Small Victories

After another week of basically eating seeds and berries because the healthy lunch I packed myself was too bland to bear, I decided that I am gonna have to lean in on this food thing.  Up until the present I have been hovering around Dorito vegetarian status- you know, when “vegetarian” means that you just eat a ton of ho hos?

I have to branch out and learn some new food tricks, or I am going to die of a cashew overdose.

I made this! I am an awesome witch! 

So over the weekend I went all in and made three things that seemed far beyond my grasp.

I made a gluten free, vegan pasta sauce that went on shredded yams instead of pasta. The machine that makes yam-pasta is way too expensive, so instead I just used this hand tool that makes strips of things. Not surprisingly, I accidentally made strips of my left hand, which resulted in this amazing pattern of evenly spaced lines of blood down my palm and wrist. I hate it when I cut myself and there is no one there to see all that immediate red blood. What a waste. The sauce had nut milk and came out of the blender. I love the blender so much I could cry.

I made gluten free french onion dip also out of nut milk, and, like, onion powder.

AND I made fucking almond milk out of fucking almonds. Yeah, that’s right. I turned almonds into almond milk, using the blender and fucking cheesecloth like a fucking pioneer lady. Boom. Need some butter churned, bitches? I am pioneer times. Maybe the railroad will get finished and I’ll get an orange for Christmas. Made my own almond milk. This is West Philly, bitches. Manifest destiny.

This weekend was definitely the peak of my life’s culinary achievement. I think that this kind of on-purpose growth happens in an iamb. There’s the denial that lots of spiritual traditions embrace, but the heart is not in the denial, it’s in the readjustment that you need to do to fill the hole where the thing was that you gave up.

The things that I am gaining in yoga (small gains) come directly from the abandonment of pride or grace or control. I do not have these things in yoga. But little spring flower blades of other things are coming up in there.

And I am also breathing into the gentle daily embarrassment of my relationship. As much as my body has no idea how to do dandasna, my self has no idea how to be someone’s girlfriend in any kind of functioning, healthy way. I don’t know why I am surprised to learn this. It is basically the same thing though. Weird stretching and discomfort with either tears or insight coming out of nowhere occasionally.  To be so lost, so bad at something that I have, in fact, a lot of experience with is weird and kind of overwhelmingly embarrassing. I don’t know if I could do it if I weren’t practicing in yoga.

Man, the real and meaningful gains of life are so hilariously small. This is the real sense of humor of the universe. You are running and running towards some big capital-s success for years and years of striving and misplaced determination and envy and fear until you learn that the really valuable victories are just tiny.

This morning in yoga, I think pitying me, John the yoga guy was telling me that recently he had been getting back to the fundamental poses and trying to learn them really well. He said that when you start yoga, you want to get to all these cool, fancy poses, and go upside down and put your leg over there. But when you get further along, you realize how important the basics are.

This is how I feel about my life. The early part of it was about a crazy game of racking up measurable awesomeness, but when I look back now, I realize the time would have been better spent learning to have a friendship, maybe, or take care of my body, or not make terrible daily choices.

It is crazy the sense of personal satisfaction I feel when I have a decent human interaction, or cook a solid meal. And it’s great in it's own silly, small-scale way, because the opportunities for accomplishment are no longer bounded.

Almond milk, bitches.

Alhamdoolilah!

This morning  I managed to stumble into the yoga studio for an impressive third day of Mysore. I don't know why it is called that, but if you are wondering, yes, it involves a lot of soreness. Three days without giving up! Although one of those days was passive pigeon, so I don't know if that counts.

It's OK, guys. I will sit this one out. 

Anyway I went in to pay for class at 6 AM and the dude, John, who co-owns the studio was there being all meatless and bright eyed. I don't know why I assumed that John was some kind of hippie asshole, because I never saw him be one and he's not at all. I guess because he runs a yoga studio. He asked me how class was going, and I said that it was pretty embarrassing but otherwise OK. He got this big, sincere smile and looked at me and said "thank god for suffering, right?" And I said "yeah!" and I meant it.

An old friend recently accused me of "worshiping suffering," and maybe I kind of do, but it's only one god in my pantheon. It's so necessary- forcing me to learn things, keeping me honest, indicating what's wrong, bringing friends closer.

