Tag: cozy minimalism

Too much honey…

Beth DeFries2 Comments

Hello again friends; I know it’s been a while.

I’ve been struggling to get back to writing, unable to give confidence to any particular idea. Right now, I am just typing and sipping a glass of Malbec, hoping that each word (and my grape juice) will help tug me out of Rabbit’s doorway and into a post worth your time and my own. Thanks in advance for bearing with me and I’m sorry if this is absolute stuff and fluff.

I admit that sometimes, even after reducing the amount of items that we have in our home, the laundry basket still overflows, the entryway table hides beneath the camouflage of grocery receipts and sheathed credit card offers, the throw blankets rest in crumpled piles on the new, blue sofa, and there are shoes seemingly everywhere.

No matter how many steps I climb to get closer to my own ideal of cozy minimalism, I think I’ll always gravitate towards a messy reality. I could have three things and at least two of those would somehow find their way to the wrong spot the next day. I need to learn to accept that.

My mind is a curious, cluttered place that doesn’t match my curated home. I struggle to cope with the mental mess a lot of the time, sometimes leaving the door open to too many thoughts and baseless insecurities, allowing them to sneak in amidst the darkness like unwelcome Heffalumps encouraging self-doubt to take the reins and to make the sensible parts of the oversized, aspic-walnut in my head go numb.

Alas, I run on.

When I am down, I am not able to express what I am thinking in spoken words, and words are supposed to be my rescue ledge. Their abandonment is greatly unappreciated. Sometimes my brain thinks faster than my words which leads to stumbling over them and then a deeper lack of confidence. This is why I need to get back to writing. I know that I am capable of intelligence, confidence, and true expression on the page. I can use my own words as a map to navigate my own creative woods.

When there is clutter in my physical environment, it is difficult to decompress, relax, and feel cozy. I crave cozy constantly and when it’s not there, it’s easy to get lost in my composited mind. Cozy wraps me up in welcoming, warm snuggles and tells me, “You can fucking do this.”

I find cozy in empowering conversations with my husband, family, and friends, in warm cups of tea with too much honey, in dry red wine, and in stretched out sweatpants and squashy coral pillows. I recognize how incredibly lucky I am to have people in my life who love me and to be able to curate a home that fosters my happiness to the best of my ability. In theory, I should never want for more and yet sometimes, I am an absolute Eeyore. In the words of somebody, somewhere who Mike and I quote all the time (most likely the writers on Psych), “That don’t make no sense.”

So here is my attempt at diving back into my pond of words, hoping for a little black rain cloud to float on by with a heavy rain that will irrigate my potential and grow my creativity. I am sorry if it doesn’t last, but I would like to give it a shot. With my strong support system, I know I can never be stuck for long. “He-ho, e-o, there she goes!“

One Deep Blue

One Deep Blue

Beth DeFries3 Comments

Sitting on the balcony with a cold beer and and the expansive view of a white Atlantic, the muse returns. Escorted on the arm of a gentle breeze on this cool August evening, it seemed as good a time as any to pursue its inspiration.

The sun climbs down the hill behind us after a long day’s journey and the blue and gold sky fades to periwinkle, clouds towering like tidal waves above the horizon, preparing to swallow the shore. The street lamps on Sandy Hook ignite in a synchronized splash and pairs of headlights make their way homeward or adventure bound.

Summer is in full swing though the humid haze called in sick. We don’t miss it.

Nights like these, you can hear yourself think and even turn that off if you wanted to. I tune in to a symphony of birds, crickets, and the exhalation of car engines in the distance. Air conditioners take a well deserved rest and their lack of participation is welcome.

Our eyes adjust to the dimming dusk as the river mirrors the sky. Long Island twinkles animatedly in the distance and the JFK departures rise slow into ombré velvet, brushed just the right way.

I pull up a cozy throw of summer air under my laptop and nestle in with all the other nestling buildings, plants, and people. Together, we all fade from view into one deep blue.

No Hurries, No Worries

No Hurries, No Worries

Beth DeFriesLeave a comment

Fully breakfasted and armed with a steaming mug of chamomile and honey, I sit on our turquoise couch, which is turning more green than blue from soaking up the frequent eastern sunshine that streams through our living room windows. Outside those windows waits a perfectly clear fall day. The “Big Blue” suits its nickname this morning, sparkling dreamily up at me. Sailboats drift calmly in a gentle, southward wind and speed boats bounce excitedly on the surface of the water, trailing long, fluffy, white tails.

