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Torino, Italy - Photo by Ingi Erlingsson
I wrote an advice column in 7th grade, West
Sylvan Middle School. My fellow
counselor was Maggie, the new girl in school.
Some deeply innovative and collaborative thinking led to the name of our
column, “Dear Hilary and Maggie.” I saved the letters we received – they were
carefully folded and placed in a silver Converse shoebox, stored under my
bed. I don’t remember as much about the
advice we gave as I do about the questions and worries and dilemmas our fellow
adolescents shared in their queries.
I
was reminded of this – one of my first social service endeavors -- during my
recent retreat in Colombia, where I read Cheryl Strayed’s collection of letters
and responses from her advice column, Dear
Sugar. I devoured the book, Tiny Beautiful Things, over several days
of yoga, tropical fruits, meditation, mosquitos, song, and consultations with
oracles of various kinds – all the while among an impressive multi-lingual group
of seekers from around the world. We
were disconnecting from ‘reality’ and reconnecting to something more
fundamental that exists in each one of us, asking the same kinds of questions
collected in Strayed’s book -- and even those submitted to me in seventh
grade. That I felt I had advice to offer
anyone about anything at age 12 is, on one hand, ridiculous -- but on the other
hand, kind of makes sense. Perhaps at
that point I wasn’t influenced quite as much by my mind and all its impressive exercises
of thinking and consideration, and maybe instead had a little more connection to
a different kind of knowing – one that generally has to be recovered in
adulthood and requires more subtraction than addition, more simplicity and less
complication.
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Anne, who sees
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The beach, Colombia
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Earlier this year at a Brooklyn house party filled with
musicians, I’d asked my friend Andi -- playwright, professor, mother, and wife
of one of my favorite songwriters -- to be my manager; I wanted someone to
‘produce’ for me, boss me around and tell me to get over myself. She gave me an assignment, I said I’d
consider it, and Andi reminded me that ‘considering’ was bullshit, that I
should stop thinking and just do something.
Of course she was right; I had to agree that all my careful
consideration isn’t winning me any Pulitzer Prizes or Grammy Awards.
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| Advice from Andi |
Coming from a commercially-sponsored tour of the UK and Europe to film
various football teams in the service of selling electrolyte replacement
beverages, I’d put most of my personal and creative agendas on-hold, including
my assignment. The time in Colombia
gave me an opportunity to shed cumbersome winter clothing as well as other unnecessary
layers – and reminding me of Andi’s words of advice: Don’t consider it; do it!! Now!
Don’t think!
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| night time departure |
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morning departure
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| Liquid light, London |
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| Producers, Madrid |
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| Dream production team, Madrid |
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| Producer, London |
Before returning to winter, I journeyed further south to meet my friend Doug – who was nearing the end of his global tour while the rest of us acquiesced to darkness and hibernation. After a long journey and four airports, I arrived before sunrise in Buenos Aires to a lovely sparkly-eyed Porteño named Fernando, who ferried me back to his tastefully-appointed town house in Almagro with my suitcase full of filthy clothing to meet Doug. Fernando welcomed us like old friends as we occupied two of the three rooms he and his boyfriend offer on Airbnb. I slept for a couple of hours and went upstairs to the roof terrace to join the hombres for coffee. Was I still dreaming, or were two men hanging my clean laundry to dry?
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| February |
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| Colonia, Uruguay |
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| Buenos Aires |
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| Fernando |
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Church, Buenos Aires
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Deep-and-meaningfuls continued as I spent the next days with
these gents. Fernando – with his fellow Argentines, – has learned to live with
a lot of instability and uncertainty, and has found in his work as an architect
and designer that perseverance wins in the end:
Do something for long enough and you'll probably reach a reasonable
level of accomplishment. Doug’s mantra
comes from Shakespeare, the readiness is
all: We can’t control what happens
to us, but we can train and shape ourselves to be prepared for whatever may
come. It is no coincidence that Doug and
I met and became friends years ago when training in martial arts. I suppose
it is again no coincidence that readiness is basically the same ethos that
governs production: make plans but also expect the unexpected, and be ready to
handle whatever happens. Without thinking too much about it, I would borrow a mantra from Bruce Lee: be like water.
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| Post-birthday-feast in front of the glorious i Latina in BA |
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| Chilleando |
