Tag: writing

What books do I want to read?

Bloganuary writing prompt
What books do you want to read?
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Right now I am trying to finish a couple of books, one being Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and the other being Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. I haven’t made much progress but I am determined to finish them. I haven’t finished Bleak House by Charles Dickens but I may need to start over because I don’t really remember the plot very well. There are also some books by an author named Daisaku Ikeda where he has dialogues with different global figures, so I want to get around to reading those as well. There are still a lot of books I want to explore and read that have been sitting on my shelf unread. I have mostly been watching a lot of movies and TV shows, so my book reading has been taking a back seat. I have mostly been doing a lot of Buddhist study, so I have been reading The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin a lot each day (it’s a book of letters that a Buddhist reformer named Nichiren Daishonin wrote to his followers during the 1200s.) I also want to read Emma because I checked out the film from the library but I love reading the book before seeing the movie, but I might just watch the movie even if I haven’t read the book yet because it’s due back to the library soon.

Movie Review: You Hurt My Feelings and Some Personal Thoughts about Failure, Criticism and Self-Worth

Yesterday I watched a movie called You Hurt My Feelings. I really love movies distributed by a film company called A24, and I really loved the trailer, so I was excited to watch this movie. I haven’t seen much of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s other work, to be honest, except for a sketch she did on Inside Amy Schumer called “Last Fuckable Day.” If you haven’t seen that sketch, by the way, it is absolutely hilarious and calls out a lot of ageism and sexism in Hollywood.

You Hurt My Feelings is about an author named Beth who is also a creative writing professor. Her husband, Don, is a therapist who struggles to connect with his patients, and her son, Eliot, works at a weed shop and is having a hard time moving forward in life. He is a writer like his mom but doesn’t believe in his work. Beth has a sister named Sarah who is an interior designer and volunteers with her at a local church by giving away clothing, and Sarah is married to Mark, a struggling actor. Beth is working on a novel and has written several drafts of her manuscript, and she is rightfully proud of herself, and her husband seems to think that her story is good. And on the surface, she is happy in her marriage with Don and they celebrate their anniversary on a happy note. She is encouraging to her students and celebrates their ideas for stories even if they don’t seem that great. But things go downhill when Beth meets with a publisher and the publisher tells her that her manuscript wasn’t that great, and this crushes Beth’s self-esteem. And the ultimate blow for Beth is when she and Sarah are out and about and they run into Mark and Don talking at a department store. Beth overhears Don telling Mark that he doesn’t actually like Beth’s novel, and she runs out of the store in a panic, feeling betrayed that Don lied to her face about liking her book. Sarah tries to calm Beth down, but Beth’s life and marriage is already shattered. The movie shows how Beth tries to regain her self-worth after finding out her husband, whose opinion she valued so highly, doesn’t actually like her book.

The movie shows how difficult it can be to give one’s honest opinion about something because you are worried about hurting the other person, but it can hurt worse when you lie about liking someone’s work and not give them your honest opinion from the get-go. The film explores how rejection and failure impact how the characters see themselves in relation to their work and careers. Mark is in a store with Don and someone approaches him and says he recognized Mark from this movie where he played a pumpkin. Mark is ecstatic that he got recognized for something, but when he asks the guy if he can take a selfie with him, the guy hesitates and they declines, leaving Mark feeling dejected. Mark reveals to Sarah one day that he is uncertain about why he is pursuing acting, and he realizes that he did it because he wanted to become famous. She encourages him to do it because he loves it, not because it brings him fame. I resonated with this because when I first started auditioning for professional orchestras and pursuing a music career, I had this idea that I was going to become famous and make a lot of money and that everyone was going to respect me. But I think as I dug deeper into my Buddhist practice, I saw over time how I based so much of my self-worth on having this prestigious career, so I had to take a step back and really ask myself why I wanted a career in music. I still love to play my cello, but I am realizing that whether I have a prestigious career in music or not, it doesn’t determine my worth as a human being. When I based my self-worth on my success as a musician, I think it became really hard to handle stuff like rejection and disappointment, and over time I had to understand that rejection, disappointment and failure are a part of any career, and that the important thing was to not give up on myself. I think that is why I love reading the Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda’s works because he reminds me that my life is a treasure and that I have inherent worth regardless of whether I am facing success or failure in life. It is still a daily struggle to believe in my worth, but as I continue this journey of awakening to my self-worth, I have become a much stronger person, and I am able to encourage other people who struggle with low self-worth.

The movie also reminded me of another film I saw called The Wife with Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. In the movie, they play a couple named Joan and Joe Castleman who are excited because Joe won the Nobel Prize in Literature. However, as the movie progresses, it is clear that there is a rather sinister backstory to Joe’s success as a writer, namely that his wife wrote most of his work and he didn’t give her credit for it. Joe is not a great character, and he basks in praise while his wife is just seen as, well, his wife. Their son, David, wants to become a writer, too, but when he asks his dad if he read his story, Joe hedges and doesn’t want to share his honest opinion about David’s story. It’s not until they meet at a bar that Joe shares his honest criticism about David’s story, but David wants to hear that he did a good job, not that the story was bad, and he gets angry with his father for not telling him that he did a good job. Joan encourages David because she believes that everyone needs validation, but Joe says that getting external validation won’t help David grow in his writing career, so he is hard on him. This leaves David feeling terrible about himself throughout the movie. In You Hurt My Feelings, after Beth finds out that Don didn’t like her book, she goes through each page of the manuscript saying “Shit for brains” over and over. The novel is based on her childhood and dealing with a lot of verbal abuse from her father, and in real life, Beth’s father would call her “Shit for brains” and “stupid” her whole life, so this made her feel very poorly about herself. Don told Beth for years that he loved her work, especially because she wrote about twenty drafts of the manuscript, but to hear that he actually didn’t like it, after years of lying to her and telling her that he did so that he wouldn’t hurt her feelings, took a blow to her self-worth as a writer.

