I know this couple in real life! Yo has had an espresso cart at PNCA for the past 12 years. He has an incredible relationship with the community. Since PNCA is moving to a new location in the North Park Blocks, he is trying to raise money to purchase and transform a  unique Citroen van into a mobile espresso operation.

Yo (Yothin Amnuayphol) is also a PNCA alumni and ceramic artist. My friends are also funny and kind (I’m not just saying that- I can say without reservation they are the NICEST couple I’ve ever met! Seriously!) You have to check out the perks for donation, which range from “a big Asian hug” (their words), to one of Yo’s beautiful ceramic artworks from the next show (normally valued at $1500-2000)!

Please help my friends continue to be a feature in the amazing artistic community that they have been so long a part of.

Follow this link to read the full description, see the perks, and some examples of Yo’s art!

“Empty and Stuck”, collage, 2012 by: Chrissy Miles

Spontaneous art therapy.

I know I am deathless, 

I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s compass, 
I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacue cut with a burnt 
stick at night. 

I know I am august, 
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood, 
I see that the elementary laws never apologize, 
(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, 
after all.) 

I exist as I am, that is enough, 
If no other in the world be aware I sit content, 
And if each and all be aware I sit content. 

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself, 
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten 
million years, 
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite, I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time.” 

-Walt Whitman (from “Song of Myself”)

An old favorite. I know much of it by heart. It comforts me and helps bring me back to the present moment. It reminds me to slow down, have patience. The last lines are good for feeling grounded.

Another phrase keeps coming to mind lately, simply, “It is what it is.” For some reason, it comforts me. About situations which are beyond my control, that I am unhappy with, it helps me let go. Helps me be present.

It is what it is.

“Bubble” pen and ink, 2013 by: Chrissy Miles

Sometimes I’d just like to crawl inside one.

“The conversation, observed Archimedes, “arose out of whether birds could talk.”

“Another friend of mine,” said, Merlyn immediately, in his most learned voice, “maintains, or will maintain, that the question of the language of birds arises out of imitation. Aristotle, you know, also attributes tragedy to imitation.”

Archimedes sighed heavily, and remarked in prophetic tones, “You had better get this off your chest.”

“It’s like this,” said Merlyn.. “The hawks scream like their prey. The mallards croak like the frogs they eat, the shrikes also, like these creatures in distress. The blackbirds and thrushes click like the snail shells they hammer to pieces. The various finches make the sounds of cracking seeds, and the woodpecker imitates the tapping on wood which he makes to get the insects that he eats.. 

There are other things besides the things you eat. Even a bird drinks sometimes, for instance, or bathes itself in water. It is the liquid notes of a river that we hear in a robin’s song.”

Tattoo of Kerry Cohen: http://www.kerry-cohen.com ~via Contrarywise: http://www.contrariwise.org/2012/06/26/i-release-you/

I take myself back, fear.
You are not my shadow any longer.
I won’t take you in my hands.
You can’t live in my eye, my ears, my voice
my belly, or in my heart my heart..” -Joy Harjo, Fear Poem

Full poem can be found here.

I think of it as a step up- this being comforted by imperfections. It humbles me and reminds me of the inevitability of loss. It makes me feel closer to nature.

These thoughts led to me thinking of my feeling as an outsider, especially around other women- in the sense of a certain plainness and a certain shoddiness I wear and feel comfortable in (now more than ever) and it gives me peace.

I was raised by a single dad and my mother was sick with a psychological condition for much of my life. She was far away from me. Growing up, I found it hard to be close to women, to know how to relate to them, be like other women. I mean this in the sense of vanity. This chasing after an image of perfection.

I’ve struggled with self-confidence. I guess what I am saying is: As I am not yet thirty, yet approaching it slowly, I now know who I am and what I am not..

I succumbed to the pressure when I was younger and tried so hard to figure it out- makeup, nails, hair, style- It’s just not me. It’s just that I don’t much see the point? It feels grasping to me, desperate. On style, I guess I developed my own. I’m eclectic.. I’ll leave it at that.

I’m fascinated by other women- all types. I people watch all day. On their different looks I’m often thinking.. how do they do it? It’s amazing. It’s hard. Men hardly ever get a second glance from me.. I see the work women do to look attractive, too please. Some women.. it’s fascinating. It’s art.

I guess for the first time the other day, (since I was younger, 19/20, pregnant/with a new baby- which – at the time -was the prettiest I ever felt -because it made me healthy and strong. I am naturally frail- if this was Jane Eyre times I probably wouldn’t have made it- let’s just be honest..) I saw a glimmer of it- I actually thought I was pretty. Me. At 29 years old… finally. Just me. With my plain, honest face, beat-up old boots and well-loved corduroy jacket. It was just for a second, but it gave me hope. <3

This also raised a lot of issues and some stifling rage and righteous anger for my childhood self and all the people who made me feel like I wasn’t, couldn’t be, pretty. A Grandparent who made fun of my strong nose and big ears and called me ‘Dumbo’. (I just realized how extra-cruel that was. Dumbo’s mother was locked up. Mine was too.) I was a kid for Christsakes! For all practical purposes I just lost my mom and these were the people who were supposed to take care of me.. They jeered at me- at my skinny, knock-kneed self, made jokes about my outsize hands and feet.. I looked like an extra straight out of ‘Annie’, but that’s superficial. Where were the adults to tell me they believed in me? If my mother was there she would’ve. My mother may have been sick, but I never doubted her love.

There were others.. bullies at school. Then later the boyfriends, the guys, making comments, judging my body..

Well you know what? Fuck them! Seriously.  I wish I could go back in time and tell my 9-year-old self to tell them to fuck off. I wish I could be my own guardian angel then. My daughter is 9, the same age I was then, and it’s really doing a number on my emotions. She is getting to that awkward stage..

I am laughing. Divine justice. A small mercy. I had no one looking out for me, but here, 20 years later, I am there for her.

I read John O’ Donohue’s book, Anam Cara: Book of Celtic Wisdom when I was 16 and it was one of those books that changed my life forever. I went out and bought several copies and gave them to all my close friends.

I especially love the concept of love as ancient recognition. I recalled the book today and looking back through it to find some words of beauty to share it’s too hard because I believe it’s all beautiful.

“It could be a meeting on the street, or a party or a lecture, or just a simple, banal introduction, then suddenly there is a flash of recognition and the embers of kinship glow. There is an awakening between you, a sense of ancient knowing.”

Irish poet John O’Donohue

More wisdom: “If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy and good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.” 

All quotes from: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by: John O’Donohue

image credit: John O’Donohue photo, To Take Some Time

Be well friends. <3