforehand, listens with the utmost attention to Donny. He also listens when his wife talks to him. He reminded me a lot of Richard Loving in the film Loving. Of course, the storyline for that film is different and took place during a different time, but Paterson and Richard are both introverted men who, even though they do kind things for people, wish to not be in the spotlight. Honestly, I found myself relating to Paterson in that sense; I’m an introvert and tend to like listening and writing rather than talking a lot. Paterson is also polite; he always thanks his wife for dinner and for treating him to the movies. People have told me I say “thank you” a lot (I even got pulled into a counselor’s office for being too polite to other people. I guess she thought I would become a pushover or something, which I did become, but have since learned to balance with assertiveness), so when Paterson thanked his wife for dinner in one scene and treated her to the movies to celebrate her making money from her bake sale, I couldn’t help but feel like I found a kindred soul in Paterson.
I also found myself relating to Paterson because he loves writing. Although I do not write poetry as frequently as he does, I love writing in general and also have finished some poems for a poem I book I plan to publish at some point. In the film Laura, Paterson’s wife, reminds him that he needs to make copies of his poems and publish them someday, but he never gets around to it. When his dog rips up his notebook when they are out and about, Paterson dismisses it, saying that they were just a bunch of words that didn’t mean much. However, his wife, disagrees, and tells him she wishes he kept some of the poems. I’m the same way. After I read my poems for my poetry book I couldn’t help but cringe because I’m a tough critic on myself, and I even felt I couldn’t write poetry. But I don’t think many poets or writers or really any artist in general have ever felt that their work is the best from the get-go. In real life, Adam Driver has said that he is uncomfortable watching himself onscreen and walked out of an NPRinterview with Terry Gross because they played a clip of him singing in his recent film Marriage Story. Maybe I would have walked out on an interview if people played a clip of me performing my music, maybe I wouldn’t have, but at any rate I could kind of relate to Adam and Paterson’s feelings towards their own work. People say it’s helpful as a musician to go back and listen to yourself play, and sometimes I have done that, but when I hear myself play I always sound either really out of tune or choppy or look bored, angry, constipated, or a mixture of all three when I play, even though I’m trying to show my passion for the music. Maybe if I stop listening to my insecure ego so much I can listen to recordings of myself with less judgment, but then again even the most successful people who are awesome at what they do don’t enjoy looking at their work when they are finished, mostly because the process of making the finished product is draining and when you’re finished with the product you don’t even want to deal with it anymore. Some actors have said on the contrary, they enjoy the process of making the product; they just don’t watch it when finished. Maybe it’s just part of being an artist; few if any artists are totally satisfied with what they do. Then again, you don’t see me going back and reading these blog posts because frankly, they are long and boring to read, even to myself who wrote the darn pieces. Same with my music; I rarely go back and listen to recordings of myself because I know I can always be improving on my performance, and it just doesn’t sound like me when I go back and listen to it, more like my doppelganger or an impersonator of me. It probably comes from years of having cello instructors and orchestra teachers who pushed me to never settle and to always be improving; that in and of itself is a huge ego-buster, and I’m pretty grateful for that.
Also, I love the movie because it reminded me of a book I read called Peace, Justice, and the Poetic Mind: Conversations on the Path of Nonviolence by Stuart Rees, professor emeritus at the University of Sydney and former director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, and Daisaku Ikeda, president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) and humanist philosopher. In their dialogue, Mr. Ikeda and Dr. Rees discuss the importance of culture and education in creating a more peaceful society, and in particular, the power of poetry as a means to do so. Dr. Rees says to Mr. Ikeda that he constantly uses poetry in his lectures and talks about social justice issues because poetry isn’t just for students taking Western literature classes. Whether you’re a biochemistry major, a religious studies major, or undecided about your major, all students should be given exposure to poetry. Dr. Rees also uses poetry in his lectures because in many parts of the world, poets write about conflicts and use their work to spark a dialogue about how to resolve those conflicts and foster peaceful communities. According to author and Civil Rights activist Vincent Harding, with whom Mr. Ikeda has spoken in a book called America Will Be!, “the arts should be at the heart of an education that helps us to become more human. Poetry, especially, gives us some creative ways to think about the story of our lives. This is because poets are constantly trying to reach into the depths of our reality… Poetry can remind us that we have the capacity to create–the capacity of telling and understanding our stories.” (Quoted from page 125 of Peace, Justice and the Poetic Mind. Original source: Harding and Ikeda, America Will Be! p 209)