This reminded me of a scene in The Wife when Joan is having a flashback to her 20s, when she was a student at Smith College in the 1950s and she fell in love with Joe, who was a married professor with kids. Joe has an affair with Joan and loses his job (and also his wife, who divorces him) and they are happy together at first. Joan is an aspiring writer and seeks advice from a famous female writer named Elaine Mozell. Joan thinks Elaine is going to tell her “Yeah, girl, go for your dreams! The sky’s the limit.” But Elaine gives her pessimistic advice on having a career as an author, telling her that her works, like Elaine’s, will end up on shelves unread because it was a male-dominated field where female authors often didn’t get their works recognized or published, so Joan is better off not pursuing a writing career so that she doesn’t have to deal with disappointment or rejection. Joan sees firsthand how rejection can really take a blow to someone’s self-esteem, in this case her husband’s. Joe has Joan read her manuscript, and even though he asks for her feedback, she tells him her honest opinion, that she doesn’t think it is that good. That is not the feedback he wants to hear. He wants her to validate that he is a good writer because he cannot handle the rejection that comes with it, and he gets angry and threatens to divorce her if she doesn’t tell him that he is a great writer. He projects so many of his deepest insecurities onto her at that moment, telling her that if he doesn’t make it as a writer, he is going to have to go back to being a professor at a “second rate college” and making brisket (at first I rolled my eyes and was like, Oh boo-hoo, but then I had to remember that this was the 1950s and women still had to follow these societal expectations that they would stay home and let the men become successful in their careers while they held onto their unfulfilled dreams.)

Honestly, as much as I loathed Joe’s character and how he treated his wife and his son and crushed every last ounce of their writing dreams so that he could fulfill his, I somehow could relate to his struggle with self-worth and this idea that your career defines your worth as a human being and that if you fail or fuck up, it means you are a failure for the rest of your life and you will never recover. I remember when I worked really hard for this one audition for a symphony orchestra, and when I got on the list of substitute cellists, I felt my ego take a boost. But then my sister and dad asked me to do chores, and I had to get off my high horse for a while, and that somehow made me mad, so I lashed out at them and threatened to kill myself (I was a real nut.) I continued to define my worth by having this prestigious career for years after that. I worked at Starbucks and thought that working there instead of playing for the symphony meant that I had failed, and so I felt really ashamed going into these classical music circles and academic circles and telling people I worked at Starbucks because I thought they would see me as less than. I would tell people at work that I was going to be this successful musician and then I auditioned for another professional orchestra, but I got rejected and I just broke down crying. I think holding onto these unrealistic ideas about success and inflated self-worth made it hard for me to do my best where I was, because I was always thinking, When I quit food service, when I get this music career, when I play with these famous musicians, then I will finally feel like I made it and I will finally feel good about myself and I will finally feel worthy. I felt like every time I faced rejection or disappointment, it took a blow to my self-worth and so I constantly vacillated about whether or not I could make it as a musician. There was one time I went to a professor’s house to audition for a spot in his advanced chamber music ensemble, and I was so nervous because I really wanted this person to like me. I wanted him to think highly of me, so I tried to avoid talking about how I was paying off my student loans and working at Starbucks. But I honestly couldn’t B.S. anything. At the end of the day, I was just me and I couldn’t meet this man’s expectations no matter how much I tried to put on airs or be someone I wasn’t. I just wasn’t at the skill level he wanted me to be at, and this really made it hard for me to feel good about myself. But after I chanted about it for a while (key word: a while. It wasn’t overnight) I realized I needed to stop worrying about being rejected by this guy and focus on my efforts to pay off my student loans and do my best work at Starbucks. I also had to appreciate that I was with a really good music teacher and he and I worked very well, and he helped me do a lot of inner transformation, or human revolution, in overcoming my arrogance. I really thought I was hot shit as a musician, but that is because my ego was so huge. I realized that I didn’t need to think less of myself, I just had to change the way I thought about this career. When I actually met with professional musicians, I began to realize that this career wasn’t just about me-me-me. I would still need to learn to work with others and acknowledge that there will always be people with more credentials than me, and that is an opportunity to learn from people. It took a really long time to get to that realization, though, because I had to do a lot of human revolution, or inner transformation, where I developed greater self-worth and started to focus on doing my best and making sincere efforts rather than solely focusing on winning the audition.

It is still a challenge for me to take criticism and feedback well, to be honest. An I think that is why You Hurt My Feelings resonated with me so much because it showed me that it can be really hard to face honest criticism from those closest to us. I still find myself getting defensive or upset when I receive negative feedback, or when I don’t get a response after sending in a job application. No matter how politely the rejection email is worded, the rejection still stings, but then it’s like I have to keep reminding myself to use the rejection as an opportunity to improve and get better. And I really resonated with Beth’s struggle with self-esteem. I grew up with supportive people in my life and I think I felt pretty comfortable in my skin, but then I went to a new school and I really struggled with low self-esteem because I struggled academically, and this was new to me because people always praised me as this smart kid. But my self-esteem took a real hit when they chose some of the smart kids for a Gifted and Talented program, and I wasn’t selected, and it really hurt. It’s silly to be thirty and still thinking about that stuff. It’s like, Get over it, that was twenty years ago! But at that point in my life I really suffered from low self-confidence. I often wrote in my notebook that I was stupid, that I was ugly, that I was worthless, that no one liked me. And the reality is, no one was calling me these things. But I often said those negative things about myself because I wanted people to tell me, No, no, that’s not true. You’re smart, you’re capable. It’s because I didn’t believe those things myself, so I was constantly wanting the people around me to affirm that I was worthy and beautiful and smart. Of course, wanting validation is totally normal and human, but when I started doing a lot of inner work on myself, I realized that it’s important to develop my own confidence. That was the hardest to do for so many years because I wanted people to affirm that I was enough because I didn’t want to believe myself that I was enough. I had really supportive family growing up, so I’m sure it was painful for them to hear me say these awful things about myself because they never called me stupid, ugly or weird. Looking back I also remember being around a lot of kids who also had low self-esteem even though they were talented and smart, but at the time it seemed that everyone else had it together on the surface. This perception of my environment carried on into middle school, high school, college and even after college, and it is still something I have to remind myself is just my perception. Because we are all human and we all struggle with something.

