Creativity London

You wake up and wonder why

February 21, 2013 – 9:55 pm

Writing often involves throwing myself into thick gooey mud. My dreams and nightmares are reawakened and some of what I write hurts me, pains me, makes me cry when I am in the shower or riding the Tube. I’m sensitive and vulnerable but I stay concretely this way because material can’t form beneath the glare of the sun; it thrives under rocks and within shadows.

Material has to move and often it has to hurt – because it’s true. But not all of my writing is dark, some of it is light and funny. But for the past two weeks I haven’t been writing regularly, because of the uncertainty of my life. I have been moving to a different apartment at least once a week and can’t stop thinking about my instability. The uncertainty in life has dimmed my creative spark, and made me unsure of what moves to make because I can’t exist in a character’s life when I am not well-grounded within my own. It’s a privilege to create characters, to be able to transport away from your body and into the mind of another.

Perhaps this is a sad, stupid excuse. But the story I was so passionately excited about just two weeks ago has slipped through my fingers and I’m finding it hard to care. Maybe I need to start a new story, something new and fresh that has feeling reflecting my current situation in life. I just don’t know.

Mostly I have felt interrupted in this instability. New and interrupted. Because I’m beginning something different, and it’s difficult to explain yourself when the waves of the Universe are crashing in such sudden, haphazard ways.

And I’m okay with myself. Because I’ve been awakened but have yet to get up to check the weather.

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe
you are living. Then you read a book (Lady Chatterley, for instance),
or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that
you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of
hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second
symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into
death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous
illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die
like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car.
They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some
shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens
them and saves them from death.

 - The Diary of Anaïs Nin , Volume One 1931-1934

 

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growing up London Switzerland

Being an “expat” in Switzerland

February 7, 2013 – 4:25 pm

I meant this to be, I guess, an “expat blog”. But I’ve tried to shy away from the word “expat”, because it keeps me from blending in. When I am in a new culture, I want to assimilate as soon as possible, and the word expat just makes me feel distance from the culture in which I am trying to participate.

Although I’ve lived in Germany, Italy, and Holland for at least three months at a time, moving to Switzerland permanently has been painful. My partner started a full-time job in which he was incredibly busy, coming home sometimes past 9 or 10pm. I was often alone, and freaking out about getting my German up to speed and getting a job.

I received my bachelor’s degree in August 2012, and moved to Switzerland a month later. Getting out of school is stressful enough, but finding a job to sponsor a work visa for you in a foreign country as a fresh undergrad seemed impossible at times. Especially with the EU economy in such a slump.

How did I survive? How am I surviving? It’s a combination of having discipline, being social, rewarding myself, and having a positive attitude. Because Switzerland is a very difficult country to move to, I have found – more difficult than Germany was.

I’ve been living in London for the past month and a half. Sometimes I have wanted to go crazy. But how am I surviving? The same way I’ve survived in Switzerland. Let me give you details:

1. Having discipline: I just finished writing my first novella The Flowers Have Bloomed. I determined that I would write my first book or collection of stories, and I’ve done it. Since I am self-publishing, I have to have market strategy to get the book “out there”. This takes considerable time and I am really excited about this project. I have a vision, a goal, a strategy, and it’s exciting that people will be able to read my work.

2. Being social: Like I mentioned, my partner was incredibly busy when we first arrived in Switzerland. He had his co-workers, while I had my dog. As much as I love talking to my dog, I couldn’t talk with him. When my partner worked late or was on a business trip, I was determined to not stay home when I felt like being social. So I went out, alone.

I would order a drink at a bar or nightclub and stand in the corner, or maybe dance, and just enjoy the moment. Each time I had a lonely pang I would force a smile and imagine having conversations with some of the people there – forming friendships and having fun with them. Finally I was able to find a small group of friends in Zürich, and it’s been wonderful.