With only wisps of clouds on the distant horizon, sweeping glows of sunshine, and a cool, lazy breeze, today is simply beautiful and I feel lucky to be an audience to it, comp-ticketed for no reason other than that this is where we live.

We have only one errand to run today and the rest of the time is open and changeable as the Big Blue. Sometimes, having nothing much to do is exactly the right medicine for an overworked mind.

As an over-planner, these sorts of days can be confusing, sometimes even frustrating, to me. Sometimes, I’ll think, I should have planned something to do with all this time; what a waste. Sometimes, I chance upon these sorts of days after cancelled plans or changes in weather patterns and am bored, longing for an activity that I do not have to brainstorm and choose. This is not the case today and I’m excited to make the plan as we go, lagging behind the heels of the day as they race on ahead of us toward midnight. We are in no rush to catch up.

My usual wandering mind is calm and quiet this morning, patient and relaxed, just waiting to go with the flow of where the cool breeze takes us. I am grateful that my brain is not buzzing, as usual, with the need to tidy or plan, to start and complete work tasks, or to make decisions. This morning, it is just living in the moment and that is exactly what the rest of me needs.

I feel calm and rested for the first time in over a week, the anxiety drained out of me and replaced with pleasant, positive thoughts and soothing warm tea and honey to balm the wounds. Looking out at the ocean, twinkling reassuringly, I am reminded that I am in exactly the right place and that I want to go dip my toes in the Atlantic’s crisp, chilly shallows later on, just for a moment, before I chicken out and hide my feet in a blanket of cool sand.

The Gathering Place

Beth DeFries2 Comments

I sit on the porch of our family shore house listening to the morning symphony of foam flip flops shuffling along slate sidewalks to the boardwalk, the gentle rumbling of car engines in slow pursuit of good parking spaces, and the sweet-tuned gossip amongst the birds singing the breaking news of summer from the trees lining the street.

The breeze is cool and a cocktail of salty humidity clings to the furniture as the sun spotlights the modernized facelifts of our street’s once Victorian-style dollhouse homes.

I can usually see the ocean from this spot on the cozy wicker sofa, but the hedges around the porch have grown a little too accustomed to a casually untidy appearance which we can all pretty much relate to from living through a worldwide pandemic. I could use a trim as well but that can wait a while longer. These are those lazy, hazy, crazy days of… well you know, after all.

(The birds’ news reel plays on a loop).

I was too lazy to prepare the coffee this morning and didn’t want to wake anyone sleeping on the first floor with the bubbling gasps of the coffee pot. So instead, I gathered my laptop and headed out to the porch to sit in the breeze and be inspired by summer. Not too long after, I am joined by my cousin and her young son and demands for bubble time take priority. Wobbly iridescence floats heavily on the air and splash lands on the floorboards while the writing takes a rest.

Welcome distractions abound in this family-filled old house. These walls tell stories of use and love – of our own contained family history in this little shore town. The rooms are filled with laughter and conflicting TV volume preferences – with movie decision fatigue and lazy mornings sipping coffee. The scent memory of freshly baked Italian rolls and cinnamon sugar crumb cake permeate the dining room and waft up the stairs like a buttery apparition encouraging everyone to wake up in slow procession.

The memories of past experiences and loved ones long gone remain alive in this magical place, preserved like old time postcards in a frame. This house tells us stories and helps us write new ones. It makes us laugh till our bellies and our cheeks ache or even sometimes, till we pee “our” pants (IYKYK). It is where we have gathered for my whole life- where I got to know my family as a whole and I am so grateful for all that it gives us. We try our best to do right by it and keep the experiences going, even when it gets hard or we don’t have a clue what we are doing.

But now it is time to put away the laptop and enjoy the first day of summer – to bask in the salty breeze of the shore, with the only current task at hand of pondering when to head to the beach.

