Category Archives: Mind-Full

Patience is overrated

Jan 14, 2012

Patience is totally overrated. Even George Clooney says so.

Vanity Fair, February 2012

Obviously, if the king of Hollywood says so, it must be true. I need an ally, okay?

It can be tough, constantly hearing the old adages in the face of stalled movement and progress:

“Patience is a virtue.”

“You should be more patient.”

And my favorite: “You’re not very patient, are you?” Gee. How did you guess?

In the right context, I see how patience can work well. It can provide a sense of peace in what might otherwise be a challenging situation. Horrendous traffic. Waiting to hear back about a job interview. Cooking with a CrockPot.

But for the most part, I think patience is what other people tell you to have when they don’t want to (or are not capable of) doing what they’ve been asked to do. Making a decision. Meeting a deadline. Keeping a promise. In other words, it’s like a pat on the head and a raincheck. Patience can suck it.

For the new year, one of several thematic perspectives I’ve taken on is the sense of now. Like Now. Nowness — which is actually a word, if you can believe it. Not now like Veruca Salt, fists banging on the floor. Now, like that’s all we’ve really got. That’s all we have. This moment. Right here.

In committing to this point of view around my work as a writer, how that shows up is there is no “later.” Okay, there is, ideally, but it’s not promised. So the time to work, create, share, produce is (all together!) right now.

I understand not everything manifests itself just because I want it that way. If I went through life like that, I’d be a miserable, disappointed person. Maybe what I’m really calling for is abandoning the sense of idle patience. That way of being that allows people to avoid fulfilling their responsibilities unless they’ve been called out. It’s the waiting in vain Bob Marley was talking about.

Back to King Clooney. He sure is handsome, isn’t he? This is a guy who has done great work in the Sudan. You don’t make changes like that in the world doing the Dusty. You ask pointed questions, you make clear decisions, you make mistakes and try again. But you act. You know. Now.

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An open letter to Chick-Fil-A

Dec 02, 2011

I know that businesses can spend their money however they want. It’s their business. But I find it strange that Chick-Fil-A has tried to conceal their position on gay marriage for some time now. Sort of reeks of playing both sides. Businesses can do that, too. It’s their business. The thing is, I’m not really a fan of my chicken biscuit cash funding the anti gay rights movement. So, I had a come-to-Jesus moment, if you will. I quit Chick-Fil-A. And their closeted homophobic behavior.

Realistically speaking, if you started digging, it’d be easy to find that many companies are probably connected to some organization with an opposing values system. But I have a choice to make here, so I’m making it. I believe people know in their hearts that discrimination is wrong. But they keep riding this train to some Nazi-type fantasy land that the world would be better if we were all the same. That is, straight and Christian. Well, I disagree.

Seeing that the Chick-Fil-A website was interested in my feedback (“we value what you have to say”), I sent them my two cents. Maybe you’ll be inspired to send some of your own.

Dear Chick-Fil-A Leadership:

I have been a customer of Chick-Fil-A’s for about 5 years, since I moved to Atlanta. I was quickly won over by the chicken biscuits, the kind and courteous staff, and the seasonal hand-spun milkshakes. They’re wonderful. But your politics are not.

I’m writing to tell you I will no longer be patronizing your company, and will do my best to ensure my friends and family follow suit. I find your corporate support of anti-gay rights legislation abhorrent, a true anti-American stance, a massive failure in your company’s leadership.

As a married heterosexual I realize that civil rights for all do not come about unless those who are seemingly “unaffected” also stand by those who are being victimized. You may think this will just be a ripple in your gay customer base. It will not.

I hope you will reconsider your position. Gay men and women have fought and died in wars for you. They go to church, pay taxes, work in your locations and buy your sandwiches. You spit in their faces with these hateful actions. I hope you change your position. Until then, every twinge I get for one of those biscuits or milkshakes, I’ll spend at a gay rights nonprofit. It will be money well spent. And it’s ‘my pleasure.’

Sincerely,

Osayi Endolyn

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It takes something

Jul 27, 2011

Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, Provence, France

I was catching up on news today — because I have a printmaking project due tomorrow, so of course, I was reading back articles in the NY Times.

My stomach turned a bit when I read this piece on Spanish citizens who are beginning a quest to find out what happened to their newborn children. For decades during the Franco regime and afterwards, countless babies were “disappeared” from hospitals, evidently with the collusion of doctors and nuns. They were often sold in trafficking schemes while the parents were told the child died in a neighboring hospital after suffering some unnamed problem.

