Mana's Musings

“I am too much of a realist to become an artist.”

She said this to me as we sauntered across the park, leaves crunching beneath our feet.

“My brain is down-to-earth. Matter-of-fact. Artists aren’t like me. They flit about at poetry slams and galleries and other curious things without regard to the banal realities of life’s daily course.”

She lowered herself onto a bench and absentmindedly collected an errant leaf between her thumb and forefinger.

“Artists don’t walk like me. Certainly, they do not walk as the rest of us do. Rather they glide, pushed and pulled by whatever colourful whim is pulling hardest at any moment. Me? I walk.”

She rose and stomped her feet on the pavement, as if to prove they did indeed connect with the ground below.

“I do not live in a trendy artist’s enclave in Montmartre or Greenwich Village. I do not have a loft filled with ancient typewriters and busts of long-dead poets usurping table space from mundane things like cups and dishes. No, my home is a typical two-bed flat in Islington with particleboard furnishings from Ikea.”

Again she sat. She looked up and blew a stray curl out of her eyes, then sighed heavily.

“I am none of these things. I am not – I am not capricious enough to believe that if I just pursue my passions all will be right in the world. I have no sordid, tortured stories of abuse or heartbreak to use as justification for an absinthe addiction or as a muse on a moonless night.”

She clasped her hands together, as though seeking strength or maybe affirmation for her own words. Across the park children played hopscotch and an old man moved along the path at a snail’s pace.

“I am in limbo between two worlds, two identities. And yet I know what draws me. I know I am the sort who overanalyses interest rates and remembers to take my vitamins. And yet I yearn – no, rather burn to create. I am drawn to those who dress in black and design stage shows and stay up until the morning birds because they have an idea they simply must give birth to before it fades with the morning light. Those people are my kind, even if I am not theirs.”

That bothersome curl had found its way across her forehead once again, dangling in front of her brown eyes like a spring.

Again she blew it away and deftly picked up another leaf.

And she fumbled the leaf between her thumb and forefinger as only an artist can.

A friend of mine recently opened an account on Ancestry.com and started poking around family trees. After poring over birth, marriage and census records she uncovered a goldmine of interesting connections including American presidents, British royalty and Walt Disney himself. Dig far enough and one can find Mayflower passengers and even connections to Charlemagne.

This got me thinking about my own family history. I sat down and sketched a quick tree, going back to the last generation where I knew anything at all: my great-grandparents. It soon became apparent that I know precious little about those people. I never met any of them that I can recall. Only one of their lifetimes intersected with mine – a Ukranian great grandmother on my mom’s side of tree – and she passed away before my second birthday. Through my parents I’ve managed to fill in many of the blanks including maiden names, years and countries of birth, and years of death. But beyond these basic facts, I know absolutely nothing.

And I find it fascinating to stare at these names sketched in pencil on a sheet of paper and envision each name belonging to an actual, complex human being, someone who lead a full life and went on to have children of their own. Who were these people? They had childhoods and favourite foods, personality traits and physical attributes, and yet I know nothing. Consider Annie Lipinski. She was my great-grandmother and all I know is that she was born in the Ukraine and married a Polish man by the name of Mike Worobetz. But who was she as a person? What was her life like? What was she like at my age? How did she meet my great-grandfather?

And, whatever happened to her many siblings? I’m fairly certain none of my great-grandparents were from single-child families. So all these faceless names are themselves branches of trees in familes that often included five or more children, many of whom went on to marry and have children of their own. Assuming a conservative estimate of three siblings per great-grandparent (since I haven’t yet organized the actual numbers) that’s 32 different individuals who may have headed their own families and created lines of countless people to whom I share quite close family ties, all things considered; direct family ties. And yet I don’t know any of these people. And this is only four generations. These eight great-grandparents obviously had parents of their own – sixteen different people who are my great-great grandparents, and I don’t even know their names. And those 16 people had parents and likely siblings of their own – and on, and on, and on.

Within four generations I’m directly descended from people who spent most of their lives in at least five different countries, speaking five different languages (none of which are English) and leading lives that I can’t even begin to comprehend. These people exist in my genes, in my DNA.