Embroidered in the Social Fabric

Embroidered in the Social Fabric

Beth DeFriesLeave a comment

For the past few weeks, I have been considering deleting my Instagram account and last night, with a wave of decisiveness brought on by two glasses of smooth red wine and a discussion about the social media presence of embroidery, I achieved the gumption to clip the threads connecting me to the photo & video social media platform. The decision was easy to put into action after weeks of reflection and consideration, and logging on to Instagram in my web browser and going through the steps of a permanent account delete was pleasantly freeing. While Instagram allows me approximately one month to change my mind before my account is permanently deleted, this is a decision that I do not envision reversing.

For the sake of context, I should tell you that I have only been using Instagram for nine months, so I do not have a strong attachment to the platform and deleting it is not going to bring about monumental change to my daily routine. I created an account in May of 2020 after seeing a friend post on Facebook about an event for a Disney World fireworks show that was going to be aired live on Instagram. Stuck inside for a couple of months at that point due to the pandemic, and remembering how magical I found the Disney fireworks show at Magic Kingdom when I was 16, I thought it would be fun to watch the fireworks again, so I created an account.

After creating my account, I followed a few family members, friends, and topics I found interesting and occasionally posted photos, aiming to be mindful in my content. I mostly posted pictures of views from our home, scenes of local parks, and wildlife sightings- subjects that were pleasing to me, without much regard for what other people might enjoy while scrolling their Instagram feeds. While my Instagram was primarily for my own entertainment, I still could not resist the frequent urge to open the app after posting to check if anyone had liked or commented on a post. This desire for acknowledgement and hunger for attention are the primary reasons that prompted my decision to detach.

Social media can be an outlet for vanity and sometimes influences us to view our own world through the filter of what other people will “like”. I found this to be blatantly evident on Instagram where filters sugarcoat experiences and selfies rule the day. Looking at my feed on Instagram, it was clear how much the available outlets for constant self-publicity have influenced the way people portray themselves to their social circles. They plan trips and activities and pack outfits based on what will look impressive in photos. They show only their best angles, presenting staged snapshots into how they style themselves, their pets, their homes, their experiences, and even their food- living their best life for the gram.

I am not opposed to social media and I know many people who get enjoyment out of Instagram. I hope they will continue using it as long as it continues to bring them joy. Social media has a lot of positives that I embrace. It can foster community, put you in touch with old friends, serve as an outlet for catharsis and a hub for events and gatherings. It is a great tool for keeping in touch, promoting business ventures, and sharing important news. There are truly great aspects of social media that I find valuable and enjoyable, however, Instagram was a platform that I found added little joy to my life and was more of a crutch for me to fill in moments of boredom more so than anything else. I found it fulfilled the same need for connection to the outside world that Facebook already offers me, and felt I gravitated toward Facebook more so than Instagram. While I am not going to delete Facebook, I did delete the app from my phone to discourage mindless scrolling.

It is so easy to open social media apps and just scroll and scroll and scroll (our thumbs never got so much “exercise”). Minimalism has taught me how to put intention and mindfulness into practice. Mindlessly scrolling through Instagram offered distraction from those principles while also playing to another weakness of mine – the urge to shop. This was my next driving reason for deleting my account.

After a few months on Instagram, the ads tailored to my feed became smarter and seemingly more frequent and I’d often find myself going to the online stores for some of my favorite retailers to go “window shopping”. While I do not buy on impulse anymore, I do shop on impulse – if that makes any sense. I rarely buy clothing now and when I do, it is after deliberating on whether I want to add a particular piece or to replace something I own that is too worn to wear but that I get joy or necessity out of. That being said, I’ll still “hunt” for perfect outfits for hypothetical experiences and add to cart, spending valuable time on the activity rather than spending money. Purchase-free shopping is not always guilt-free in my book and I wonder why I chose to spend so much time looking for items that I wouldn’t otherwise have known existed if I hadn’t seen an ad for the store in the first place rather than doing something more nourishing like reading a book, going for a walk, playing a game or doing a puzzle with Mike, or planning a blog post. I do enjoy the act of shopping, but find it is more fulfilling when I am looking for something specific rather than being prompted by a bot on social media that eerily knows my favorite stores.

Ads and recommendations for pages that Instagram thought I would like started to ignore my feedback. When I requested to hide ads from particular stores or identified certain topics as irrelevant, nothing changed. I began to notice the ads and odd topic recommendations more than I noticed the posts from family and friends and found scrolling through the content of my feed to be distracting. When Instagram decided I would be interested in embroidery (thank you Bridgerton? I guess?), and I fervently assured it that I had no interest, my clicks to diminish the topic in my feed were not reflected. The constant bombardment of advertising and Instagram’s projecting were enough to say enough.