Movie Review: Little Women

I had heard about the remake of Little Women for quite some time, but I had not gotten around to seeing it. It was made in 2019 and was directed by Greta Gerwig. I love some of Gerwig’s other films such as Lady Bird and Frances Ha. I found both of these films quite relatable because Lady Bird (played by Saoirse Ronan) is a fierce independent teenager who wants to leave her hometown of Sacramento, California. She wants to be taken seriously, and she has dreams of going to college on the East Coast, but her family cannot afford the tuition. She wants to have sex but her mother doesn’t want her to grow up too quickly. I cannot relate to the sex part but I definitely remember wanting to get out of my hometown when I was in my senior year of high school, so I ended up applying to colleges that were far away from my hometown. However, I got really homesick during my first year because I had this idea about college being this time to just be independent, and it was but it was challenging because it was a new environment and I was away from my family. I also kind of related to Frances, because even though I didn’t have a situation where I was living in New York City and struggling to pay rent (which is what Frances is struggling to do) I really am struggling to figure out my purpose in life. Frances is figuring out her purpose in life and it’s tough, but along the way she learns so much about herself.

I haven’t read Little Women before to be honest. I read many other books in high school but Little Women wasn’t one of the books on the curriculum. I do know it’s a must-read classic though, and so many people I know have read the book, so I found a copy at my local library. I was able to follow the movie though pretty well. I really related to Jo March, who is one of the sisters in the movie, because she is independent, opinionated and wants to be a writer. While her sisters are strong and independent like her, they also want to get married and have families, but Jo doesn’t really want to get married or have a family yet. She wants to focus on her writing career, but she struggles to feel as if her writing is good enough. There is one scene where she is with her friend, Friedrich, and he reads a draft for a novel she is writing and tells her that he doesn’t like her writing and doesn’t think it will sell. She ends their friendship because of what he said and from there on, she struggles to have confidence in her writing. Even when people tell her she is a good writer, she struggles to think so. There is one powerful scene where Jo and her sister, Beth, are sitting at the beach and Beth asks Jo about her writing. Jo dismisses it and says she isn’t working on anything and doesn’t want to write because she doesn’t think anyone will care. Beth tells her to write a story for her, and when Beth passes away, Jo is inspired to take up her writing again. I thought it was beautiful when she takes one of her journals and props it up on her desk and starts writing all of these pages for her novel. She stays up until the wee hours working on this novel and she finally submits it to a publisher. The publisher is reluctant at first when he reads about the character in the book because he thinks readers aren’t going to like that the character defies a lot of the societal expectations such as getting married and falling in love, and Jo also has to negotiate the royalties and how much of a cut she will receive for publishing the book.

It kind of reminds me of Begin Again, because Gretta produces her first album, but she doesn’t know much about how the music industry works. She works on the album with Dan, who is a record executive struggling in his career, and they visit the record label he works for, and Dan’s business partner Saul explains to her about record sales and how much musicians make from selling the records after they are distributed. Even though she makes negotiations with Saul about getting a share of the sales and getting Dan his job back, the reality is that the label wouldn’t give her a lot of freedom that she has being an independent artist. She saw how Dave, her ex-boyfriend, became commercially successful but he went on tour a lot and got lonely and success changed him, especially when he reveals to Gretta that he had an affair with his production assistant, Mim, while away for business. Instead of releasing the album, Gretta decides to distribute it online for $1, and it ends up being a huge hit with people.

After watching Jo spend a lot of time working on her writing, I feel encouraged to keep writing. I have struggled with writer’s block, perfectionism, feeling like my writing isn’t good enough unless it is in a certain voice or style, but seeing Jo triumph in her struggle to follow her own path in life encouraged me a lot. This movie showed me that it’s important to follow your own path and your own dreams, whatever happens or how much people around you change. Meg later on in life tells Jo she is getting married and wants to start a family, and Jo breaks down and cries because she thought Meg wanted to be a successful actress, so she tries to convince Meg that she doesn’t have to marry and can instead become the successful actress she always wanted to be. But Meg tells her that even though their dreams are different from each other, it doesn’t mean her dreams of starting a family and getting married are less important. I am at this stage in my life where I am figuring things out, like whether to get married, have kids, go to graduate school, live on my own, when to retire, what kind of career I should have. And I’ve learned you are going to hear a lot of different opinions about what you should do. Some people will support your career path, like Jo’s sisters and mom supported her writing ambitions. And others won’t. But seeing Jo navigate those ups and downs while remaining true to herself inspired me a lot. I realized I can’t be happy for others if I’m not happy for myself. I would see on social media photos of my friends’ weddings, their newborn babies and toddlers, their graduate school acceptance posts, and I would think, “I’m happy for you” but then I would wonder “Am I behind?” I would go to friends’ baby showers and weddings and at first I was happy with my dreams of playing at Carnegie Hall and moving to New York City, but a couple of years ago I started to feel lonely and wondered whether I should do these things, like getting married and having children, so that I wouldn’t feel far behind in life. I understand now that plenty of women have great careers and also manage to have families and get married, and they understand that love doesn’t need to overshadow all other things in life, but honestly it’s hard to feel happy for others when you are unhappy. I think that’s what I love about Buddhism, is because it encourages me to not limit myself to only a few dreams but to dream big. Dreams can be marrying, raising kids, having a successful career, retiring well, becoming happy. I often chant now to have a successful life because I want to think about the long term. Thinking in the short term only made me miserable because I was only focused on my own needs in the here and now without thinking about what I wanted in the future.