In the film, Paterson’s poems seem simple and unremarkable, but looking at it from a Buddhist perspective, his poetry served as a way to communicate his life story, his lived experience. Even if the sights he observed and the people he listened to seemed like everyday things, there is this precious beauty in the way that Paterson takes the ordinary and finds some way to create value from these everyday things. He also makes it a habit of writing every day, and that reminds me of President Ikeda, who wrote his serialized novel The New Human Revolution every day even if he was tired, so that he could leave a record of his travels around the world and his dialogues with world leaders and his mentor, Josei Toda. He has also published The Sun of Youth, a series of poems he wrote calling for young people to stand up against injustice and awaken to their inherent potential, or Buddhahood, in their own lives as well as help others to awaken to their inner Buddhahood, too. The poems are all incredibly beautiful, and they all champion everyday people like you and me. And people like Paterson who live ordinary lives as human beings. There is one poignant scene toward the end when Paterson is sitting on the bench with a man he just met who traveled to Paterson and is flying back to Japan the next day. They have a short but deep dialogue about their shared love for William Carlos Williams and Frank O’Hara, both American poets. Even though Paterson tells the man he is not a poet, the man gives him a blank poetry notebook, implying that because of their shared connection through poetry that Paterson has another chance to write poetry after his dog ripped up his old poetry notebook. It was this dialogue where Paterson and the gentleman saw each others’ Buddha nature, or humanity, and this interaction was a sign from the universe that Paterson needs to, hopefully, listen to his wife, write those poems and then publish them so that people can be moved by his poetry.
I remember studying poetry in high school and college English classes (and a course in Afro-American Studies) but there was a lot of analysis and dissection of the poems required for classwork and homework that I lost my love of poetry for a while. This movie reminded me that one can appreciate poetry even in a non-classroom setting. Paterson works a full-time job, but he still makes time to write. I think the key to his creating this habit is that he lives in the moment when he writes and isn’t so caught up in the perfection of the poem or how it might sound to other people. There’s this idea that one has to quit their day job in order to follow their passion so they can make the “best art,” but this film served as a beautiful, down-to-earth reminder that you don’t have to, and really shouldn’t, quit your day job in order to make art. I think a lot of films and media tend to perpetuate this idea, like the film La La Land. Mia thinks she needs to quit her day job in order to make more time for her acting career, but in reality she works hard at staging a play and no one attends it, so she has to move back home because she’s broke and cannot pay her bills without a job. I, too, once thought I needed to quit my various day jobs in order to be a full-time musician, but turns out a lot of artists, such as Paterson, have some sort of day job because, like, #people out here gotta pay bills and eat (7/28/21: and as time goes on, I also realize that it’s not just about paying bills. Day jobs give you new sets of useful skills that can be used in any creative field you pursue.) Paterson’s poems are actually quite beautiful because they are inspired by his everyday experiences: him waking up next to his wife, him riding through the city every day, him sitting outside in nature. He just takes this everyday and runs with it in his writing. Also, he reads other writers, so that helps with his creative process.
I think because he has this appreciation for the everyday and the written word he was able to appreciate the small moments, such as when he encounters a man rapping a spoken word while waiting for his clothes to finish washing and drying at the laundromat. When Paterson asks him if the laundromat is his laboratory for his poetry creation, the man tells him wherever inspiration strikes is where he is going to create the lyrics. This spoke to me because as I said earlier, the only time I was really encouraged to study poetry was in the classroom, but too often we don’t think of song lyrics as constituting poetry, but after watching this movie, I appreciate rap as a form of poetry now. In an old article I read about the evolution of rap (I think it was National Geographic’s 2005 issue on Africa) and it has its roots in West African traditions. Griots in West African traditions play a variety of roles: storyteller, poet, historian, musician, and they communicate narratives through their voices, and so this tradition has continued today in rap music.