I am looking forward to being more intentional with social media and to revisiting digital clutter that can use some intentional care. I am happy to minimize my exposure to constant advertising and my next project will be to tackle my email inbox – pray for me. Until my next post, I challenge you to reflect on your own relationship with social media. Does it bring you joy? Are there platforms you have accounts for that you never use? Maybe consider decluttering apps that you find excessive or that you use mostly when you are bored. Distance yourself from unnecessary platforms that bring you stress and frustration. You don’t have to permanently delete your account, but removing an app from your phone will help you to be more aware of how many times you go in search of that mindless distraction each day.

Six Months of Cozy!

Six Months of Cozy!

Beth DeFries1 Comment

Today is the six-month anniversary of cozy does it! Hooray!

This is my twenty-second post in six months and I feel incredibly proud of that. If you are reading this as a blogger who is just getting started, I wish you luck and encouragement and urge you not to feel pressured by the blank page. You can do this and you can do this at whatever pace is right for you.

I started this blog as a healthier writing outlet to social media and it turned into something much more nourishing and sustaining for me. I realize now that the title that came to me as I was sipping coffee at our kitchen table early in the morning on August first and the themes of coziness and minimalism have provided me with positive, focused fuel for my writing. I don’t know exactly what it was that ignited the spark in me, a perpetual procrastinator, to sit down and figure out how to start a blog that morning- to purchase a domain name, choose a layout design, and tailor the font to best suit my topic, but I am so thankful. Having a subject matter that continuously feeds my creative energy and urges my flow of ideas each time I am met with a blank page is something I have not experienced in over a decade and it is something that I do not take for granted.

I have self-identified as a writer since I was a little kiddo and this is the first time in a long time that I feel honest in that claim. Writer’s block is a very real struggle that attacks a writer’s confidence, pushes aspirations out of reach, and induces personal anxiety. I am personally familiar with feeling lost on the snowy expanse of a blank Word document and the unsteady falling sensation of slipping around on buttery journal pages. The most useful tools for me, oddly enough, have been to remove the pressure of goal-setting when it comes to my own creativity, and to strip away any expectation of success and go into creative endeavors knowing that I may be my only audience member.

Back on that August morning, I realized that I just wanted to write for the sake of writing. I just wanted to reclaim that part of me for myself and no one else.

Over the past few years, I have occasionally taken part in creative retreats and artist salons organized by other artist friends of mine. I would go to these events, hoping that being an audience member to the mismatched collection of creative contributions would inspire me or instill in me a drive to exercise my creativity. Unfortunately and surprisingly, the events had the opposite effect on me. While they seemed to work wonders for other artist friends of mine who are more deadline-driven and fueled by ambitions of making it professionally, I found that when my turn to present would come, the acid would rise from my stomach to my esophagus and set off cacophonous alarms ringing in my head, pumping a rush of blood to the tips of my ears, unveiling me as an imposter.

In my recent post, Beth’s Picture Show, I wrote a little about the dangers of comparison. When I used to find myself included in public gatherings of artists presenting their work, a quiet ball of jealousy would begin to tumble and grow as I compared my own creations to those of the more talented song writers, painters, illustrators, playwrights, poets, and musicians present. I thought with an unattractive bitterness, why should I even bother?

Other artists reading this may be thinking, well if you want to succeed as an artist, you need to be able to take criticism. Sound familiar to anyone? Anyone? Bueller? They are right, of course, if success as a professional is indeed your goal. But there are other types of success too – smaller, less obvious ones. I acknowledge that editors are necessary to tailor a piece to its best possible version, but for me – at least for right now- it is more important to just be writing. I am talented enough for myself and my talent has different, not worse, actualizations than it does for other artists. The pure and simple exercise of somewhat consistent writing is simultaneously enough and more than I could ever have hoped for these past six months.