Timothee Chalamet’s character, Laurie, was interesting. He kept falling in love with Jo and then he also fell in love with Amy. Amy though was already happily engaged to a wealthy man, but Laurie, drunk at a party one time, digs on her for marrying into wealth, embarrassing Amy in front of her fiancée, Fred Vaughn. Amy is also an incredible artist, but like Jo, she struggles with rejection and feeling like her work is good enough. Laurie tells her to not marry Fred and Amy feels incredibly disrespected that he would tell her that, and to not speak to her again. However, they reunite and they get married and have a family together. I think this was a very difficult moment for Jo because earlier in the movie Jo and Laurie are dancing together and acting silly, and they are really great friends. But when it comes to having a more serious relationship, Jo turns him down and says that if they marry, neither of them will be happy in the marriage. Laurie tells Jo he has loved her all this time, but Jo tells him she can’t marry him. Laurie is hurt and tells her she is going to want to marry one day. Then, later, Jo is feeling lonely and confesses to her mom that while she is happy for her sisters moving out and getting married, she feels lonely and that she wants love but doesn’t want to do it out of a need to fulfill society’s expectations of women. Her mom asks her if she genuinely loves Laurie and Jo finds it hard to make up her mind about whether she loves him. She decides to mail Laurie a letter declaring her love for him and that she changed her mind, but when they meet he accidentally lets it slip that Amy is his wife now. Jo is pained because she thought Laurie would still be available for her and wait on her to change her mind, but by then it is too late because Laurie’s priority is finding a partner and because Jo wasn’t ready he moved on. Laurie asks if they can still be friends, and while Jo says yes, I felt so much pain for her. Someone had fallen in love with me in college and I wasn’t interested in being in any relationships but I missed the signs, but because my feelings for this person were so on-and-off I didn’t know how much I loved him until a couple of years ago when we reconnected. I thought he was still available, but by the time I did he informed me he was with someone else. I think I mainly did this out of loneliness and I also struggled with low self-worth at the time. I think I just had the idea of this person in my head and wanted to relive those sweet moments of attraction we shared even though I never really acted on it, but I learned that people change and I had also changed. I had come out of a relationship a few years ago and it was sad but I eventually moved on. Part of me wonders if I want to date because everyone else is, or because I genuinely want to find someone to be with. Although I was encouraged that Jo ended up reuniting with Friedrich, who she had an amazing relationship with, because Friedrich wanted to follow Jo in her dreams and respected her independence. I am hopeful that whether I end up with the guy of my dreams or not, I can still respect my life and continue following my own path in life.

It’s really cool that Timothee and Saoirse got to work on this movie together again because they got to work together in Lady Bird. In Lady Bird Timothee plays a guy named Kyle, who is rich and is the main attraction of Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan). Lady Bird experiences similar heartbreak to Jo because she and Kyle sleep together and when they are cuddling up, Lady Bird assumes he lost his virginity to her, but then he looks at her funny and admits he didn’t lose his virginity to her and has had sex with women many times in the past. Lady Bird is disappointed and crushed that this fact killed the magical moment of them having sex, especially because it’s her first time having sex, but Kyle tells her that she is going to have so much un-special sex in her life. Lady Bird cries and I felt for her because it seemed that Kyle didn’t actually want to get to know her or respect her as a person, and that he just only wanted her for sex.

I want to write more about the movie, but I am still figuring more of my thoughts out. But I definitely recommend you watch it because it’s a really beautiful film.

On Leave, Chapter 11

I opened my email. I wanted to know if they had an orchestra I could join while I worked as a barista. I got a Facebook message from Sharon. It popped up on the side of my computer, on the bottom right hand side.

Hey, girl, I just wanted to check in one you. How are you doing? I really miss you. Call me sometime, okay?

I looked at my phone. I dialed Sharon.

The phone rang a few times, then I heard, “Hello?”

“Sharon, hey, it’s me, Natalie.”

“Hey Nat! Can I call you back in a bit? I’m heading over to Professor Blumenkorpf’s office hours. I got an F on my–puff–last—puff–essay exam, and I need help distinguishing between all the chord progressions. The class is hell without my bestie there to support me.”

“Yeah, sure. Okay…well, have fun at office…”

I trailed off because she hung up before I could even say “hours.” I flopped on the bed. Why couldn’t I just go back to school after this stupid medical leave was finished? Wait, would it ever be finished? What if I ended up at 30, still making lattes and letting my cello rust and wither until the bow hair exploded from lack of use?

I eyed my lonely cello. My lonely companion, so lonely without me. I heard myself singing the song “Lonely” by Akon in my head as I looked at the sleek curvy case. She was beautiful and she was mine. She was the one friend through which I could communicate my innermost thoughts, and yet I was throwing a pity party for myself.

I vented aloud to her.

“Why can’t I just go back to school? Why are Mom and Dad putting me under this life sentence called medical leave? All I did was drink some gin, it was no big deal. This is punishment, I tell you, punishment. And work today–it freaking sucked. We made thirty drinks in less than fifteen minutes and my coworker shouted at me. My life sucks.”

The cello listened intently. It was such a good listener.

But it called to me. It called to me to play on it, so I struggled to lug my lazy depressed self off the bed and play some tunes. I placed my bow on the string. The cello was getting caked with rosin and I needed to get it cleaned, but I didn’t really have the money to do so. Well, I thought, at least I have a job where I can make enough money to pay a visit to the local luthier once in a while. I started with a C major scale, bowing the string close to the bridge so it produced a beautiful resonant sound. I envisioned myself performing the C major scale for everyone in Carnegie Hall, where, after I returned to school and received my diploma, I would perform the Saint-Saens Cello Concerto in A minor for everyone to hear. I then played some random notes. A, C, F sharp, G sharp, back to A, E flat, F double sharp…before I knew it, I was improvising.

Then I took out my blue book. The Cello Suites by Benjamin Britten. I remember struggling through them during my first semester of conservatory. They are truly a delightful challenge to practice and perform. I bowed the notes with an astounding grace befitting to that of a queen. I didn’t feel depressed when I played. I felt like I was on top of the world. I continued to play.

“Natalie! Come help me put up the dishes.”