When John said that I thought of this word in Arabic that Abdulsalam taught me, which is pronounced like: Alhamdoo-lilah, that I am kind of in love with. It basically means "thank you god!" and you say it for suffering.

I kept forgetting how to say it so 'Salam
wrote it on a post it on my computer

In Saudi Arabia, when a terrible thing happens to you, you say "Alhamdoolilah!" which means something like "thank you god for this opportunity for growth and knowledge!" It is a reflex that you cultivate. (I guess that is easier in a culture where one isn't to say "shit! fuck! balls!")

 I love the idea of the reaction to suffering, especially when I think of it as a reflex, because it's a discipline. I can't imagine that when people in Saudi Arabia find out that a loved one is in a car accident they are honestly thinking "thank you god!" But they are saying it. Maybe after saying it over and over again it gets internalized. Or cultural or both. That's the thing about practice.

Today on the bus home, this teenage girl was driving me nuts by shouting into her cell phone. Her mother was yelling at her for something and she was denying culpability. Super annoying. So when this kind of thing happens, I try to do a loving-kindness meditation, where you sit there focusing your attention on the person thinking "let her be safe, let her be peaceful, let her be happy" over and over again. I enjoy doing this. It gives me a weird feeling of responsibility for the person.

So today I was thinking loving-kindness meditation at the girl on her phone, and my mind monkeyed over and asked me if I really thought this was doing her any good. I mean, it probably isn't. Maybe I'm somehow willing the universe in some inconceivable way to bring her safety peace and happiness. I'd like to think that. But probably not. It does work in the aggregate, though, as I cultivate the habit of responding to people who annoy me by focusing all of my attention on wishing them those things. Over time, maybe my natural, habitual response to annoyance or anger will be a desire for the person who is annoying me to have peace. That would probably have a positive outcome after a while. At least for me.

It's the same thing with prayer, which is now weirdly in my life. I guess prayer was always around- Help! Thanks! Wow! as Anne Lamott says. The things you can't help saying in the course of human experience and which seem to imply a listener. (It's the best evidence for the existence of god I can come up with. A semantic one. I'm definitely feeling thanks. I must be thanking something.) But now that I'm around Christians, they ask me to pray for them, and I do. I am dead certain that god is not sitting somewhere taking down my instructions, but I cannot deny that it feels GREAT to pray for people and to have people pray for you. Especially when there is just nothing you can do for the person. Prayer feels like something. At church, everyone writes their prayers on an index card and throws them in a basket. Then a team of volunteers prays them over the week. Being on that volunteer squad feels fantastic. I'm not sure why.

This pose actually kicks my ass. 

This is practice. Empathy practice, patience practice. Alhamdoolilah is a kind of equanimity practice. Yoga is all kinds of practice. Although I've been doing
yoga for years, I'm not any good at any yoga poses. I mean, if being good at them means being able to execute or hold them. Seriously, even the one where you just put your arms in the air is kind of a challenge. But for years, for me, yoga was not-punishing-myself practice, letting shit go practice accepting something less than perfection practice, and the change was meaningful and substantial. Going to yoga, even just going to yoga and laying on the floor for an hour, taught me the value of rest, and taking care of myself and lack of strain.

Mysore is different. This is requiring me to stretch, really. The dumbass feeling I feel when the Mysore teacher has to explain three times what to do, and then I do it pathetically reminds me of what it's like for my students every day. The way my own toes continue to elude me are a great chance to practice humility. And now I'm beginning to feel just the very beginnings of practicing strength. Practicing breathing through pain. Practicing staying with discomfort. Practicing knowing where to push a limit and where to respect it. I mean the very, very awkward humiliating maybe-I-should-just-sleep-in-today beginnings.

The first springtime flowers are starting to poke out of the rough in people's front yards, and they look just like the blades of switchblades. They are seriously tough. They poked out on Saturday, and on Monday it snowed, and now they are sitting in the ground all snowed-on and immobilized because growing is slow and you can't reverse it. How do they do it? It must be pure miserable. Alhamdoolilah for them, and thank god for suffering for real.

Passive Pigeon

This is Pigeon Pose

This is Passive Pigeon

At yoga on Monday morning, the yoga lady said that I should not do yoga when I have my “ladies’ holiday.” I did have my ladies holiday (Three day blood cruise through pain town!) but since I was already there I got to lay around doing restorative yoga (the kind when you never get up off the ground) and the yoga lady taught me to do a pose called “passive pigeon.” Of course, once I knew what it was called, I was going to be down, regardless of what the pose was. I did passive pigeon for, like, ten minutes on both sides, which is a long time to do a yoga pose.