Before watching the film I barely knew anything about Paterson, New Jersey, other than when I read a Wikipedia article on it that was linked to the Wikipedia page on the film Paterson. The film helped me appreciate the city more, and while of course it wasn’t overtly a documentary about the city, Paterson drives past and discusses many sites with the people he encounters. He and Doc, the owner of the bar Paterson frequents, talk about famous people who lived in Paterson, such as the comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, and the rapper Fetty Wap. It says a lot that Paterson is able to take in his surroundings, and part of the reason I think he is able to do this is because he doesn’t have a phone in which he can bury his eyes and not make eye contact with anyone or anything. After Doc’s wife comes into the bar and yells at Doc for using the money she needed to get her hair done for his niece’s wedding, Doc pulls out his smartphone and starts looking at it. When Paterson asks Doc if he is okay, Doc asks him point-blank why he still doesn’t have a cell phone. Paterson tells him he lives just fine without one, and when Doc asks if his wife also doesn’t have a cell phone, Paterson says that on the contrary, she has a phone, a tablet and other gadgets but she’s fine with him not using a cell phone. What I like about this film is that it weighs the pros and cons of Paterson choosing to not have a cell phone. The con is that when his bus breaks down toward the middle of the film, he doesn’t have a cell phone to call the transit authorities right away to get a new bus (but one of the passengers, a young girl, lets him use her cell phone to call the transit authorities after he says he doesn’t have a phone.) Doc and Laura (Paterson’s wife) tell him that the bus could have exploded and why he should have gotten a cell phone so he could communicate that the bus broke down without making anyone wait on him. Also, if he had his own cell phone he could have called or texted Laura to tell her about the bus breaking down and that he would probably be coming home late.
However, the pro is that Paterson is one of the few people who doesn’t sit and look down at his phone during a conversation, which many people do nowadays because the people who designed our phones meant for them to be a distraction in our daily lives. Like Paterson, I didn’t have a cell phone for a long time, and by the time I got my flip phone everyone else was using smartphones. In middle school I didn’t have a cell phone so I always called using the landline school phone that sat on my English teacher’s desk. Even when I used my flip phone it didn’t have the tools or apps that my smartphone has: now I can sit for hours on that thing and not look up at anyone or anything, which I why I try not to look at it all the time even during this time when we can’t go outside and technology is the only thing we can use to stay connected with one another. It’s why I got a little sappy and teary-eyed during the film because while I appreciate the use of technology during this time, I miss being able to have physical face-to-face conversations with others just as Paterson did in the movie. I did notice one moment where Paterson gave the guy at the laundromat an elbow bump to say his farewells; this is telling because the CDC encouraged us to give each other elbow bumps instead of hugging or shaking hands with people.
But bottom line is, it might be hard for Paterson to live without a cell phone nowadays because technology is the only way we can communicate to our friends without going outside, or even if we are going outside, it’s hard to communicate nowadays without a smartphone because there’s so much rapid information and it’s hard to keep up with it if one doesn’t have a phone, especially since now tech companies are doing coronavirus tracing through cell phones to track the virus. But even that has its downsides, namely because these companies are collecting all your information even though it may help slow the spread of coronavirus, and if you don’t want your personal info collected, then you’re toast. Also, there are still places in the U.S. with limited access to Internet and I don’t want to assume that everyone has a texting plan or even has a smartphone. Yes, most people do, but I am sure out of all the people on the planet, there are still folks without a cell phone or internet. Then again, the little girl wouldn’t have been able to give Paterson her cell phone to use because if she did, they wouldn’t be observing social distancing rules. In that case, he’d probably be in trouble and the new bus wouldn’t have come in time.
This film also really made me think about why it’s so important to express appreciation for bus drivers, delivery staff, hotel staff and other people who work in blue-collar jobs. There are still a lot of people who cannot afford to work from home because their jobs do not allow them to do that, and for those of us who get to stay at home, knowing this is all the more important. Recently, Jason Hargrove, a bus driver in Detroit, died from complications of Covid-19, but before his death he released a video on Facebook talking about how dangerous it is for transit employees like him to be driving people during this time because people on the buses cough and sneeze without covering their mouths and thus expose the drivers to coronavirus. He’s not alone: many bus drivers have contracted Covid-19, and the numbers only keep growing as people on buses and other modes of transportation refuse to take social distancing rules seriously and assume their cough or sneeze won’t get drivers sick. I know Paterson probably didn’t want thanks for what he did because he seemed to like his job, but I’m sure a lot of folks today would express appreciation for transit employees like him because their job is so risky now with the spread of COVID-19.
Overall, I really loved this film. Like I said, it brought tears to my eyes by the end (also because the music was incredibly sweet) and still has me thinking about the importance of poetry and appreciation of the everyday.
What kind of world am I going to live in a year from now?
What kind of world do I want?
In 2030, do I want melted polar ice caps
To see skeletons of polar bears, penguins and sea lions
That the rising temperatures murdered long ago?
Do I want dying coral reefs
And extinct species?
I know I can't do justice through a poem
But at least I'm getting my voice heard.
I may not be the loudest with my voice
But I am the loudest with my pen
And I speak truth to power
With my written words.
