another adventure in your journey. this time we discovered a little treasure in the heart of mid-town and right under my nose:

Dahesh Museum of Art 

it's nice to piggyback off of hg's art trip. sometimes you need someone to lead the way so that you can do the same.

a key ingredient: committment.

choose this and start building around it.

 
i wish my vocabulary was better.  what is that word that describes a person who feels uninspired, who is constantly tired, who rather not deal with the world and its obligations and responsibilities.  a depressive? it’s not that i claim myself as a depressed person, i just feel that it’s like the base paint in my brain room.  no matter what the exterior looks there will be this underlying base that will always be there, and that base is…is what? oh, i wish i knew, i wish i knew.

and on the flip-side, i have many moments of feeling very okay about my life and what is happening. yesterday, i took my first language class, which was very inspirational and i felt that i was finally accomplishing a goal i had set out this year.  also, i had a lovely afternoon with an old mentor.  he was exceedingly complimentary and offered me a job!  so, i do acknowledge the positiveness in my life and i like the enjoyments that in the recent past i may not have so readily indulge in.  unfortunately, in my mind these enjoyments are valued as small compared to my problems.  it’s funny, you would think after three years of mental work i would have gotten it by now.  i would have figured out myself, my head, my problems.  i suppose this is what life is about and i should quit scaling my problems as big because that’s just a part of life.  “problems” will always exist when you continue to want more for yourself.  really depends on how you see it, how i see it.

it's been about a week since i last documented my progress.  i must admit that there has been pockets of boredom, and i have found myself longing for the stimulation of "busy-ness" that only a job can provide.  on the other hand, i've started an exploration that i even admit would not have come so easily if i had the status of a full-time employee.  here are some of my accomplishments:

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

what a magnificent collection at the mfa. it wasn't so much that this place displayed priceless works but the attention and care given to the various themes housed here was truly incomparable.

ah...and i cannot forget to mention sam maloof -- "please have a seat."

Philadelphia Museum of Art

the philamuseum's advantage was its scale and space.  entire rooms were transformed into a section of an indian temple, a japanese tea house, and files of armors.
 
what makes these museum vists especially memorable is the time i've spent with HE.  his curiousity and appreciation for the arts has guided me to feel the same.  
 

the agenda for the day was to have lunch with my brother. chipotle! my current addiction. afterwards we would head to the biblioteca. turns out we did it a bit backwards. i was grateful nonetheless since i haven’t been down to the old tompkins square library in ages. i was in store for a surprise.

first thing: the library didn’t open until 1pm. the mass of impatient people crowding at the entrance piqued the curiosity of a pre-teen boy who was passing by. “what’s going on?” he said. “we’re waiting for the library to open,” my brother replied. “oh,” he said disappointingly.

second thing: whoa, giuliani didn’t forget about the little library on 10th street. the plastic surgery done to this place was remarkable. i was truly, truly impressed. the last time i went (which was probably a decade ago) it was this musty old place that just squeaked by from being classified as a storage room full of books. today new checkout area, real turnstiles, COMPUTERS (with internet connection no less!), and spanking new desks and chairs. i can’t even begin to describe the newness of everything. of course, my brother deflates my excitement by stating that this (the remodeled bldg) has been like this for a long time.

it was very strange being in there. a large part of me felt so out of touch. i realized how i’m not a part of a routine that a lot of people enjoy – going to the library and taking advantage of all the resources, free resources.

where have i been for so long? i liken this question to one posed to a lot of dangerously obese people. how did it get so out of control? you don’t just weigh 400 lbs overnight. at some point you must realize that you don’t look “normal” anymore. for me, at what point did i lose touch with the stimulations around me?

it’s been one week since i stopped working. i’m checking in to see how i feel. what has surprised me the most is that the desires that i thought i would have post-resignation haven’t shown up yet. desire meaning inspiration to go seek all the places that i was pining for as i toiled away at my desk. no desire, no curiosity. i wonder if that’s just my nature. somehow i lost my curiosity for things. it’s a theory that i’ve contemplated for a long time. i haven’t figured it out yet.

perhaps boredom is the itch (or inspiration) that makes us go back to work. actually, i was thinking that if there was no such thing as work a whole lot of people wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. you certainly can’t read a book or shop or walk the streets for eight hours everyday. furthermore, i should have timed the whole resignation a bit better. i should have coordinated my departure with a friend. right now, all my friends are working. i’m getting a bit lonely, but not lonely enough to suffer through another crappy job.

also, i’m still not there yet…the thought of going on interviews suffocates me. i get this mini-panic because i play the thought through and see me trapped in another job where i lose total control over my personal time and space. i’m really afraid that it’s going to happen again.

i’m not ready yet.

i prefer not to write about him. i prefer to remember how he makes me feel. two ideas that cannot exist together on my blackboard. i prefer to remember this moment in my life.

i suppose it’s been about two years or so. is this a “safe” period to start talking about how i feel or better yet start documenting what these past couple of years have meant for me? there are some breadcrumbs scattered on this board but nothing as powerful as paragraphs declaring the path my mind and heart have traveled. it’s difficult to write because he has a direct access to my words, but the pull to record this experience, the experience of him, is too precious to leave up to the faultiness of my memory.

a couple of years back i wrote about love. at that time i didn’t know what to make of this thing called love. what was it? what is it suppose to do? what makes it so powerful? well, two years later, i still can’t really define it, but that doesn’t mean that i don’t know what it is. love is as much as wanting for the other person as you want for yourself, and somehow down the road these mutual desires become one. make yourself stronger for you and you will make yourself stronger for him.

the fact of the matter is that i’ve never met anyone like him and i haven’t met anyone even 100 steps close to it. it’s not the personality, nor the background, nor the values that is most impressive, it’s the combination involving everything that is good about him and everything that is bad about him coupled with everything that is good and bad about me. this is what seems to fit, like two jagged pieces of puzzle so strange and distinct but able to create a picture when put together.

i stepped into a new chapter in my life, or at least i think so.

last week i quit my job. actually, it was the second job that i left in one month’s time. is there something wrong? or is everything right?

what prompted the sudden departure (from the second clutch) was a nagging voice named instinct. when something just doesn’t sit right and no matter how hard you tell it to shut up, it just doesn’t want to be quiet. yeah, i twisted throughout the fortnight on whether it was just my psychosis that was preventing me from embracing my new role or the reality was that this new place was the same as the old place in a different disguise. whatever the case, i untangled from this mental bout and realized that i’m not ready for either. my psyche has developed a muscle memory for occupational torture. my physical, mental and emotional beings need to check out from the world. i do not want any stimulation nor do i want structure. i don’t want to feel because all my past emotions have been so destructive and so wildly depressing. it’s like my mind wants to shutdown in hopes of recharging for the next journey. now i need to practice something new…develop a new muscle memory. what makes me tick and what makes me alive.