I have been getting cocky. I’ve been biking around and exercising and doing yoga and only talking to me, my bike and this ‘possum I got off the internet. It’s Lent so all I eat is kale seeds and all I do is not facebook. So I’m feeling pretty groovy. I’m surprised how much I like being alone. I never liked it much before. But I like it A LOT now, and just when it starts to get trying Rachel and Andrew let me watch TV with them upstairs.

Oh, man, but it is easy to get caught up in this focus on improving myself. At least I have some better tools than in back in the day when I made myself insane every morning trying to find the least morally offensive breakfast, and losing time at the bottom of the stairs as I rationalized the escalator when really there was little to no moral harm in the escalator. I just saw it as a weakness of character.

Stairs- You are Nelson Mandela
Escalator- You are 

I used to spend a lot of time reading Amnesty International reports and thinking that I needed to buck myself up for the day someone might torture me for my political activities, and that every decision was a chance to practice moral and mental discipline leading up to that possibility.

My fascination with China started with my constant reading of Cultural Revolution memoirs which led me to believe that every Chinese person was basically Nien Cheng. I mean, I guess I just ignored all characters in these books who weren’t the protagonists. Imagine my surprise  and disappointment when I got to China and everyone was just people.

So the endless stairs vs. the three escalators up  that I faced every morning at the Roosevelt Island station were a very high stakes test of character. I would stand there thinking “Nien Cheng spent 20 years in a Chinese prison, and you’re going to take the escalator?” Once I stood frozen on a Manhattan street corner trapped between three coffee choices and not sure in which one my three dollars would be the least ethically spent. I stood there for 15 minutes, then did not get coffee, harming no one.  I wish that were hyperbole.

The first thing I can remember ever writing in my journal was that I need to start waking up earlier, when I was, like, eight. I wrote that and endless other self improvement plans in my journal for about 20 years. Never quite started getting up earlier, though. Nor do I have a meditation habit, do yoga at home, know how to sew or ever practice Chinese. I’m really good at buying the equipment for resolutions, but it kind of goes downhill after that.

John Winthrop did this, too. His spiritual journal was a catalogue of countless infinitesimal moral failures, each one a likely indicator of damnation. But he was a Calvinist. Sarah Vowell pointed out that Winthrop’s journal looked like Gatsby’s notebook (‘be better to parents’, ‘read one improving book or magazine a week’, and of course ‘rise from bed- 6:00 AM.’) Gatsby was a Calvinist too, but just the parts we carried on and called American.

If I had put a dollar in a jar every time I resolved to ‘rise from bed- 6:00 AM’ I could buy this bed that was at the world’s fair in the 1880’s that had two of the legs on a timer so that at the desired time they would buckle and dump you on the floor.

It’s funny that although I’m far, far gentler with myself nowadays, I am just as passionate about self improving habits. It feels really different though, when you’re not trying to fix a mess. And it also feels different when the obstacles actually seem surmountable (thanks, medication!)

Of course, spiritual life plays a very important part in this. Lent and other periods for fasting and reflection make me aware of what is possible the rest of the time. And shine some light on what happens when I don’t restrict myself. The happy-but-not-really-happy in a bag of cheez curlz.

People in my yoga class

Me

But on the first day of Lent, when I rose from bed- 5 AM so that I could go to yoga, and then when I got there and everyone was all ropy and sinewy and tattooed and twisted up into pretzel balls, and when I leaned over to start a sun salutation with my knees bent looking like a dope and a drooped over flower instead of a jacknife because I can’t touch my toes, and when it was so funny what I looked next to the person next to me, and how much effort I needed to expend to fail so miserably was so hilarious that I cracked up, that was happy-really-happy.

Oh, there is joy in the right kind of failure. The Calvinists missed out. Or maybe they didn’t. The way they knew rapture in Grace, probably they got it. Their failure brought them closer to god- necessitated god and was therefore required.

The pigeon pose is when you put your one leg up front and your other leg to the back and then bow down on the ground. I guess sort of like a pigeon.