However, now I have been living in London for the past couple of months without my partner, so I started going out like I did in Zürich. I have met a few people here in London and it has been great.

3. Rewarding myself: If I had a long day of writing (discipline), I would reward myself with a long walk, or maybe a beer or a book. I would find a cool cafe to go to and hang out, or go to a museum. Just find something that pleases you. Rewards help to focus you when the world is crazy.

4. Having a positive attitude: This doesn’t need to be explained, but an optimistic outlook is imperative to surviving life as an “expat”. You’ll be frustrated, you’ll cry, you’ll be looking at return tickets to your country of origin. Just remember that life is wonderful and every situation influences your soul in a positive way, if you allow it. The trick is to try to force a smile and watch a fun music video when the tears begin to flow.

My ultimate advice: Let your positive feelings shine in the universe that loves you, is guiding you, and ultimately wants you to succeed. There will be barriers and hardships, but you will inevitably overcome them. You just have to believe and visualize, I can’t stress how important this is. Life is a gift and you can’t turn your back on it. You just have to move forward even when it’s full of darkness.

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London Personal

The awesomeness of the mind

February 6, 2013 – 11:51 am

I woke up on Monday morning at 5am when a brick fell on my head. Solid yet smooth. Unforgiving, like the moon who speaks no name.

My passport was still missing after two days of frantically searching. I returned to all the places where it may have been taken/slipped out of my pocket: to the British Museum (where I found mummies!!), Ku Bar, and to The Joiner Arms in Shoreditch. The passport is still missing.

I went to the police station to report it, and of course and they told me I need to contact the embassy. I contacted the embassy and they led me through some prompts on their website, and nothing more. When I finally was able to get a hold of someone, he was curt, short, and rude and asked me for no details. I was worried sick, because I am expecting my work authorizations to come through from Switzerland and I need to return. I have almost nothing in the bank and also, my family needs me.

But a realization dawned on me.

After finally realizing it’s lost or stolen, I took a deep breath. Because although it will be an emergency that I get my passport very soon, it’s not an emergency that I return to Switzerland right now. When I get my permits, yes – then it’s an emergency. But right now I have to calm myself with that fact that I’ll be okay. I’ll live. It’s only a document with stamps from Uganda, Rwanda (but failed attempt at entry, I’ll spare you the details), the Netherlands, UK, Germany, USA, Iceland, and perhaps some other places. A stamp diary of sorts.

It’s only a document. And when I have my permits and it becomes an absolute dire emergency, I will act accordingly. Because the way we think controls our emotions, and I can’t let my emotions control me. So I have to get a handle on my thinking, on my thought.

Hold up the thought in a nonjudgemental, accepting way and marvel at the awesomeness of the mind when you decide to act in a different way.

Because the goal is to love yourself, and others. Not that you should but because you can.

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Poems

When my heart could sing

January 31, 2013 – 2:25 pm

Like a jar
the lid
closed tight
without
poked holes
I move
in circles
Gently, as the breeze
settled
a long time ago.

No room for error
No room for growth
Moving
just moving
in the dead air
When I recall
the days
My heart could sing

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life London

Pride, interrupted

January 27, 2013 – 2:42 pm

On my walk I bounced.

I felt light. Airy. Handsome, even. I had just signed an important document – an employment contract – and nothing could take away my smile. Years and years of part-time, minimum wage jobs and poverty-level living led up to this moment.

Because my future employer is in Switzerland and I am currently in London, I had to print the employment contract, sign it, scan it, and then e-mail it back in. Trouble is: I don’t have a printer nor a scanner, so I had to find a copy center, like the equivalent of a Kinko’s. I was on a quest, quickly googling “East End London” + “copy center” + “scan”, and ran out the door.

Like I said, I was feeling good, ready to print my contract. While walking, I passed a woman who looked like she was in her sixties. She was wearing a bright yellow, almost green reflective vest and massive black galoshes. She wheeled in front of her a garbage can filled to the brim with black trash bags. Her upper lip was lapping her lower, and from the looks of her downward sloped jaw I had a feeling she had lost a lot of teeth. I looked in her eyes and saw nothingness.