I groaned. My idealism, my dreams, shattered by a mother’s shrill voice, telling me to put up the dishes. But I walked down the stairs and went over to help her. I really couldn’t afford to be a brat. After all, Mom and Dad were letting me move back in with them so I could get myself together. I had already scared them by getting alcohol poisoning.

I had my headphones in. I heard muffled talking as I put up the hot and steamy dishes. And I felt a sharp yank as my mother grabbed my headphones, letting them dangle in the air as I looked at her with a face of embarrassment.

“I said how was work, and you pretended not to hear me,” she snapped.

“Oh, it was good, I guess,” I shrugged. I didn’t really want to talk about it.

“Oh, I see how it is. You can talk to your friends about anything and everything, you have this illustrious career ahead of you in music and everything fine arts. And yet you can’t just stop acting like a brat and have a single heart-to-heart conversation with me while we do the dishes.”

And with that, she left the room, trying not to let me see her cry. I know I let Mom down easily, but this must have been the final straw for her.

I looked sadly, put away my headphones and my phone. I was going to put up the dishes in silence. No music, no TV, no nothing. I was going to reflect on how bad of a daughter I was to my mom, how stupid I was to not talk to her or treat her like a human being.

On Leave, Chapter 7: The Shift

Today was the day. It was my interview with the cafe I just spent time at two weeks ago. I figured out what to wear, then remembered the barista behind the counter saying to war a regular T-shirt and some jeans. So I put on my green American Apparel unisex T-shirt and my faded Gap jeans, and also my lime-green Toms Shoes.

I walked out of the apartment, down the steps, and up the street. I passed kids playing hopscotch, hopping around on those colorful squares. I passed the empty hot-dog stand that Willie, our next door neighbor, ran from approximately 11 in the morning to 6 pm in the evening. I could have used a veggie dog right now. Willie always makes them especially for me.

I passed graffitied walls. I passed Wall Street’s glimmering skyscraper building. I passed dozens of people who walked past me on their headsets, wearing their dapper business suits and leather loafers. On a day when I finally had my first job interview, today seemed like a freaking symphony, alive with all kinds of clors.

I walked into the cafe. A tall guy with tattoos was working behind the counter.

“Excuse me?”

He looked up.

“I came in a while back, and I asked this pink-haired chick who works here about setting up an interview.”

“Oh, cool, okay, yeah. I’ll tell her you’re here. Just give me a second.”

I nodded.

The pink-haired chick came from the back of the kitchen.

“Hi! What’s your name again?” she asked in her cheery way.

“Natalie.”

“Natalie! I’m Sam. Nice to meet you. Let’s have a seat at that back table.”

We walked over to the back table.

“So tell me, have you worked as a barista before?”

“No. This is my first actual job, so I haven’t worked a 9-5 or anything in food service before.”

“That’s cool. We’ll get you on-the-job training so you don’t have to do any computer programs or anything like that.”

Sweet deal.

“Do you have a history of health problems that could prevent you from carrying anything more than 30 pounds? You’ll just be carrying boxes of inventory from the truck outside to the back of the house every Wednesday.”

“No, that’s fine.”

“So the position pays $9.15 an hour, but we can get you a raise if you work hard enough at the job.”

I didn’t care. I just wanted to take this job because Abe told me to.

“That’s fine.”

“Cool. Can you start today? We could really use a hand in our kitchen.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Great! I’ll go ahead and give you your green apron and you can come in the back with me.”

I followed her to the back of the house.

An old guy towering about 6 ft 4 inches was grilling patties in the back of the kitchen.

“Oh, I have someone I want you to meet! Kapel, this is Natalie. She’s our new barista.”

“Pleased to meet you, Natalie,” Kapel said, not turning around. I figured he had to keep an eye on the burgers.

“Ok, let’s get you your apron.”

We walked over to the closet. A massive cooler sat behind it.

“So this is where we get our ice from. This is the ice we use for our iced lattes, our waters, and for chilling our evening wines and beers. This is where you will keep your bag, in this closet.”

She fished out a green apron, much like the one people at Starbucks wear.

“We’re gonna put you at point of sales today. It’s basically where you stand at the register and ring up people’s orders and write their names on the cups. Do you think you can do that?”

A five year old could take my job right now. So easy.

“Yeah, totally. I can do that.”

So she took me up to the front. My palms got sweaty. In the conservatory world, I could hide in the practice room and not talk to anyone. I could go into class and sit through the professor’s lecture without talking to a single soul. In this place, I couldn’t do that.

I stood at the front. Okay, not so bad, one person.

I froze. The lady stared at me blankly.

“Well, are you going to just stand there or take my order?” she smiled sarcastically.

Ouch. That hurt a lot. I hate sarcasm.

“What do you want today?”

Sam gently nudged me.

“Not “What do you want today”. Say “What can I get you?” Ask how she is doing first.”

The lady looked at us quizzically.

“Forgive us. Natalie’s our new barista and she’s training.”

My face flushed with embarrassment.

“Sorry,” I said, trying not to curl up into myself and stare at the floor. “What can I get you?”

But by then, the lady had already turned to Sam.

“She knows my order. Watch and learn, sweetie. I will have a triple mocha espresso macchiato with whipped cream, 5 Splendas and sugar-free toffee nut sauce. Oh, and with soy milk steamed to 120 degrees.”

I froze again. This lady basically had put together a drink our of Frankenstein. It was trying too hard to be both healthy and unhealthy. This drink in and of itself sounded more unhealthy than a Luther burger. For those who don’t know, the Luther burger is in an episode of a show I watch called The Boondocks. The grandfather whips up this burger made of a hamburger patty with bacon and cheese, all held together by two Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Even an artery-clogging invention like the Luther burger seemed like a fresh kale salad compared to the drink this lady got.

“Go to ‘drinks’. Go to ‘coffee’. And ring her up for a macchiato with soy milk. Add a sauce.”

I typed it all in. The total ended up being $6.99. For a fucking drink you were going to throw out when done.

“Can I get your name?” I grabbed a cup.

