I Make Myself

Is Archie your Spirit Animal?

 

Have you ever wondered if Archie is your spirit animal?

Well, wonder no more. Go ahead and take the test. 

 

Please answer yes or no, accordingly.

 

1. Is attention your love currency and/or belly rubs.

2. Do you like humans but prefer dogs.

3. Do you love cheese.

4. Do you have a diverse background.

5. Do you like to move around and travel. In fact you might be living abroad right now. 

6. Won't take no for an answer.

7. Do rainy days feel like kriptonite. 

8. Do you like to look outside the car window.

9. Is sleep your number one priority but also, food. 

10. Is being cute part of your survival mechanism. 

 

If you answered YES to more than five questions then:

 

Congratulations! Archie is your spirit animal. 

 

Archie's Guidance. 

If Archie is your Spirit Animal then it means that you must be cute or smart but probably both. You have a pretty optimistic approach to life because your needs are pretty simple: love, cheese and rest. If you are struggling in any personal area try making self-love a priority. Go out for a walk, play with some friends at the park or demand a back rub from a loved one. 

- 

Archie is a French Bulldog. Despite being "French" he was born in El Salvador into a multicultural family. He lived in Costa Rica for a short but meaningful period of time and is now based in Los Angeles. Even though he likes to go out for walks and car rides he is most comfortable at home where sleeping and eating are his two main activities. He is not fond of rainy rainy days but doesn't mind staying inside if that means getting extra belly rubs. His humans strongly believe he is the reincarnation of a Zen master. 

 

 

One year one minute

 

Los Angeles, 2017.

This is my one year, one minute video for the second year in a row. 

It includes a last minute trip to El Salvador. 

 

Imitation of life.- Cindy Sherman

 

Imitation of Life is the name. The exhibition is at The Broad and the artist is Cindy Sherman.

The Broad's first special exhibition became Tuesday's afternoon perfect excuse to go to Downtown L.A.  

L.A.'s cultural hot spot.  

The museum is so ahead of its time that it dropped the word museum (it's only called The Broad) and the entrance fee (there's free admission*)

What it didn't drop was the I-didn't-make-a-reservation queue outside. I guess this is L.A. after all.

But this time I did. I had one reservation, tickets for two.

Who the f*@k is Cindy Sherman? That is the first question the exhibition aims to answer.

She is a photographer. Her work comes mainly from the studio. The actual space but also her study process. With an outcome that is intimate, vulnerable and glossy; she has been validated by the art market. She is a contemporary-art-collector must have, a wink to the role of celebrities.

I had heard about her when I was in graduate school learning how to price an art piece and let me just roll my eyes at myself here people because really, I don't think I'm qualified to price anything let alone a piece of art. I ended up paying $200 for a little Ganesh necklace that I had been looking for, the littlest not-even-gold Ganesh that looks like a hanging piece of chicken McNugget and yet I'm unwilling to pay $30 for a mani-pedi.

The art market is like quick sand. Once you are looking at things from within the market perspective is hard to get out. This is the context under which I studied Cindy Sherman's work. The prices, her auction performances, its collectors. Speaking of art collectors Mr. Broad it seems had the equivalent of a Netflix binge, except it was not Netflix but Cindy Sherman. This is something I can relate to because I did really want to stop watching Felicity and I couldn't. My Felicity binge went on for 48 hours, his it's been years and has produced a major exhibition (most of the exhibited work belong to Mr. Broad's collection)

The exhibition relies on the white box concept. A quest for complete isolation with the intention to fade out outside stimulus in order to focus exclusively on the art. Yeah, not a huge fan. Most of the time and for reasons that are too long to explain I've found this approach elitist. Specially when the only context given to the exhibition are words narrated by the curator hinting the viewer what to feel and how to interpret what is being shown. This was not one of those times.

This time it was actually the reason why I was able to approach Sherman's work in an entirely new way.  The chronological  layout featuring from her earliest to her latest work gave my linear-thinking mind the support it needed for creating a new story outside the art market.

The amount of work she's produced implies to me there is a production system. A very successful one. This fascinates me. I've always been intrigued by questions like how an artist perceives and approaches their work, how much space they make in their lives for their art-making process and how this manifests on their daily schedule.

The fact that most of her work comes from her studio is -I think- what makes Cindy Sherman, Cindy Sherman.