I hope no artist reading this has shared my sense of inadequacy while being an audience member to other artists’ work, but the realist in me says that’s probably not the case. Let me be one tiny voice telling you that you don’t need to practice your craft all the time to be an artist. You don’t need to constantly cater to a practice that leaves you feeling drained and insufficient if it’s not coming naturally one day. It is ok to be patient with yourself if you are feeling particularly uncreative for one day, week, year, or decade of your life. Your reunion will be waiting for you somewhere down the line and will hit you smack in the middle of the face with a densely packed snowball or maybe introduce itself more subtly in a sip of coffee on a warm, summer morning.

Thank you for reading today’s post! I realize it strayed from the theme of cozy minimalism, but I am glad you gave it a read all the same. I want to extend a quick thank you to my cozy community. I am so grateful for the handful of family and friends who have taken time to read posts over the past six months as well as to the members of the blogging community who have been so encouraging by choosing to follow the blog or “like” a cozy does it post here and there. I only expected an outlet for my writing in starting this blog, but I am so grateful that some readers have chosen to join me on this adventure. Thank you all and happy reading!

Breakfast of Wanderers

Breakfast of Wanderers

Beth DeFries1 Comment

The sunrise tends to wake me up on the weekend days- not because of some inner-light that syncs with the solar forces; the real reason is much less transcendental than that. The “blackout” curtains on our bedroom windows evidently lied about their skills on their resume and my unconscious bias was unfairly influenced by a gut-confidence in their cozy, homespun, buffalo check design. Our windows face full east so the disparity between the advertising and reality became apparent at once.

Mike is able to sleep through the shiny-ness, but I often find myself heading upstairs to enjoy a large mug of some hot liquid while reading on my kindle or wondering if my early morning half-motivation to write something is going to result in my fingertips actually stringing sentences together on my keyboard. Today, the motivation appears to have been real enough.

I am standing at the breakfast counter that separates our kitchen from our living room, sipping piping hot Darjeeling, and flipping through lonely planet’s The Travel Book with semi-absorbed interest. The book is a large, heavy account of vivid photographs and informational blurbs of every country in the world. It was gifted to me by my dear friend, Chelsea, years ago at my bridal shower. I flip through the pages from time to time and have found it to be my go-to entertainment during power outages, which happen more often than in our previous Brooklyn homes (where we never once lost power-ahh the good ol’ days).

I took The Travel Book off of the shelf in our bedroom the other day, realizing that it was not stored in a spot where I use it. It’s not like the book was caked in dust or anything, but I knew it would serve a better purpose upstairs, which it has done as I have looked at it three or four times since.

I enjoy wandering the varying landscapes that spread across the glossy pages, engaging in silent meetings with the smiling locals and being confoundingly absorbed in the intense, bright-eyed stares of more conspicuous emotion opposite the photographer’s lens. I feel the warmth of hot dust on a ranch in the Buenos Aires province, release myself to the wind that flutters strings of colorful prayer flags in Bhutan, and cower at the unimpressed, stern confrontation of an army of albatrosses in the Falkland Islands.

Travel is fuel for excitement and entertainment in our home, as it is for many other people, I imagine. Taking out the excess has resulted in a personal increase in my mental capacity for planning and organization and my favorite things to plan and organize are trips.

Throughout the pandemic, I have satiated my wanderlust by way of virtual walking and driving tours in places around the world from the comfort of our turquoise couch. I have also delved into planning trip itineraries for multiple destinations, trips that will, in hope, actualize some day. My adventures have taken me to the remote corners of Barrow in northern Alaska, the focused (and thin) atmosphere of Everest Base Camp, the sustainably artsy towns and rainforests of Bainbridge Island, a crunchy Quebec City in a growing blanket of snow, the valley-nestled city of Thimphu in Bhutan, and the Greek island of Tinos in a heat wave.

I’ll pick up the remote some nights and Mike will say, “Where are you going today?” I pull up the map on my phone and zoom into different countries like a curious satellite before I settle on my destination. Without having to book a hotel, pack a bag, and remove my belt, liquids, and laptop to go through airport security, I am transported to a new life experience. I gather my surroundings through sight and sound and record them in my mental travel journal.

My virtual travels throughout this past year have broadened my adventurous spirit and geographical comprehension. I feel lucky to live in a time when these places and experiences are virtually accessible. While I cannot recreate the other sensical experiences of my destinations, nor the personality and heart of a location and its local inhabitants, I can be aware that the places and people of the world have so much to offer and that I want to absorb as many experiences as my human lifespan will allow me to.