“Oh, you don’t need to put my name. Sam knows,” the lady said, thrusting her bejeweled leathery hand into her alligator skin purse and throwing a bunch of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters on the counter at me, as well as a five dollar bill and a one dollar bill. It seemed rude that she would just throw her money at me like I was a dog, but I guess that’s part of the job.

“Count that for me,” she demanded.

I sorted through the mess of change while she impatiently tapped her foot.

I pressed the button on the register for cash, and the register opened up to reveal a fresh assortment of compartmentalized bills and coins. I put the change in and asked her if she needed the receipt. She snatched it out of my hands and moved to where Sam was making her drink. Well that was embarrassing, I thought. Maybe I shouldn’t internalize things so much.

A cute guy wearing a waiter’s uniform walked in. He kind of looked like Simon Baker, the Australian actor with wavy blonde hair and a muscular build.

“Hey, how ya doing?” he grinned at me. Then, I saw an equally attractive woman come up to the counter and sidle up next to him, playfully kissing him on the neck. He pecked her on the lips. Crap, I thought. Beefcake is taken.

“Give me an iced coffee with almond milk and three Raw Sugars. And–what do you want, honey?” he motioned to his girlfriend.

“I’ll just have a 5 shot mochaccino with extra chocolate sauce,” she shrugged.

Damn, I thought. That’s not something to shrug about; that’s dessert! A girl slim as her would probably never gain weight drinking those every day. I bet her and Simon Baker-look-alike regularly go to the gym just to show off their tanned bodies to passerby.

“Ok,” I motioned for Sam to come and help me, but she was gone. I fumbled with the machine, and then it froze up on me. I saw one of my fellow employees sweeping up the condiment area. I motioned over to him but he had his earphones in.

“It’s cool. We’ve gotta go and sit down. Can you give us these drinks on the house?”

I hesitated. Why would they not want to pay for their drinks? I mean, we’re people, too, you know, even if we spend hours a day making these nasty sugary drinks to make you bounce off the walls.

“Ummmm…okay.”

“Thanks! We’ll give you a tip after we finish dining in,” Beefcake grins, and winks at me.

“Pooky bear!” the ditz giggles, and playfully slaps her boyfriend on the shoulder. “Don’t flirt with her.”

“You single? You can sleep with Ginger and I; we could always use a threesome.”

I looked at him with an embarrassed forced grin. Gross! I thought this dude was going just get his drink and leave me alone, but looks can be deceiving.

“I….”

“Leave her alone,” a voice behind me said,

“What?” Beefcake turned to find the voice.

A tall guy with glasses and a gangly build, wearing a green uniform, came up to where I was standing.

“Yeah, I told you to leave her alone.”

Beefcake held up his hands in a fake apology.

“Fine, fine, I was just teasing her.”

“Sir, that is technically sexual harassment, and I can have you kicked out of this store any time I please if you are going to walk in and make unwanted sexual advances towards any of my employees.”

The guy sighed, then turned to look at me.

“We’ll be sitting right there. Just hurry up and give us our drinks.”

I nodded. This day was going to be interesting.

—

Beefcake and his girlfriend didn’t even leave the tip they promised. He walked in, so cool as a cucumber, and here he had to go being petty. Fuck him and his dumb girlfriend.

It was the end of my shift at 2 pm. I grabbed my stuff from the closet. When I closed it, Sam surprised me on the other side. It was like a scary movie and I was the person who closed the door only to find a possessed something-rather standing right in front of me.

I jolted.

“Hey, how was your first day of work?” Sam asked me, her dimples beaming from left to right.

“It was good,” I said.

“Will you be coming in on Wednesday for the 5 am shift? You’re on the schedule for that.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll see you then.”

And with that, I grabbed my baseball cap and went out into the New York City sun.

On Leave: Chapter 3

I wake up to find Mom, Dad and Kristina standing over me. On my lap is a tray of some weird looking mystery meat, peas and a carton of milk.

I try to hold back tears but it is impossible.

“There, there now, don’t you worry,” Mom sits on my bed, and strokes away my tears. This makes me cry harder.

“I shouldn’t have done what I did,” I strangle my words. The tears make it hard to speak without feeling some kind of deep uncomfortable emotional pain.

“We know,” Dad says.

“I brought you a present,” Kristina, my younger sister, presents me with an old childhood friend, Mr. Giraffe. He was the guiding star in my survival through elementary school, when the other kids bullied me for being a prodigy.

“Ohhhhhh,” I mused. “Thank you, Kris.” I let her give me a hug.

“Natalie,” Mom and Dad both take deep sighs. “We heard that you got alcohol poisoning. Sharon and Damien told us.”

Oh fuck, I groan inside. Why did those two have to do that? Why couldn’t they have just let me die?

I cannot say anything. I just give her a blank stare, the tears continuing to stream down my face. I peer to the side at the IV in my left arm. I thought last night was just a casual time to have drinks and bond with friends, and I ended up in the hospital for it.

“Thus, we have decided it would be best for you to take some time off from school.”

I look at them aghast. How would I finish my degree? I only have a year and a half left to graduate. The last thing I want to do is waste that full-ride scholarship on days spent watching old SpongeBob SquarePants reruns and eating boxed cereal.

“What? I can’t do that, I haven’t even graduated! Derek, Sharon, America and I are supposed to collaborate on a string quartet for the annual Beauford Competition! If I miss this because of some lousy medical leave reason, I’m screwed!”

“Kiddo, there is no reason you should put your mental health in jeopardy anymore,” Mom says, arms crossed. “Now you are going to go on medical leave, and that is final.”

I feel like an entitled teenager doing this, but I sit back sullen and pouty-lipped. Gosh, 2016 was bad but the newfound reality that I couldn’t even go to school anymore because of some dumb mistake I made was even worse. I was going to ring in 2017 with AA meetings and therapy.