She photographs herself to explore archetypical femininity. Without advocating for good and bad or right and wrong she uses the language of mass-media to abstract and conceptualize her ideas.

Her work serves as a documentation of a very complex and intimate process.  It is my belief that she has shed many layers for her  to become the object of her own interest. Social roles, gender identity, cultural limitations, performance expectations, fear. Something I deeply admire as the path to non-attachement is a spiritual one. 

The final result is her visual commentary on cultural identity and a clear example of how the voice that comes from vulnerability hardly ever comes out shy but strong and precise.  With an exhibition that had me jumping between form and content, questions and answers. She creates a conceptual multistability experience. The greatest ambiguity overload.

As any great visual artist Sherman blurs out the borders of which is media and which is message but as any great human being she gives complete authority to the viewer to decide. 

It is with that authority that I can call her work abstract even when her aesthetics are not. 

All pictures via The Broad

 

Having access to this  type of artists is precisely one of the reasons we moved from El Salvador. The art scene here in L.A. is another reason why I'm smitten with this city.  I'm particularly happy that The Broad's two big exhibitions are both by women. Cindy Sherman is the first, Yayoi Kusama is next.

Insert Charlotte-York fist pump here. 

 

 

-

(*) As part of The Broad’s special exhibition program, tickets for Cindy Sherman: Imitation of Life are $12 for adults and free for visitors 17 and under.

One red rose.

As of yesterday I am thirty-four.

I'm thirty-four and particularly fond of owning two second-hand pieces of furniture. One pale-blue couch and a green-and-yellow, rose-printed armchair. 

I'm also fond of the new -WHITE!- Ikea chair that my dog insists on using as a bed.

There's also one mustardy-shaded round carpet for which I feel equal love and concern. Love for the integration it brings to my living room. Concern for the possibility of it becoming fertile ground for my current number one public enemy: Fleas. 

At this stage in my life I'm choosing to go to bed with a book every night. I'm reading Steinbeck for the first time and falling in love with the Great American Novel for the billionth time. 

The New Yorker is what I currently use as my morning read.  A #NumberOne #source for #tweetable English.

I'm un-focusing most of the attention I give to my time-consuming and also rarely-questioned social media patterns. Using the unspent scrolling-time for writing a self-imposed book. 

Trading the purpose of my phone to catching Pokemons and snapping sunsets.

Excusing my mostly-all-English reading list with my culturally-diverse music playlists.

Using Spotify to channel my newly found Latin American pride. Listening to Cuba, México and Colombia but also to New York and Miami también.

For my birthday I felt like planting something.

Maybe, I thought, the urge to grow roots is self-evident.

As of yesterday I am thirty-four and there is one red rose planted outside.

My birthday gift is knowing it'll blossom.

My birthday wish is to watch it as it does.  

 

A post about posts

More often than not I find myself daunted by existential questions of life such as: What is Archie thinking...right...about...now!?

Equally unsettling is the: Should I post more about yoga or should I write about Archie? which only drives me back to the unanswered question of not knowing what goes on inside that head of his?! Some times I think he goes EMO on me. 

Truth be told it's been a long time since I have mentioned any of the three things that this blog was built upon. 

Even though I still run, sort of cook and teach yoga for a living it seems to me that I've gotten the hang of it by now. What was once a daily struggle -in the most struggling kind of way- feels now like a routine -in the less routine-kind of way-

The novelty of running was slowly replaced by the novelty of starting a new book. A yoga class for a movie and exploring a new ability such as cooking gave me enough confidence to explore the ability of cutting my own hair.

Maybe "replaced" is not the right word, shared would be more accurate.

I now share my love and divide my interest between elements of a wider spectrum.  

I've taken up dance classes, enrolled in three online courses and keep myself busy adding books to my reading queue. A never ending story which, if it wasn't due to procrastination I would say it was poetic.

...Ruth, the girl with the never-ending reading queue... <--poetic!

What is also poetic is the sudden rush of inspiration I got for sharing new recipes. Nothing fancy, always easy and rather meaningful to me so I'm working on a series of recipes that include part of the story of our time living in Spain, another one with my thoughts of growing up in El Salvador, my experience using local ingredients and also making my own version of foods I've tasted abroad.

Since Archie and food does not an appetite-appealing post make I will share them separately. Making this officially an Archie related post. I have no choice but to end it with more pictures of a dog who has decided to divide his interest into sleeping, hunting down bugs, yogurt and finding new ways of getting belly rubs. 