Beth’s Picture Show

Beth’s Picture Show

Beth DeFries1 Comment

One unexpected aspect of minimalism is maximalism in mental clarity. Whether you want it or not, you have more capacity for self-reflection, for internal debate, creative thought, and circumstantial realization- for confrontation, and coming to terms with things you’ve been ignoring, procrastinating, or denying. Minimalism clears both your physical space and surroundings as well as your mental space. It presents possibilities and dilemmas and gives you a power so valuable and defining – that of choice, and of diving into the unknown.

When I was little, my dad used to read to my sister and me nightly. I remember one book called Katie’s Picture Show by, James Mayhew. My sister, having the same name as the protagonist, is the owner of this childhood treasure now. Katie (the character), would visit the art museum with her grandmother and would dive into famed artworks during unsupervised moments and find herself part of the paintings that she visited, experiencing the depicted moments first hand and, sometimes, finding it hard to get back to reality. As a child who escaped into my own imagination frequently, I used to identify with the character, though over the years, I discovered that I lost that ravenous drive to wander uncharted territory.

Imagination is a wonderful and daring noun, a muscle that weakens if you do not exercise it, a gem so precious and in need of polishing that its shine dulls with lack of display to the point of fading into the background of miscellany present in the section of your mind containing repressed memories and rusty tactical skills. It gets pushed deeper into the shadowy corners of your mental attic each time you opt to expend your energy on something else you deem more important.

I have learned that I am a person who finds it difficult to focus on too many things at once. I put all that I am and all that I have into nourishing what I would miss most if it were gone.

As a child, I threw myself into art, writing, and friendships- as a late teenager to now, I have devoted myself completely to an enduring love, family, and companionship. I ask myself often why I do not devote much time to exercise the skills that were once my greatest strengths, the hobbies that were my raison d’être as a child, and I am frequently met with frustration and disappointment in myself for not giving them the energy and time they should deserve.

I pull the chain to the overhead lightbulb over the box with my imagination every once in a big red moon, searching in half-hearted attempts to find that missing part of me. It usually happens in times when I notice that other friends or acquaintances are more talented, creative, driven, and successful in hobbies that I used to be good at. I realize now that that is the wrong fuel for the search.

You need to seek your imagination for its own sake and nothing else. Stop giving a flying fork how good someone else is at “your” hobbies. They deserve to be good at their hobbies and their success should be a separate entity from you and your life. If they are your friends or family, you can even go ahead and be proud of them. Comparison can be mentally unhealthy; I know it has been for me.

Minimalism has taught me to recognize the things that are most important to me in my personal now, the things that I get joy out of as well as those things that I feel are lacking. It has taught me to realize the once defining aspects of myself that I unintentionally minimized somewhere along the way but also that I have the potential to recognize when I need to nurture those skills again even if I need to pick up some extra elbow grease at Shop-Rite in order to succeed at them (by my own personal standards and no one else’s).

Spotlights – The Stuff of Memories

Beth DeFriesLeave a comment

I have a polygamist set of champagne flutes in a glass-paned cabinet in our kitchen.

One groom was gifted to me on my wedding day as part of a set. “He” was widowed before the nuptials took place, his bride- the victim of a tragic, glassware-slaughter incident at the scene of the bridal “getting-ready” brunch. “She” lay in glimmering shards in a pooling stain of mimosa on the carpet, having been caught up in the avalanche that followed the sudden collapse of the coffee table during the photography session. Her demise was deemed “good luck” by our officiant later that evening.

The groom was joined by a replacement set over a year later and his bachelorhood came to a plural end(s).

—

I keep a tiny, rubber elephant inside my handbag almost all the time. This companion is known as “tiny elephant” (all lowercase) and accompanies me on journeys near and far. tiny elephant is a security blanket smaller than a dime that I adopted from a toy store off of Pioneer Square in Seattle while buying some jigsaw puzzles as trip souvenirs in 2016. My tiny “world’s largest land mammal” makes me smile whenever I see it, providing me with the comfort of accessible joy when I feel anxious, all for the cost of 75 cents and a faint bruise to my self-respect by making the cashier wait for me to retrieve it from the display and gently place it on top of the puzzles with a matter of fact, “… and this too,” before she could complete the purchase.