What Elizabeth Gilbert Can Teach Us About Creativity

March 1, 2019

Categories: Uncategorized

In her 2014 TED Talk “Success, failure and the drive to keep creating,” author Elizabeth Gilbert shares with her audience the ultimate key to success in life: not giving up. Even though she says had a lot of success with her book Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert felt that she would never become successful again and would fail with her next work. However, even though she at many times felt like she wanted to just quit writing and do other things, she realized that what she considered her home, her sanctuary, the thing that made her the woman she was, was writing. She tells the audience that she has been writing since she was a child and would often send her work to established publishers. She busted her butt as a waitress at a diner and got rejected multiple times by publishers. Nevertheless, she kept writing and writing even if it wasn’t perfect to the publishers who rejected her because she loved writing more than anything else, even more than herself. Gilbert has made me understand that writing is not a selfish pursuit and you’ve got to not only create your own work, but read and learn from others. Gilbert, like many writers, read a lot growing up. According to her biography, she worked several different jobs at bars, diners and ranches and used these experiences from her life to inspire her fictional works.

In the TED talk she reveals that even as a successful woman she still worried about feeling like a failure, and points out that too often we associate failure with feelings of shame and success with money, prosperity and recognition. However, she says that no matter what, you cannot be swayed by failure and just have to keep getting yourself to work. And she didn’t even need to quit her day job as a waitress to write full-time because if you don’t have a lot of money, it’s okay to work a day job to pay the bills while getting yourself out there as a creative. Many creatives do it, and unless their financial circumstances are perfect and somehow they can just spend their lives just pursuing their passion, they have to just keep doing it no matter what the inner critic tells them in their head. In an earlier TED talk on creative genius, she talks about how people would tell her she was going to fail after being so successful after Eat, Pray, Love as an adult, but realized that people had been telling her this ever since she was a teenager and declared she wanted to become a writer. She admitted to being afraid of failure among other things, but understood the deep-rooted stigma around creative careers.

Often creatives do struggle with mental health issues, but not all creatives do so, and yet the media has constantly associated being a creative with suffering and having all sorts of mental health issues. Mental health can affect one whatever career they find themselves in, whether it be as a chemist, a businessperson, waiter, you name it. However, even as artists it’s okay for us to take care of ourselves and not feel like we should fit society’s misconceptions of what an artist truly is. Even as a musician and writer, I need to take care of my mental health, whether that’s continuing to work at my day job or eating dinner or reading a book for fun. As an artist I realized I need to transcend my own ego to create value from my work. In the TED Talk on genius, Gilbert explains how notions of creativity changed over time; she says that the ancient Greeks and Romans believed creativity came to human beings from daemons, or an external entity, like an outside muse who would help shape the artist’s work and provide them inspiration. They did not believe in human creatives taking all the credit for their genius, but then the Renaissance came and people started replacing muses and daemons with a more “rational” artist philosophy centered on the human individual as the ultimate creator of art. Gilbert says that this shift from daemons to an ego-centered art philosophy has forced a lot of artists to place enormous pressure on themselves to the point where it becomes emotionally destructive for them to produce such high-quality art (we clearly saw this in the film Black Swan, where Nina places enormous pressure on herself to succeed as a dancer and ends up destroying herself in the process.)

Indeed, when she was writing Eat, Pray and Love she hit an impasse and thought that her work was doomed to fail and that she should just stop writing. However, she sought inspiration from the poet Ruth Stone and the musician Tom Waits, because both of these artists heard inspiration from outside themselves and caught it before it disappeared. She says that Ruth Stone would literally envision a poem running after her and so she ran to her house and furiously “grabbed” the poem by writing it on the page as fast as she could before it went flying off looking for another poet. Tom Waits, as he got older, heard a melody in his head while driving his car, and instead of worrying whether he’d lose that idea, literally looked up at the sky and said for the idea to let him drive and come back to him later. So what Gilbert did was actually look up from her manuscript at an empty spot in a wall and tell that spot that it needed to help her find inspiration instead of letting her do all the work, and that if it doesn’t show up, then she’s going to keep writing because that’s what she loves.

I really like what she said in both of these TED Talks because I think as creatives we tend to get really hard on ourselves. We consume a lot of other people’s work and while that’s good for inspiration, if we use it to compare ourselves to these other artists, we won’t really get a chance to bring our brilliant ideas to the table. In my spare time, I sought out fodder I could use for my blog, in the form of news articles, pieces on personal finance, YouTube videos. However, I came to a standstill and realized that I was consuming a lot of material and not really forming my own opinion on that material. So that’s why it helps me to get off the computer, get off my phone for a while, so that I can think without too much external stimuli. Looking up from my work or taking a break from practicing my instrument to just walk around has helped me find inspiration that I didn’t think I had before. I went the other day to a garden store and even just being outside with nice-smelling plants and fresh air helped me get out of my head and come back to why I was doing all this creative work in the first place. I really like how Gilbert talks about the history of creative philosophy because I didn’t understand why I felt so selfish pursuing writing or music, and understood that there was, along the course of history, a development of thought that began to emphasize a more self-focused approach to creativity, one where the artist takes all the credit. However, I think it’s hard to take all the credit because as artists we constantly influence one another. Lady Gaga influenced the music styles of several artists, just as Lady Gaga herself had numerous musical influences growing up. When we approach the works of others with a healthy mindset that we are going to learn from their works and then critically think about their work from our point of view, and how these works can inspire us in some way to create our own work, then we can each let our muses work at their finest and contribute to our creativity in life-changing ways.

To seek inspiration from Gilbert’s two incredibly inspirational TED Talks these videos are below.

Movie Review: Can You Ever Forgive Me?

May 11, 2019

Categories: movies

I just finished watching the film Can You Ever Forgive Me?, starring Melissa McCarthy as the late writer Lee Israel, who, in real life forged around 400 letters that several famous individuals had written during their lifetimes. She sold these letters and made serious bank from them (the title comes from a line in one of the Dorothy Parker letters Lee forged, asking the person being addressed, “Can you ever forgive me?”) Lee was a struggling writer who could pay neither the vet bills for her cat, Jersey, nor her rent, and her writing kept getting rejected. Her agent didn’t support her because Lee was always cooped up in her house and never went out to meet people, but instead of finding a job like being a bartender or working a 9 to 5, Lee gets money by forging letters by famous writers such as Dorothy Parker and selling them to booksellers that would take them. She was able to pay her landlord, her vet bills and trips to the bar with her friend Jack, who himself is struggling to be successful. Lee has Jack help her sell the forged letters. Of course, the FBI ends up finding out that Lee lied all this time and she incurs serious punishment for it.