Just four generations and their lives are reduced to nothing but names and dates sketched in pencil on a sheet of paper. And in four generations hence, I’m sure nothing will have changed.

I recently finished reading one of the most inspiring, relevant, significant books I can remember reading in a very long time. As soon as you’re finished reading this blog post, click on the cover image for an Amazon link to order your own copy. Shameless plug, yes, but this book is that worth it.

In If You Have To Cry, Go Outside NYC public relations powerhouse Kelly Cutrone shares her story of a life that started with a childhood in Syracuse, New York and involved various bumps and adventures on the way to where she is today; that is to say, running fashion PR house People’s Revolution from Manhattan with locations all around the globe.

In all honesty I’d never heard of Kelly Cutrone before I picked up her book. She starred in a reality show called Kell on Earth which apparently showcased life on the inside of her company, but to the best of my knowledge it hasn’t yet aired in Canada. Anyway I was browsing at my local Chapters store and picked up the book because of its grab-you-by-the-balls title. I flipped through a few pages and came to the start of chapter eight:

My friends and I joke that I look like a homewrecker–the person who’s going to fuck your husband and eat your cat. Au contraire: I am a woman’s woman.

That’s all it took for me to spin on my heel and head for the checkout line.

A few days later, after slogging through a rather tedious and condescending book on personal finance I picked up Kelly’s book. By the end of the introduction I was riveted, and would end up cracking open a bottle of wine and reading the entire thing in a single evening. From the first chapter this book is shaped by her ballsy, straightforward I-take-shit-from-no-one attitude, and it was thoroughly refreshing.

Kelly Cutrone tells of leaving home at 21 to move to New York City, against the wishes of her parents who were intimidated by the city and all the chaos and moral failures contained within its limits. But move she did, based on nothing more than an inexplicable yearning to be there. She writes of her first visit to NYC at the tender age of 16:

I will never forget how, in that first visit, the energy of New York captivated my every sense. It was like I had stepped out of a boring silent film and into the greatest musical of all time, with the Radio City Rockettes kicking to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s ‘New York, New York,’ while seven thousand angels cried: ‘Kelly! You are home!’ I was hearing the sound of my inner voice, and it was not subtle. On midtown’s crowded streets, I felt electric, vibrant, and alive. I’d never seen a place where people from all over the world spoke different languages, where gay people walked down the street holding hands, and where acceptance was king. I sensed a purpose and vitality in people’s lives, not only because of how they looked and dressed, but by the way they walked and where they were going and how they were getting there. They were doing real things; they weren’t just circling the town in their station wagons, slowly growing old. Here the game was on, and if anyone didn’t like it they could just fuck off. I loved that.”

Having grown up in an insignificant mid-sized city with not a whole lot going on, I can completely relate. I’ve had moments like that in both Los Angeles and London, and it was refreshing to read another person’s account of having one of those “Yes! This is where I belong!” moments. The book winds its way through Kelly’s experiences in her twenties, dealing with a failed marriage and drug issues before her 30th birthday. But even as she relays the moments where things seemed to go horribly awry, she paints a picture of herself as a woman with an unwavering, deep-seated tenacity – and acceptance. When things weren’t working, she changed them. So what? You live life, you make choices, and if they don’t work you make new ones. Onward and upward.

I think all women need a voice like this in their lives. Whether you’re 19 or 49, we can all benefit from someone with a kick-ass attitude who tells you to quit snivelling, get yourself together and make your life work for you. That you don’t have to be a slave to whatever ideal anyone else in your life thinks you should aspire to, or what society tells you that you should be. That you can make your own rules and draw your own maps, figuring out what works for you and throwing back the rest. And Kelly’s book is 195 pages of that.

While reading it I whipped out my trusty pink highlighter and noted so many interesting passages that a significant portion of the text is now pink. This book is now my how-to manual for life.

In closing I’ll leave you with some of my favourite highlighted bits. Then just go buy the book, ‘kay?

“…This is when I learned you have to give up your life as you know it to get a new one; that sometimes you need to let go of everything you’re clinging to and start over, whether because you’ve outgrown it or because it’s not working anymore or because it was wrong for you in the first place.”