Passive pigeon is the same pose, but a yoga lady puts a blanket in the hole between you and the ground and a pillow under your face.

You can do passive pigeon. That’s ok.

Keep Mardi Gras

This Tuesday has been Fa-a-at. I had two hot dogs and thing of cheese fries, or really, cheez fries, for lunch, then I had, like, half a box of Godiva chocolates. Yesterday, I ate all seven servings of a seven-serving bag of this devil popcorn called “Chicago Style” where half of it is covered in cheese and half of it is covered in caramel. Tonight, I plan to eat the contents of an Afghan restaurant, drink red wine, and then eat a choco-pot alone.

I will do all of this in the name of religious practice. For this is FAT TUESDAY!

Jesus: "Let's run some kale through the
 juicer and read a play!

And I am really glad. Because for a week, I have been eating whatever I want to celebrate the free-for-all eating period between Chinese New Year and Lent. And the thing about whatever I want is that I don’t want it.

But someone does. Someone INSIDE me. I assume this being is Satan.

I think Satan is probably misdepicted as a red dude with horns and a pitchfork. My satan is, like,  a super emotional undisciplined teeenager. Maybe that is why I’m so scared of them.

I have been trying to get pleasure out of eating all kinds of crap- cookies, cake, cheese, cheez, coffee &c for these past few weeks, and I guess there is a KIND of pleasure in it. It is good against my tounge for sure. But the eating is pretty absent of actual pleasure. Which is disappointing. It is hard to ramp up a good “but I deserve X” narrative without the belief that the food is a real reward.

Satan is all “YOLO! I worked hard today! I deserve a brownie!” And instead of being like “yeah!” I’m like, ugh, OK, well if it will make Satan happy. Then I eat a brownie and Satan is happy. And I’m sad. Also, bloated and sleepy.

Satan: "Let's get Starbucks and spend
two hours on facebook!

Satan has had free reign on the eating since Chinese New Year, and without rules, I haven’t had much ability to resist her. Which is weird, since the rules are mostly arbitrary and made AND enforced by me. For some reason, though I can only enforce them when they are connected to a particular practice, like the diet, or lent. And right now, lent feels like a huge relief, that I am very excited about,  which is also weird, because there was nothing stopping me from NOT eating cheese fries today.

Nothing except Satan.

I cannot shake Satan, I have to live with her. She is in my custody, and in that way that happens when you are responsible for a teenager, I am in hers. I have to live with her. And that means indulging her sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, because otherwise it would be cruel. Even if brownies are not good for us, we should get one every once in a while. They are delicious and the kind of good they are is not good for my well being but a good that is part of life.

The thing with teenagers is, you have to set boundaries. If you tell them “never do this” they are probably just going to defy you secretly. But if you tell them “there are appropriate times to do this” maybe, over time they will grow up and make better decisions.

You got to keep the devil down in the hole.

We're All Getting Better

Last week I had coffee with two old friends, and by old friends I mean two people, each of whom used to be my friends and then weren’t because we got to the point where we couldn’t really stand each other. But each of these people happened to reach out to me last week and ask me to have coffee and I know that people are always changing, so I went both times. 

One of the coffee dates was surprisingly lovely and made me full of hope and one of them made me really upset but also ended up being really good.

I don’t like leaving friendships hanging around, I’m a gladhand, but I am an intimacy introvert, and I do not gain a bunch of energy from having many close friends, and by close friends I mean people I can talk to, one on one for more than an hour. So when I make one of those friends, and I lose them, it’s a big loss. 

But losing close friends is a part of life, I think, especially for women. You make a friend and then you guys are super close, like a crazy romance, and then something happens and she fades out and you never know why that happened exactly, unless sometimes when you’re the one who faded her out.

I think that these friendships often happen because you are both having some kind of boy trouble, and you want to talk about boy trouble basically all the time and so does she. Perhaps nature evolved us to have these friendships to diminish the number of people who have to hear us talk about that stuff. But when you’re consumed with boy stuff, nothing beats a lady friend who is also consumed with boy stuff.

Woo! Let's don't have feelings together!

In my particular case, the other reason you form these relationships is because you and the other lady are crazy. Crazy, like boy trouble, is pretty much all consuming. When you’re crazy, you want a crazy person to talk about being crazy with. This can go two ways.  Either you and your crazy lady friend sit around indulging in coping mechanisms and making really dark (but [necessarily] really good) jokes about some traumatic shit that you are going/have gone through, or you and your crazy lady friend climb out of crazy super awkwardly together.