—

One of these things is not like the others. My desk is topped with a second hand lamp, coaster, trinket box, and a mason jar containing two DIYed wizard wands. The wands, crafted out of wood dowels, drizzled hot glue, and brown paint by my cousin and her husband, came into my possession at my birthday celebration a few years back (maybe even more than a few; time flies faster than a Firebolt, I swear… ok I’ll stop…).

The celebration was one of multiple gatherings at my cousin Mo’s old apartment in Brooklyn, a place rich in my memory with family gatherings. The wands take me back to a time of home cooked feasts, gourmet Brooklyn pizza, plentiful drinks, game nights, movie nights, and walks past the home fronts along Washington Avenue, the luster of their time-full grandeur sheepish in shadow against the glittering backdrop of downtown Brooklyn.

—

These belongings are among the stuff of memories in our home – some of the un-minimize-able prizes- awards of time well spent- of milestone days and past adventures, of good company and smiles that make my cheeks hurt just thinking about them. Some things, while extraneous and meaningless to others, may be integral to the accessibility, reflection, and retention of your memories. The magnitude of their value may not have been recognized at the time they entered your life, but their presence sparks appreciation and joy now and reminds me that not everything must go.

“… Begin Again”

Beth DeFries1 Comment

I just finished watching “Begin Again” again and have the film’s kick-ass soundtrack playing on my brain, the notes dancing on the goopy, textured surface in rainboot tap shoes, splashing in puddles of imaginary sound, raising drops of neon rainbow slime-matter in the dark space of my mind. Right now, this is how I envision the way I hear the music that is not actually playing. How do you “not hear” music?

To quote my mom, “Anyway…”

The movie took me on a tour of my home city of seven years, inviting me to revisit a bench I used to eat lunch on almost every day in Soho as an escape from a job I really didn’t enjoy, the stage-for-activism-and-art steps leading up to Union Sq. Park, the Washington Square Park Arch and fountain where I tried and failed to write my final Playwriting assignment in my senior year of college while visiting New York and waiting for Mike to get out of class. I was distracted by a sunny day and the ultimate people watching opportunity, my desire to write evaporating off the warm pavers, floating away from me like an escaped balloon.

I often forget how much I miss it… but I recognize how defining my NYC residency is to me that going back and revisiting old haunts evokes a nostalgia that gives me a (good – kind of?) heartburn. It also, at times, reminds me that I am missing out on unique experiences of New York City-living during these historic times, jabbing me in the ribs each time a once-in-a-lifetime experience passes me by because I wanted to and influenced us leaving.

We visited our erstwhile neighborhood on Friday and stopped “in” to enjoy outdoor experiences at some of our, once-local, establishments. We even brought some Brooklyn home with us. To-go growlers are a wonderful thing as I am – currently – pleasantly quenched with my favorite Brooklyn brew, Green Eyes IPA from Keg & Lantern Brewing Company in Greenpoint. Set in a washed up musician/producer headspace a la Mark Ruffalo in the beginning of Begin Again, I drank a couple of juice glasses of this emerald eyed elixir because I was too lazy to wash a real glass.

I am continuing a celebratory mood sparked by current events and outcomes from Saturday, November 7th, ones that washed a sense of calm and relief over most of those in my personal community. The tension and uncertainty of last week caused a lot of stress for me and for many people whom I love and since midday Saturday, that tension melted into relief, tears, smiles, cheers, and a spreading warmth of hope.

For those of you who are disappointed, I hope you will see the positive in this change and see unity, justice, and representation as possible, necessary, and important. People are born in many different forms. Some experience evolution of self during their lifetime. Some just want to have the right to love and to live without judgement, threat, or fear, and to not only feel safe but to be safe in those identities. Those differences are a wonderful thing and life would be un-recognizable without them.

I did not get to dance (you’re welcome) or swig champagne in the streets of NYC, but I sure wanted to. I am so grateful to even have had the experience to see videos, posts, and photos of individual and neighborhood-wide celebrations, of friends crying tears of joy, of my Philadelphia family cheering on their city with such deserved pride. Thank you to the wave of humanity, empathy, love, inclusion that showed up and turned out; we wouldn’t be here without you. I am ready for this rebirth. I am ready to…