Then I clicked on this piece, on Israeli women who have been sneaking Palestinian women across the border and onto the beach. They’re doing it in protest and they’re doing it in fellowship. Many of the Palestinian women had never seen the ocean before. All of them risk criminal prosecution. They splashed in the water and dined together for lunch in Tel Aviv. What is it about seeing grown-ups behave like children that can make everything seem alright?

Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, Provence, France

Being in France this past month — specifically in Lacoste — has been a real gift. In some ways, I’ve checked out from a lot of life. In other ways I’ve been incredibly plugged in. It’s been fascinating to discover what I can do without and what parts of myself I take everywhere. I suppose it will be just as interesting to find out what I take with me when it’s time to go, and what was just temporary. But I don’t really want to think about that yet.

These past few weeks I’ve been trying on the hat of a visual artist. A printmaker and photographer to be exact. It’s coming along. I’ve had a lot of help from my friends and professors. Thinking about narrative in a visual form has been challenging to me. It has forced me to process ideas in different ways. At first it was like trying to push a triangle through a circle. Now it’s like realizing I can change the shape of the circle but the triangle is there for a reason. Or so I’m learning.

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Getting ‘Nirvana’

Apr 06, 2011

Last week, one of my favorite yoga studios in Atlanta celebrated their 5th anniversary in business. Say Happy Birthday to Leigh Anne and the folks at Nirvana Yoga!

Yoga is one of those things that you either love or you don’t. I’m one of those people who think that everyone loves yoga, just not everyone realizes it yet.

I started practicing six years ago. I have scoliosis (a curvy, swervy spine) and I was in a lot of chronic pain. Nothing was helping, so I succumbed to the mat. Isn’t that sad, how we try everything else first, except what’s most natural to our bodies? Okay so for some of us, twisting and bending isn’t natural. But you know what, I’ve seen kids do yoga, and they are so open and limber. It’s natural. It is.

Back then, I had a wonderful teacher named Clare, who really understood the elements of how to communicate complex ideas to beginners — they’re not all that complex actually, you just have to let your body do the thinking. Her classes in Dunwoody were always packed. And years later, when I worked at lululemon athletica, getting yoga classes for free, I jumped at the chance to spend my days in Downward Dog (and Happy Baby and Crane). So I met a lot of people who made yoga — balance, joy, focus, discipline — a part of their lives, too. And when Leigh Anne had a little soirée to celebrate her time as a yoga business woman, I couldn’t wait to celebrate and see some of the old gang. I got to hang with Erin:

Just look at the face! She is full of joy. Yoga is one of those things that demand that you pause, breathe and consider all that’s around you — not from a place of overwhelm, but from a place of ease. I admit, it’s easy to joke about feeling all **Kumbaya** and think of everyone who practices yoga as a vegan, non-shaving hippie (some of them are really cool, though). Some people even think that yoga will creep up into your brain and wash it out. Look, if yoga had started in Brazil, the chants would be in Portuguese, not Sanskrit. Relax. Not everyone/every class does the chanting thing anyway. And what exactly is so bad about saying stuff like, Hey Earth! Thanks for you know, being here.

For me, yoga is like a destination that you can travel to within your own body (and mind and spirit). And when I look out across a room of men and women, old and young, all backgrounds, jobs and beliefs and hear the breathing and sense the oneness of it all — well all jokes aside, the world gets a little better. In fact, I think I realize that it ain’t all that bad on this end in the first place. I hear marathon runners experience a similar feeling.

And the best part is that after every practice, you lie on your back in Savasana, which after all that work is like HEAVEN, and just drift away. As soon as I start drifting it’s like gates open and all these ideas, concepts and answers just start streaming in. But not like an elephant heard. More like pure, fresh water being poured into a tall glass. And let me tell you, when I get up, ready to plug back into the day, into my life and the people around me — I still can’t get over how refreshing it feels and how much nicer I am as a result. And the yoga booty ain’t a bad perk either (pun intended).

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One and a-two

Mar 24, 2011

Every now and again, the mundane really interests me. This time around, table condiment pairings tickled my fancy. I like when things have their place — it just gives me a sense of calm. Strange, right? I don’t know, seeing Parmesan and pepper flakes together just makes me feel good. I think it’s less about the inanimate object, and more about the purpose they serve. So, at any given moment some hungry person can approach the table and put a dash of seasoning on their food to give it an extra kick or make it taste better. Inherent in the presence of condiments are very real themes of comfort, satisfaction and choice. There’s a sense you’re being taken care of, that somebody has anticipated your needs. I dig stuff like that.