If I got anything out of this movie (and believe me, I got a ton out of it. Is it any wonder that the film got 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes?) it’s this: It’s much better to let yourself write a bad first draft than not start at all. It’s better to put your own work out there even if you think it’s far from perfect, because that’s sure as heck better than taking other people’s writing and claiming it for your own. Writing your own stuff is not just fun, it’s also common sense if you want to stick with copyright laws and not land in court for it. I have heard countless cases in the music industry where families of musicians sue new musicians for using a hook or phrase in their songs without crediting the original songwriter or performer.

It reminded me so much of the film Big Eyes, which is about the true story of Margaret Keane, whose husband, Walter, sold her paintings of sad-eyed children and took all the credit for them. In Big Eyes, Margaret gets to do what she wants, which is painting, so she doesn’t have to have a non-art-related day job. However, staying cooped up in her studio painting takes a tremendous toll on her mental, physical and emotional health, and while her husband is doing the marketing part and not the actual painting, she is the one who deserves the credit because she actually put her heart and soul into these paintings, and they came from her heart. In Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Lee’s agent tells her that instead of trying to hide who she is, the only way she can become a real writer is by writing her own stuff. Imposter syndrome is real for a lot of people, but especially for creatives it can be a huge pain in the butt to deal with. Imposter syndrome means that no matter how much money or recognition you get from selling your art, performing beautiful music, or speaking publicly before a large audience, you feel like someday someone is actually going to take away your trophy or tell you you aren’t as good as you seem and that your next work will be a total flop. Can You Ever Forgive Me? takes a totally new spin on imposter syndrome because instead of being this writer who writes in her own voice, Lee actually was an impostor because she pretended to be the writer of those letters when, in fact, she wasn’t.

I have lately been reading about the music business because I was still debating whether to put my music out there since I’ve been reading about how streaming is hurting musicians’ incomes because companies like Spotify and YouTube are offering up their music for free. I watched a talk that former CEO of music publishing company TuneCore Jeff Price did one time, and he talked about copyright in the music industry and how it relates to songwriters, and lately I have been thinking about composing my own pieces. I thought at first, I don’t have a music degree, how can I possibly compose my own pieces? But somehow I took a scale and just mixed up the notes and played it, and to me it sounded fine. Art is a subjective thing; not everyone’s going to love, see or appreciate what you bring to the table, but it’s a job like every other job out there. You just have to show up and do the work even if it is garbage at first. I remember all of the librarians and English teachers who would tell us to cite our sources, warning about the dangers of plagiarism. I’m glad they did, because forgetting these rules can ruin you as an adult.

Lee’s forgery doesn’t just impact her ability to pay her rent and keep her life together; it affects her friendships because she cannot tell anyone what she does for a living. If she tells people, she knows they will find out, so she keeps her distance, even with the bookseller who goes out to have dinner with her. The bookseller, Anna, writes her own stories even though she doesn’t think they are good enough to publish, but at least she actually wrote her own stuff. Lee got so caught up in this idea that her writing needed to be this incredible thing, while Tom Clancy was out there publishing several books and making bank. When Lee got caught up in what people thought about her writing, she stopped writing for herself and became this person she wasn’t. When she goes to the party she overhears a published author say how people with writer’s block are “lazy,” and of course this ticks her off. But I definitely do think that when we come out of ourselves, recognize we have this writer’s block and then resolve to write anything just to combat it, we see what we’re actually capable of. It’s like, if you don’t try, you won’t know what you can do, and it seems the more I publish my own writing (aka through this blog) I have come to understand that while I am an introvert, I have things to be said that need saying. I think that as I write more, I find more quality writing out of my bad drafts, and I stop worrying about what others are thinking of me. Rejection is just a fact of life, and like orchestra auditions, getting turned down by magazines and publishers hurts like hell, but you just need to keep writing your own stuff.

When I write my own music, my own blog posts, my own stories, I feel a sense of catharsis. I’m not doing this for the money or the fame; I’m writing original stuff because I love it. I don’t want to be an imitation of anyone, even though it’s hard to not be influenced by all kinds of writers because you are always reading. But I know I will never be Roger Ebert or Peter Travers or cellist Jacqueline du Pre. I know I won’t have the same journey to success as other people, but everyone has their own story to tell. The film taught me that if you want to make a name for yourself, you of course can still be introverted, but you need to show people the hard work and passion you put in your writing. I have a day job that isn’t related to writing or music because I want to be able to pay for all these movies I watch to write these blog posts, and I want to be able to keep seeing my writing and music as things I love. Now of course, like I said, we shouldn’t always give our work for free because art is a job like anything else. But great writers typically don’t write just so they can get paid. New York City rent is pricey, but that’s why a lot of creatives in the city have day jobs so they can spend their evenings creating art and creating community in the process.

Melissa McCarthy once said in a New York Times piece I read on her that a lot of people like to pigeonhole her as the funny lady who is always doing slapstick stuff, like The Boss and Bridesmaids. These of course were awesome movies, but I really like seeing McCarthy perform in a drama because I typically don’t see her in serious films. In the interview, she said that Can You Ever Forgive Me? gave her a chance to show people that people who normally star in goofy comedies have the diverse range of talent to be able to shift like a chameleon to a drama. Her performance as Lee Israel locked me in and didn’t let me out of its sight until the end of the film.

Here is an excellent article I read in Writer’s Digest a couple of months ago when I was struggling with writer’s block and thinking of seeing the film:

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/5-lessons-writers-can-learn-from-the-film-can-you-ever-forgive-me

Can You Ever Forgive Me? 2018. Rated R for language including some sexual references, and brief drug use.