 

Just like cool water

Rainy season has started. Water that falls from the sky to reveal all the green beneath. The lush shades of a tropical country in full bloom.

Its two major characteristics: Sporadic showers and warm, cloudy nights followed by even warmer and cloudier days.

For some it becomes a time of constant shielding.  Self-evident expressions such as "It's raining" often become an unjustified reason to excuse yourself from social engagements.  

Personally rain does not disrupt my somewhat ordinary life -au contraire- it enhances my afternoons, soothes my nights and cools down my thoughts.

I don't mind the rain because I actually love the rain. Water soothes me. 

On that note Still the Water is my latest find. Although my actual find is its director Naomi Kawase. 

Still the Water is the exact movie you would expect from Terrence Malick if he were Japanese but above all, a woman.

A tribute to life and a poem to nature particularly to the birthing/rebirthing quality of water. 

Soul-soothers is what I like to call to call them. Stories so solid but yet so gentle. Like haikus but you know, longer.

Finding one is like the rare spotting of a hummingbird. It catches your eye quick enough to give you a glimpse of the sudden fleeing of life but just long enough to sense its beauty.

Watching them leaves me full of desire to get out and live! They make me want to go and eat something sweet, try out a new trend like high-rise jeans or  -why not?-  even consider going no-poo!

The ones I like the most, Wanderlust porn.

Either by exploring old streets of a new city, hiking trails or discovering untraced paths these movies tell the story of a free spirit trying to get the most out of the human experience, walking through life as a pilgrimage.

Like a much yearned shower on a warm-season day this is my list of refreshing, soothing and magical movies. All of them perfect for a rainy season movie binge to satisfy that sort of craving  that's larger than life. 

 

>>Still the Water / Naomi Kawase<<

 

 

>>Into the wild / Sean Penn<<

 

>> Midnight in Paris/ Woody Allen<<

 

 

>>Before sunrise, sunset, midnight trilogy /  Richard Linklater<<

 

>>Sideways / Alexander Payne<<

 

 

>>The motorcycle diaries / Walter Salles<<

 

 

>>Only Yesterday / Studio Ghibli<<

 

 

>>Kon-Tiki /

Documentary: Thor Heyerdahl /

Movie: Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg <<

 

 

 

>>Wild / Jean-Marc Valle<<

 

 

Unapologetic

"Thank you for binging with me" I said to Heinz. He looked at me and replied "What is binging?"

How could I possibly assume that my husband would be familiar with this word.

It made me think that it really is such a girls' word usually employed in a dramatic but also kind of apologetic way. It's not that men don't binge, God everyone does,  but if and when they do "overindulge" they hardly call it binging. Am I wrong?

The only time I've heard a man call out he was binging was in a recent article called House of Cards -the binge review-

That is exactly what Heinz and I were binging on by the way.

I don't know how it is that we got into House of Cards and although I really enjoy watching one episode after the next, my life was certainly happier before I met the Underwoods. I'm constantly plotting and looking for hidden agendas in everything. Politics and non-politics related.

I binge on Netflix every other weekend (which is code for every weekend)

Put to good use Netflix, I believe, is a great source of knowledge.

There was one weekend when I binged on Nora Ephron. There was also a Jane Austen binge and don't even get me started with the documentaries divided by subjects, authors, themes... 

Netflix, is my new emotional support system.

On January I started reading Pride and Prejudice by mid February I was completely lost. Between an all girls' family, the fact that one of the characters has the writer's name -which was for some reason very confusing to me- and finally adding the generous use of the prefixes Mr. and Miss ended by the same surnames,  it all became unclear. I confused the characters and lost the thread of the plot. 

I'm not a big Kiera Knightly fan so I had been reluctant to watch Pride and Prejudice until I got stuck halfway in the book. Going against my habitual way I watched the film before I read the book.

Netflix provided me with the necessary tools to build an outlined map of the story. Thank you Netflix you proved resourceful. 

It was only as a polite courtesy that I did not decline Netflix's suggestion to watch other movies like this.

Sense and Sensibility I have to say 1. I really liked it and 2. I don't know why! The movie's great but the story...I'm torn. I'm undecided about Jane Austen. I don't know if she was trying to portray an accurate snapshot of social dynamics or if her tone was intended to be sarcastic.