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Explaining ‘Amelia’

Mar 10, 2011

I ought to know better. I mean, really. Everybody knows you don’t go trying to dissect Joni Mitchell’s song lyrics. Her words seep into you and through you, and they cut sometimes because no one else was supposed to you know you felt a way you didn’t know you felt. But you know, that’s part of the deal with our lovely Joni, so you go on to the next track because that is the way it is.

But “Amelia” has been bugging me. It’s always bugged me, the song where Joni’s talking about leaving a love against her will and tying it beautifully to Amelia Earhart, our lost lady pilot whose story keeps getting weirder.

I was doing what Ron Rosenbaum of Slate.com had been doing, playing the song over and over trying to understand. I think my favorite line in music ever is “like Icarus ascending on beautiful foolish arms,” this silly, emotional, love-pained woman lost in flight in a relationship that’s not working. But then there is that next line, “Amelia, it was just a false alarm.” Over and over, she comes back to this line, after “picture postcard charms” and crashing into his arms, the alarm, well, it got us all worked up for nothing. And I, like Rosenbaum, wanted to know what, pray tell, is the false alarm?

Rosenbaum thinks the false alarm was a sense of hidden relief, that this woman in love was thankful to find out her relationship wasn’t the real thing, saving her from a commitment that she didn’t realize she wasn’t ready to give. That’s a good reading, especially if you’ve ever studied English/poetry, especially if you’ve been listening to Joni for a good while.

But lyrics are fickle things. They always mean something different to you at different times, depending on how you feel. “Amelia” always leaves me feeling this tremendous loss for the namesake, out there all by herself. And it leaves me wondering what got Joni hurting so badly. And it still surprises me, every single time, even though I know exactly how it ends. So maybe, for that reason, “Amelia” ought to remain a mystery.

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A foggy day

Mar 07, 2011


Human beings are strange. I know this because I love the fog (so does Tony Bennett). This is odd, because I spent most of my life bemoaning its presence.

Growing up in the Bay Area as a small child, the fog meant doomsday. Growing up in the Bay Area, this meant you were doomed a lot of the time. It meant the sun may or may not show itself before it was time for it to go down. It meant all the adults around you were going to complain about how it was foggy (again). It meant that having a birthday in July was not going to guarantee you jubilant celebration outdoors with your friends. Fog meant a precursor to inside days and inside voices.

So it’s strange that now I love the fog, precisely because it reminds me of living in the Bay Area. See what I mean?

We’ve had a lot of foggy days around intown Atlanta over the past few weeks. And I can’t even pinpoint why it strikes me, or what memory is triggered. I’ve stood out on my balcony some recent mornings, half-dressed and half-freezing in my pajamas, looking at the fog and trying to figure it out. I just get a sense that something I forgot is letting me know it’s still around, ready and waiting whenever I need it, no matter when that may be.

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Dim Sum therapy

Dec 02, 2010

Things have been a little rough around here these days. It’s not all bad, and every day is better, but I’d be lying if I said it’s been easy. Life can take you by surprise sometimes: in theory, mortality is very a basic concept, but when it gets close to you…not so easy to digest. I’ve been reminded recently of how transient life is, which can be a challenge to deal with. Naturally, I turned to Chinese food.

Won Ton Soup

Good Chinese makes everything better. Not take-out Chinese from people who “cook for Americans.” Home-cooked style, where the native-born American is the foreigner. I head to BBQ Corner in times of celebration and times of confusion. I don’t know which one this was.

I had finished off the first quarter at SCAD with one big push. It was great, and my classmates are really something special. More on them later. Now I’m enjoying the first “winter break” I’ve had in years. The notion of having six weeks off was such a strange feeling, I actually just kept working – classes ended on a Thursday, and Friday morning I was back in the library, laying out, drafting and emailing away.

Silly rabbit.

Barbecue pork steamed something

“Dim sum” is a Cantonese term, and can essentially be translated to “order until your heart’s content.” The wait staff pushes metal carts around the restaurant, filled with plates of plump buns, steaming dumplings, spicy soups and crispy rolls. Sounds simple enough. But how do you know when to stop? With so many options, so many offerings, wouldn’t your heart play tricks on you?

I think mine does it all the time.

Bao – a doughy bread with savory chicken inside, although sometimes this little guy has barbecue pork

Shrimp and spinach and scallions

My heart says, You’re fine! Eat something! So when I hear the squeaky wheels, I raise my hand and point at small plates of joy until even the waiter tilts their head, wondering where I’m going to put it all. Don’t worry, I say. I’m a professional.