I want to live in a future
Where greed, anger and foolishness
Don't get in the way of people's happiness
I want to live in a future
Where flora and fauna can coexist with humans
And everyone recognizes the interdependence
Of everyone and everything on this earth?
Every time I eat outside during my lunch break
I hear beauty all around me
Even the insects seem beautiful even though
They talk a lot, rather too close to my ears.
The trees speak amongst themselves
As I munch on my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and cookie
I hear the birds chirping merrily amongst themselves
And the lively squirrels chasing each other up trees
Even if climate change were to never happen
The planet is our rented apartment
It is a mortgage that we don't own
We have to pay back our debts every month
Or else we fall behind on our credit
And go into even worse debts
We still need to take care of our home
Even if climate change never existed.
And sadly, I can't do more than I can do now.
I eat vegan, I turn off the lights, I try to take shorter showers
But I still eat fruit bars wrapped in material that I can't compost
I drive my car everywhere
I am writing this blog on a computer, which uses electricity, which produces
greenhouse gases
And I always have my phone on
But what has helped me on my journey
As one of seven billion renters of planet Earth
Is awareness.
Awareness that I can make a difference
Awareness of the different issues going on.
Awareness of how important these issues are and why they matter
Awareness of efforts that people are already making
Awareness of how corporations can sometimes do good, and then sometimes do
bad by sending misinformation.
Awareness of differing perspectives on the issue
And awareness that global warming is a fact and not an opinion at this point
Ignorance can no longer be bliss
I have to know the truth
So I can continue my survival
In this apartment I am renting
Each day I must express appreciation
From the bottom of my heart
To my gracious landlord, Earth, who
Allowed me to stay even when I had (and still have)
Debts to pay.
I just finished this amazing dialogue between Soka Gakkai International president Daisaku Ikeda and Stuart Rees, who is the former director of the Sydney Peace Foundation and professor emeritus at the University of Sydney. This dialogue was published just last year and we need dialogues like it more than ever.
I needed to read this dialogue because there is so much happening in the world. The trade war between the U.S. and China, Britain threatening to leave the E.U. and recent mass shootings, as well as the damage that has been done to the planet and is just getting worse. But then I read Peace, Justice and the Poetic Mind, and I can honestly say how empowered I feel to be part of a movement to foster a more just and peaceful society. What I love about this dialogue is that Professor Rees and President Ikeda go deeper than the surface-level definition of peace, which usually means no more war. Because, as Ikeda and Rees agree upon, the discussion around peace and justice is more complicated than just stopping wars. It involves bringing peace and justice studies into our schools’ curriculums, finding ways to take care of the planet and giving voices to marginalized individuals. They also emphasize in the dialogue the need for more discussion around the history of settler colonial countries such as the United States, Canada and Australia, where Indigenous populations faced genocide and greed at the hands of white European settlers. Climate justice should involve Indigenous voices because this was their land first. Indigenous communities still face a ton of injustice today at the hands of the state, and while the communities of persons have fought so hard and so long for their sovereignty to the land’s resources, and while individuals in the U.S. and Canadian and Australian governments have spoken out against this injustice, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.
That is the thing, I guess, about social justice. You have to keep talking about it. It’s not something you talk about and then all the problems of the world are gone. And more people are aware of this reality. In Nichiren Buddhism, if you want to understand what is happening in the present, you need to look at the past, and in order to understand what will happen in the future, you need to look at the present. Individuals create karma throughout their lives, and so this collective karma that we have with settler colonialism, global warming, the trade war, gun violence, injustice against immigrants and poverty, is because certain individuals created the cause of abusing their power and after many years, the effects have shown themselves in ugly ways. Which is why art is so important. It’s why I painted a picture of an elephant and a polar bear standing on melting polar ice caps and sweating while the sun, which has a hole in its ozone layer, beats down on them. I was angry with the status quo and wanted to do something about it, and watching how Greta Thunberg fought hard to address climate change showed me that even as an introverted person, I can still speak up about these issues through creative means. Rees, in the dialogue, says that “artists break down the walls of habitual practice and promote visions of world citizenship. In this way, they touch the hearts and minds of so many people.” (p. 59 of Peace, Justice and the Poetic Mind) As an artist, I need to speak out. And as a human, I need to be willing to have the tough conversations. I need to also use my art and my pen to create art that will move the human spirit, inspire a dialogue about the tough stuff.
Peace, Justice and the Poetic Mind: Conversations on the Path of Nonviolence. Stuart Rees and Daisaku Ikeda. 2018. 218 pp.
The Arts Are Life 