The crazy friendship either does the first thing, in which you continually pull each other down into the lobster bucket of depression, making the bucket the coolest place to be, and also making sure that she never climbs out or it does the second thing.

That second thing is the best thing. It's pretty rare though. 

The boy stuff friendship is pretty much doomed, but it is also pretty functional, so good on that

Last night I had drinks with two rad ladies who are about ten years older than me, and they were lamenting the shift in culture where people share really personal stuff with relative strangers. Joy said that it made her feel like she wasn’t special. She remembered what it meant to have a friend who selected her personally to give good news instead of putting it on facebook for everyone to see at once. She doesn’t like this new mass sharing (some would say oversharing) culture.

Sometimes it is not great, sure, but I think the new sharing culture is coming out of a generation who just know less shame than generations before. There’s so much less that you need to hide under the bed in a

lockbox because people might cruelly judge you for it.  It can’t be bad that we live in a time where people feel comfortable talking about hardship, abuse, divorce, addiction, sexual orientation and all kinds of other things we used to keep to ourselves. I know every time I hear someone say that they are divorced I feel a little absolved. It was scary when I moved here and walked into a community which thought it was funny/shameful to have mental health issues. I’m happy being around people who step up and talk about therapy and medication and the process of getting over. I also like when people talk about these things on facebook.

I was listening to a storyteller on the Moth the other week who remarked that his son’s generation was just more perceiving than judging. Where his generation, he said, would have called something shameful or wrong his son’s called it “awkward.”  “Awkward” isn’t a negative judgment, it’s a perception of a lack of grace that doesn’t seem to demand grace. Grace is ideal, but “awkward” is just part of life.

One of my two estranged friends has been having a really bad go of it. In fact, when I heard through the tight and twisted Philly grapevine that he wasn’t doing well, even though I a little bit still wanted to punch him in the face, I sent an email saying that if he needed to talk, I was there.

I guess I wish I had had grace when I just wanted to punch him. Maybe I could have breathed through and understood why he was infuriating me, if I’d had better tools or stronger will. But I didn’t. And it was awkward. I’d run into him, and it would be ungraceful but I didn’t do anything about it. 

And my old friend-- the last person who I would ever have expected to be self reflective and thoughtful and to show grace to me—did do those things. My friend is making his way in the world, figuring things out, getting better tools, getting to know himself. The good stuff. And it fills me with hope for all of us to see it.

1660: Not a good time for
sharing feelings

So many of the people I love are doing this, these days.  We are all awkwardly stumbling along the path, but finally it is the right path, the one that leads to peace and meaningful work and lasting friendships and health for the body and mind.  I can’t think of a better thing. Not just because we’re coming out of dark places, but because our experiences seem to show that the nature of things is that it is possible to escape. It makes me so happy, and so grateful.

This is another privilege of these generations coming up. Maybe mine will be the last to feel shame about needing help, needing therapy and needing medication. Maybe a world that talks about coping strategies and tools and makes “I” statements is coming up.  Maybe a more healthful search for a more real peace will become the norm.

My other friend is not doing so well. She’s steeped in hurt, and quickly dragged me down in. I got nervous and then I got gaslit and then I felt nuts.

But then I walked out. And I went to the next thing, and wished her well and let it go. And I was OK. And this is new. It’s part of the getting better. I can’t make her do it; I can only make me do it. And my doing it means that I don’t have to get in the lobster bucket with her because I’m afraid she won’t have company in there. To paraphrase what Darin kindly said when he saw my leftover sad, 'Sometimes the best thing to do with baggage is to just put it down.'

That’s what honesty allows, in friendship, if you have the guts. One of my friends had the guts to apologize to me, and I had the guts to let the other one walk her own way by herself when I wouldn’t be a good companion. We’re all getting better. 

On The Barnes

And, wow. The Barnes Foundation museum is really overwhelming. I think maybe my favorite museum

experience ever, certainly my favorite art museum experience.

There's a whole graduate thesis
in here somewhere.

My least favorite, for the record, is the new MoMA. Well, I guess it isn’t really new anymore. That is a big dumb museum that all the objects in it are just pieces of “art.” Look at the “art.” On this wall is some “art.” Take a photo with your phone.