“If this book inspires you to do one thing, I hope it’s to…go balls out on intuition and follow your dreams. Dreams won’t always take you on a straight path to destiny, but they’re usually related to what your soul wants for you. They’ll force you to ask yourself the hard questions, they’ll kick your ass, and most importantly, they’ll turn you on.”

“If you don’t know exactly what fits into your life and what doesn’t, the best way to figure it out is to follow your inner voice away from what feels wrong and toward what feels right, whether that means moving to New York City on a whim at twenty-one, quitting your accounting job at thirty-five to be an actress, or ditching your job in fashion to swim with dolphins in Hawaii. These experiences won’t always take you on an express train to your true purpose and calling in life, but they’ll teach you lessons you’re supposed to learn.”

By now it’s no revelation that we’re living in a digital era. 160 character text messages and 140 character tweets have replaced phone calls, letters, and even in-person vists. This is the world we live in; this isn’t a new development any longer.

But every now and then someone will get up on a soapbox and mourn the death of written communication as we know it. Text-speak, they invariably argue, is taking over new generations and rendering today’s youth incapable of communicating in a formal or businesslike manner.

Like, OMGZ! RU srs? Wot do u mean its 2 l8 2 lrn to cmnct?

I can’t help but roll my eyes at the idea of people growing up and truly not comprehending that text-speak isn’t appropriate for anything but the most casual situations. If someone wants to throw a “l8r” and few “OMGs” into a cover letter, great. Consider it a form of career Darwinism.

The problem I have with online communication isn’t that it’s hampering my ability to write – in fact, my problem is quite the opposite.

I’m forgetting how to talk.

I’ve always gravitated toward the written word, well before online networking became our default method of social interaction. Just ask my high school boyfriends who would inevitably receive long, drawn out letters analyzing our relationships in the way only a teenage girl can do, rather than a simple phone call. (Sorry guys).

Then came MSN messenger, and my college days spent sitting in lectures chatting with friends – sometimes in the same class – via IM rather than opening our mouths. This was seven years ago, and from there my reliance on written communication has snowballed. I got a job right out of school where phoning clients was frowned upon. The protocol was to always send an email and copy the VP on the message in order to leave a “paper trail” for all communication. Three years of this left me seasoned in business email writing, and a total novice at verbal communication.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to call up my friends or spend time in person with people from my inner monkey sphere. But when it comes to more challenging, less “social” conversations I’ll sooner write a Facebook message, an email, a tweet, a DM or a forum post before I’ll pick up the phone and call someone. My brain has become wired to appreciate and even expect that precious moment to organize my thoughts that digital communication affords.

So you’ve received an email, a Facebook message, a YouTube comment? Not sure how to reply? That’s perfectly fine! Even in the most time-sensitive situations, people realize these methods are a form of asynchronous communication and an immediate response isn’t expected. Even in instant messaging conversations, meant to be taking place in real time, one has the luxury of waiting a moment or two before replying. There’s no uncomfortable dead air, no ums and ahs and other filler, no nervous babble to fill the silence.

The unsurprising result is now, when I do get on the phone or meet someone in person I feel out of my element. Oh noes! This person just said something that threw me for a loop! Eek, that’s not what I was expecting. Quick, you’ve got five seconds to formulate a perfect response before the silence becomes deafening.

I think verbal communication is like pretty much any other skill – use it or lose it. I finished school and entered a world where digital communication was already king, and as a result I never really took the time to nurture verbal communication in the way someone would have been forced to even 15 years ago. This overdependency on the written word stands to cause problems in situations where a phone call or a face-to-face meeting would actually be more appropriate, despite not being my go-to method of communicating. But on the other hand, the ability to communicate clearly through text-based means has served me well.

And I can’t help but wonder – why aren’t they teaching this in high school? Why is it that everyone needs to know the ins and outs of quadratic equations, but no attention is paid to balancing all the different methods of communication one needs to embrace in order to be successful in 2010?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an email to write, some texts to reply to, and mailing list to read. Ttfn and c all u ppl l8r.