I continued walking, briefly looking at the copy center directions I had written down.

Soon I reached the copy center, but on the door a handwritten note said “Door locked. Please ring the doorbell to enter.” After I rang and the door opened, a short white man welcomed me in and said, very slowly: “What can we help you with today?” Each word in his sentence was carefully said, like feet descending slippery steps. He sounded like he had a mental disability.

“Umm.. I’m here to get a copy made, and then scanned…”

“Yes sir,” he said. Behind the counter sat five black people, all much older than I and eerily silent, in front of a row of shelves holding ink cartridges, paper, pens, and other office supplies. I was the only customer.

The white man helping me was slow. Abnormally slow, as if he had to think intensely though each motion he made on the computer. The people sitting behind the counter still said nothing, not to each other nor to me. One woman looked directly down on the floor, her somber wrinkly face revealing defeat. The rest were expressionless.

After walking out of the copy center, I wondered where I had just been. It wasn’t a typical place, the environment was too somber, too quiet, too sad. I went to a nearby cafe and on my computer browsed to the website of the copy center I had just patroned.

I clicked “About Us” and discovered the business is part of a mental health charity, helping people learn new skills and get back on their feet. What a strange irony it was, that the place I had gone to print my employment contract for my first post-undergraduate job, was a charity that helped unemployed people with mental health issues get back on their feet!

My proud smile faded after that, and I felt extremely grateful. For my luck, my education, my skills, my drive, my mental health. I have an employment contract, yes, but greater than that I know what it’s like to be on the other side. The stricken side. Not only because I have the experience of being poor, but also because I can empathize with people seeing great walls before them, and fighting their way through.

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Poems

a brightly lit feeling

January 26, 2013 – 12:42 pm

I fit my life into a dream.
All of it
My spirit
As it walks its own little
way
through the murky world

My thumping heart
responds
to the call
through the fog
an endless yet marvelous
blanket
of gray – disguising
the way ahead

and I smile
because my thumping heart
responds
to
a heightened awareness
a brightly lit feeling
that something is
out there

waiting for me.

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Personal

Providence comes when I forget to believe

January 23, 2013 – 8:43 am

Tonight I was lucky to find a restaurant open late north of London, in Hackney. It was snowing, and there was barely anyone there. A thirty-something Filipino man walked up to me and told me to marry him.

I laughed, and tried to shrug him off. The awkwardness made me itch my neck. Be he persisted, telling me how handsome I was. He told me he’d pay for my dinner if I ate with him and his friend. I said no, and thanked him kindly. When I received my food, he and his friend motioned me over to their table. I sat, and in a daze I told him and his friend about my life, and what I was doing in London. But he mostly talked about himself, about his upcoming wedding, his businesses, shopping.

His energy and voice reminded me of someone. A striking resemblance. The randomness of his conversations, and how they twisted and turned. His behavior, his physical movements and expressions struck me in vulnerable ways, and I was in quiet awe. Because he reminded me so much of someone I once loved. A dear friend I lost just a year ago.

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London Travel

On the night out

January 20, 2013 – 3:33 pm

Last night I went out alone in London, my second time.

Many people are weirded out about going to a bar or club alone, but I like the sense of adventure, fun, and slight awkwardness of cradling a drink in my hand , looking around the bar, and that just being it. And people approach me, every time, and that’s when the stories of the night unfold.

The most interesting guy I met was straight, which is perfectly fine because I have a boyfriend, but when I asked him to exchange e-mails, he just wanted to know who my favorite Real Housewife was. I asked him to exchange e-mails twice, but both times he just wanted to talk Real Housewives. I met others; one guy was nice until I told him I’m originally from the States, but live in Switzerland, and am just visiting London. Confused, he started ignoring me. Which is fine. Another guy started ignoring me after I told him I have a boyfriend.