I mean, and it’s not just portraits of Madam Vandervlosky in her sitting room we’re talking about here. We’re talking about Duchamp, who is surely rolling his eyes in his grave every time he thinks about it. $22? Are you fucking kidding me?

Ceci n'est pas un joke. 

MoMA is so good at trading on the commodification of objects that it can take any old bullshit and throw it in there, pointing out that an ipod is as much a rarified object that we can pay $22 to take a picture of with our phone as a Gaugin. In that way, the MoMA is a kind of reverse Duchamp, in that rather than de-valuing rarified objects by putting ordinary ones in their midst, they rarify ordinary objects by placing them alongside things someone has already decided are valuable.

Let's not degrade the man who created
 this subtle exploration of human experience.

Just to clarify, I don’t think this is any insult to the Gaugin. I think the truth of the MoMA is actually very true. Painting. Mp3 Player. 17^th Century Tea Set. It’s all rich people’s stuff to me.

John once said that the thing about working at a fancy restaurant is that it’s the same as working at any restaurant, except that your job is to tell people that they are rich all the time. “May I take your coat? You’re so rich! Would you like to hear the specials? Wow! You’re very rich.”

That is what I feel like I’m doing when I go to the MoMA. Telling rich people that they are rich. “Oh, you ordained this good and meaningful? You’re so rich!”

This gets a twist weirder when many of the objects being commodified were designed with the very specific intention of criticizing the commodification of art objects. You paid five bazillion dollars for a wheel nailed to a stool? Wow! You’re very rich!”

The most grotesque manifestation of this phenomenon that I have been a part of was in the Vatican Museum.

The gaping maw of the Vatican
Museum spews the bile that is us

Have you been there? The slough of wretched humanity shuffles through that museum’s engorged, betapestried intestines in a purgatorial perpetuity, holding screens aloft to photograph object after object until each faceless human form is eventually excreted into the gift shop. The Vatican adds insult to injury in that it commodifies art and spirituality in one sprawling vomitous palace.

An art museum casts you in one of two roles. Maybe you are rich and you enjoy the affirmation that cultural treasures and sublime expression are things that can be bought, priced and cataloged, and the further comfort of knowing that the things that a person like you owns will one day become treasures in their own right. (If you’re at MoMA, maybe they already are!) Or perhaps you are not rich, and then you get to walk around and be reminded that the things that consensus says are of cultural value are things that cost lots of money, and you can feel grateful for the relatively cheap permission to rent a glimpse.

But the Barnes is not like that. This is a museum that refuses to let the things in its collection be rendered mere “art.” Instead, they get to be themselves.

Because the items in the Barnes are put together intuitively, with no regard for or mention of their history or generous donors or materials or makers, they get to live only as what they are. Now. The curation of the museum is such that things are together because the feel like they go together. They have an intuitive harmony. And intuition, like everything people scoff at, is democratic. The objects, presented as belonging to a long, universal narrative of human experience-- instead of on a pedestal of alienating rarefication-- belong equally to anyone who looks at them.

Barnes' total disregard for a work’s context, and for its country of origin, ends up allowing the pieces to come together and tell the story of breathing on Earth. “Look,” it says. “We all have hands and eyes! lots of things have curves! Many things are hit in a certain way by light, all over the world! What do you know, all the cultures have yellow!”

In the Barnes, your relationship to any piece of work is totally different than in other museums. Your job is to look. To notice. To think and feel. And you cannot do it wrong. No amount of money or education is going to make you better at it than anyone else. Whereas a museum like MoMA puts you in a position to stand in humility before an object, the Barnes invites you to stand in humility before shared human experience.

It’s an expensive building. It’s very fancy, and it costs $20 to go there. And from the audioguide, you can tell that the museum staff really wish they could elevate Albert Barnes, who curated these pieces, to a sort of rarefied artifact himself. But he hasn’t given them much to work with. “It’s possible that this is meant to highlight maternal relationships” says the audioguide hopefully “but Barnes never explained the reason for his arrangements.” Ha ha. Sorry audioguide. Your guess is as good as mine. Or more to the point, mine is as good as yours.