They usually smile or laugh and keep wheeling to the next table. But then, there is the elderly lady. She speaks minimal English, and after years of observation I’ve noticed that she very rarely succumbs to the tight grin revealing stained, chipped teeth.

She eyes my table, small saucers lined up side-by-side, hot chili sauce dripping from the rims, my mouth dipping lower and lower still to meet those chopsticks full of content. She says nothing, doesn’t stop, but blinks her eyes and they crinkle at me in such a way I’m not sure if I should respond. But something shifts, and I’m full and I think it’s time to go.

And when I get back to school, to do work that could wait until later, I see a small plaque on a wall. I stare at it, knowing I’ve seen it before but wondering why today it slows me to a halt. I decide the sign is right. I turn around to go home, because at least for this moment, I think the sign, and the old lady, and the tradition of dim sum share something in common. Maybe, just a little, they’re looking out for me.

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You can keep your fly ball

Oct 17, 2010

This is the part where they might revoke my citizenship.

I don’t like baseball. I’m really sorry. I am.

We saw the Atlanta Braves play the Phillies not too long ago. Not long ago enough, I say. There is nothing wrong with baseball, let me tell you at the outset. I am very clear that millions–millions–of smart, wonderful, and nice people enjoy a sport that requires great skill, great talent.

I don’t care.

Do you see much difference between the first and second photograph? No, probably not. (Not unless you are one of those people.) This is what it was like for me, like watching an unchanging image.


There were a few moments of excitement. Like when a batter hit the ball unexpectedly far and the Braves scored a point. (A, as in ONE, point.) Or when a fly ball landed just feet away from me, and everyone acted like the original Queen Elizabeth was tossing out gold coins in the countryside. I wonder if anyone has ever sued Major League Baseball for a concussion.

Before you lecture me on the depth of the game, please know, I can appreciate its purpose. Nothing generates billions of dollars without being meaningful somewhere to somebody. I know there is strategy behind every pitch. Yes, I realize the batter is not just thinking of himself, but also of the other men on base, and how he can get them home. But can’t they find a way to liven things up? Why must there be so much dull space around the fun stuff? And why must they play that wretched song?

In spite of my bitterness, there were times when I found myself clapping along and even pointing with joy at the kiss-camera (although they better watch out when they try to laughingly highlight two “straight” men to see what they’ll do — one of these days that’s going to be a charming gay couple, and they are going to let you know it. Sweet Jesus, I hope I’m there to see that! Yay Pride Month!) Anyway.

Few things compare to watching pro sports events in person. The crowd was with the game at every step and the energy was full and vibrant. They booed every inroad the Phillies made, and they screamed for joy for every success the Braves had.

There aren’t too many places where you see third graders and their grandparents having a blast together, completely wrapped up in the same thing, loving every second. When people walking around the arena hear the crowd scream, and everyone rushes to the field to find out what just happened – that’s kind of fun, even if you could give a damn about who stole what. Everyone around me was hanging on to every second. They didn’t want to miss a thing. That kind of commitment is pretty amazing.

All things considered, I could do it again. Isn’t that odd? I’m not a glutton for punishment — the people-watching is almost as good as being at the airport; people come from all over. Taking MARTA makes it super easy to get to Turner Field, and they also have these great things called beer stands. They sell the biggest cans of brew I have seen in my life. Not my ideal selection, but enough to make it work. Batter up!

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Tossing and turning

Jun 08, 2010

Had a rough night. Accidentally dozed off after dinner. It just happened out of nowhere. Next thing I knew it was 9:15 pm and I’d just waken up from a two-hour nap. Not ideal. There went my sleep pattern.

At 2:12 am I was still struggling to conjure up a yawn. What do you do when you’re trying to get to sleep?

I started toodling around our living room, which was probably my second mistake.

I messed around with the lighting:


Brighter


Darker


Reading sometimes works. But, eh, I didn’t want to read.

How about a little late night with Carson Daly? Negative.

Was there humor to be found here?


How about some late night transformation with Wayne Dyer?
Apparently, PBS airs these kind of specials round the clock.


Like the sands in the hourglass, these are the nights of our lives…


Point


Flex. Don’t hate on my yoga toes.

I finally started to drift around 4 am. Martha Stewart was rotating chicken breasts. Let me just say that if you want to avoid some really strange dreams, that’s not the last image you want before your head hits the pillow. Could make for some cool sci-fi however. Just sayin’.

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