Then I met a Brazilian woman. She was in a corner of the bar, and said a stranger just called her “the ugliest person alive” when she was coming out of a restroom stall. She wasn’t the ugliest person alive, though. Far from it. She was nice and sweet and kind. Attractive. We exchanged e-mails, and I hope to hear from her.

I left the club at 3:30, when a stranger began caressing my hip on the dance floor. That was my call to go.

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London Travel

Hard faces, where is the sweetness?

January 19, 2013 – 2:05 pm

(It’s there, only hidden)

Perhaps it’s just me recovering from the ultimate self-confidence killer of unemployment, but the last few times I have gone out in London I’ve experienced people being assholes to me. The first night was when my boyfriend and I went out, and this guy looked at him, and then looked at me – the change in this guy’s face was striking. From smile to disgust. And this wasn’t my imagination.

Perhaps I am sensitive, and take too many things personally. Probably so, but why are people mean to each other? Where do people get the bad attitudes and awful behavior? My partner said it was because the “weekends bring too much bridge and tunnel crowd”, like NYC. During the week NYC is quite nice, but you get people from the outer areas and people can be quite awful? It’s great to have simple explanations for such inexplicable behavior – and sometimes simple explanations are good.

Because if I’m hung up on the shitty, disgusting faces, I’m not looking for the bright, accepting, nice ones. If I spend my time thinking about who’s an asshole, I’m not spending time focusing on the good people out there. And I know they are there, because I don’t think the majority of people are mean or evil. Just the bad ones seem to become more noticeable.

So whenever someone treats me poorly, I’ll try not to let them win. I’ll keep my head up, looking for what is deserving of my time.

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Creativity death life Travel

I work and I glide. I skate.

January 19, 2013 – 1:36 pm

I’ve been in London since December 29th. I came with my partner, who had a birthday on New Year’s Eve.

We celebrated his birthday dinner at the Ritz. The setting was amazing, like being transported to another world. The walls were a light pink marble, the crystal chandeliers magnificent. The food was good. Not excellent, but good. I didn’t belong, but enjoyed the experience nonetheless (who wouldn’t?).

My partner was in London with me for two weeks, and a voice was telling me the entire time: “Matthew, you have to work, you have to work, you have to work.” I felt bad, because this was my partner’s vacation. But it wasn’t my vacation, because I have had a lot of “free” time in Zürich, and I have been working on my first novella. If I don’t write daily, I feel useless. I feel like nothing.

The novella, my first, is about two things that probably make you want to vomit: love and loss. How many stories have we heard about love and loss? How many have been written over the past five hundred years or so about these two topics? Millions? But it’s more than love and loss, it’s about creativity and passion and art and beauty.

When my partner left London I went into full-on editing mode with my story. Crossing the I’s, dotting the T’s. I’m not thinking about it being published, I’m only thinking about making it as good as it really should be. It’s a struggle to tell an honest story. I just want to tell the truth.

On Saturday night I went out alone in Shoreditch, to a bar called The Joiner Arms. I met someone who had never read any of my stories, and told me to forget about writing, because it means nothing. He literally said: “You will be an extremely unhappy person if you dedicate your time to writing” while looking at me like I was a fool. I didn’t know what to say back to him, because he thought I was writing for him, for you, for the world.

But I’m not, I’m not, I’m not. I write for two people only: myself and my ideal reader. And I refuse to become a person who gives up his passion, his interest, his art, because he won’t make it in the outside world, or because he has a full time job that pays the bills. Having a job, and going home to watch tv and/or drink and dine the night away will never be my life. And if it is, I don’t want to live it.

When that idiot at The Joiner Arms told me I couldn’t write, all of my self-doubt, all of my uncertainty about my writing abilities ceased. And I am determined more than ever before because

I am a writer. I write.

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