That may not be what every artist ever wanted, but it IS what art wants. In the end, it wants to belong to everyone. Sure, art may think it would be cool to be “art,” hanging there behind a velvet rope. But once it gets there, it will come to learn that being “art” is lonely and unfulfilling. In the end, art always realizes that it wants to be alive in multiple engaged interpretations, not cryogenically frozen in a single expert one.

The Barnes, and I guess Albert Barnes, let the art in the collection do that because although Albert Barnes was a very rich dude, he cared more about the human story than hearing anyone say “you’re so rich!”

It's a lovely museum. You should go spend some hours there. 

The Crouching Woman

I skipped out of work on time and went to the Rodin Museum, which is a little jar of light up on the Parkway that has a small collection of sculptures by Aguste Rodin. I don’t know anything about sculpture and visual art tends to make me feel lazy and guilty, because I rarely want to stand around observing each work in all its depth and instead usually catapult through the museum looking for something to empathize with and be validated by. But I wanted to see the museum.

The Crouching Woman is framed by the eastern window, and she’s not fucking around. She’s on the ground like a frog with her head on her shoulder and her hand across her sternum. 

Pretty much everything I read about this statue calls it “erotic” and “sexually charged,” but (surprise surprise) I don’t really see that. It’s true that she’s crouching down with her cunt forward, but I guess that’s only erotic if she’s with someone. If she’s alone, it’s just being where it is. Don’t you ever sit like that when it’s summertime or you have dropped something behind the sink? She could just as soon be looking as a bobby pin as for a fuck, if you ask me.

Some people say that the statue has a kind of terrifying primal (and of course, erotic) violence to it. I’m not sure what’s so scary about her, except that she’s not sitting in a very nice statue pose, and that tends to have distressed people in olden times.

She’s holding on to her own ankle, which is such a dear gesture. As a lady, you are so alien in your own body all the time, constantly aware that it is not yours and on loan to you from men so that you can do some errands such as sleeping and cleaning out your refrigerator. There are the parts of you that are around so often that you almost forget that they are connected to the terrifying (and of course, erotic) structure that houses your soul. Your hands are so practical, your elbows sit on your desk and dinner table. It is easy to forget that they are sexual instruments until you see a helpful advertisement for a product that must be grasped by them or pass a nail salon.

But your feet and ankles are all the way on the other side of the broad teeming ocean and jungle land masses of your female body. That’s probably why it’s so weird to hold them, and so pleasant. It feels stolen, this intimacy between you and you. Although I’m sure someone could shatter this illusion for me, as of now I don’t believe there’s any man who would see me grasp my own ankle and think the gesture was meant to seduce or frighten him.

In the history of the sculpture a critic posits that she is holding her ankle as a reference to a saying commonly used among French prostitutes “prendre son pied” which meant, “make sure you get to have some fun, too.” Good looking out, 19th century French Prostitutes.

But the real thing that gets me about The Crouching Woman is that she was initially created as the counterpoint to The Thinker. She was designed to sit across from him on The Gates of Hell.

You know Thinker, right?

He, like, represents human consciousness and the ingenuity of mankind? You know that one sculpture of a naked dude that no one ever finds threatening or “viscerally sexual”? Perhaps you've heard of it.

Rodin himself said of the sculpture “he thinks with every muscle of his arms, back and legs...the fertile thought slowly elaborates itself within his brain. He’s no longer dreamer. He is creator.”

His nakedness is his humanness. It’s not sexual, who has time for that? Since when do allegories wear pants? The thinker is putting all of his bodily energy into his brain, concentrating it there and harnessing it into a control that mimics that of the Creator Himself.

Meanwhile, what’s my girl doing down on the floor?

I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure it’s not what you think.

Unlike her counterpart, she is with herself. Her energy extends to the tips of her fingers. She is present in her mind but also in her heart, gut and cunt. Her hand touches her breast, where her heart is where the feelings that contort her emanate from. She grounds herself against the earth. She is asymmetrical but perfectly balanced. She is not comfortable but she is comfortable with herself. Her focus is inward, look at her head, down, and the way her she’s open and protected at the same time. The way she makes a comforting cradle for her head in her awkward posture. You can call her a sexual object all you want, but there’s nothing of that in the figure herself. You can be terrified by the visceral imperfect aliveness of her compared to johnny sit-and-think, but it doesn't look like she is interested in harming you. She probably doesn't even know that you are there. You’re probably not, anyway. You've never even heard of her. You're looking at The Thinker.