Not Netflix related I also binged on Lena Dunham recently. I watched a whole lot of Girls and two of her films -Creative nonfiction and Tiny Furniture- all while taking a break from reading her book. I could either call this deepening my research or plain obsession.

I used to feel guilty about binging so I stopped. Not binging of course but the guilt. 

I, Ruth, binge on Netflix. I also stopped washing my hair everyday, I switched my beauty products to essential oils, embraced my own version of #capsulewardrobe and nowadays I rarely wear a bra.

I am an introvert in big groups but an extrovert with my closest. I am both proud and nervous to have detached myself from social conditions and religious beliefs I used to think were unquestionable. I'm questionably emotional and undoubtedly dubious of anything that reclaims certainty.

All guilt free. Just plain free.

I won't lie, I was really scared to turn thirty. Maybe it was the fact that it is a round number or it  could also be the fact that it offered me a time frame to look back into my life. I felt like this when I was about to turn fifteen, twenty and twenty five. Thirty seemed like a good amount of time to carry out a life study. My goals as a teenager and 20-year-old had -in most part- been achieved. I'd even manage to find me a good husband. Totally unintended but highly appreciated. Why then did I still feel unfulfilled?

I decided to make an inventory of me, a list that included both my gratifying and my embarrassing habits, my public and private mistakes, identifiable pre-conceived ideals, conditioning experiences and any relevant lesson learned.

When I was done I did not look at me with guilt, looking at all the things that had brought me to that moment right then, and also to this moment right now I just can't help to feel but pride.

I decided back then that this is what my thirties are for. I would stop carrying with me the heavy weight of unnecessary things. I would shed any layers of apologies for being myself.

It is with joy that I have to admit the undeniable truth. My skin has never been clearer and my hair has never been shinier than in my thirties.

A small dose of unlimited beauty

My newest obsession.

Galaxies, stars, lights...universal magnificence. 

  
      

Pictures via Astro_Terry, Nasa, Hubblepics and Nasa Goddard.

How is all this real? Why is it all up there? All this beauty hidden to mankind eyes locked under human boundaries. 

I'm obsessed. Obsessed.

Coincidentally this has been declared the International Year of Light. Coincidence to me as I had never payed any particular attention to the stars. Up until now they'd always seemed too far away from me. Pointless even.

After one amazing astrology reading I've taken a small interest on the moon. Interest is code for walking outside and peeking at the sky every night. 

Through careful and sometimes wined (as in too much wine) observation I noticed how the moon stood out in the pitch black sky. I also noticed how night after night the same -and may I dare say temperamental- lighted spots would stare down as if saying  "Look, I'm here and you are there we might as well make this a functional relationship. K?"

-K.

Whether it's through astrology, cosmology, astronomy I don't care, I wan't to know.

I declare that stardust is hip and cool.

I also declare that this year my word and my world is limitless. 

I'm still here

This is a very late (I mean the hype is already over) year in retrospect post.

I need to catch up. Not only here but generally speaking I feel time is going by so fast and I'm sort of watching it go by. By writing about things is how I've discovered I integrate stuff...well that and activation of my trigger points, a nasty cold that refuses to go away and a rather disturbing and unexplainable rash I got right as the year started.

Let's rewind.

I spend the entire month of November in what I like to call my yoga sanctuary, my spiritual family home. 

I was lucky to assist my very first 200HR teacher training at the Nosara Yoga Institute. This is the place where I take all my yoga trainings. "Trainings" is a very boot-camp kind of word and what we do at the Institute may be challenging and sometimes emotionally uncomfortable but it is really an oasis for the soul. So I wonder if trainings should be the right word to use?

I've been coming back to the Institute for two years and coming back as part of the faculty was pretty much beyond real. 

November was a I'm-going-to-reach-high-goals type of month. It all started when I was asked to assist, that was a big challenge on its own. It was my first time assisting and the initial excitement turned into mild anxiety as the starting date approached.

As I arrived and settled at the Institute I was really happy I had allowed myself to let all my anxiety  build up,  if not I probably would not have felt so relieved to be reminded once again that what we do at the Institute is allow ourselves to be as anxious, introverts, imperfect as we are. 

If you are ever in Nosara you will come across our tribe proudly wearing our daily outfit, the most authentic smile and  a shirt that reads: "The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are" - Joseph Campbell.

To wake up and show up to my 6:00AM yoga practice was my all time highest goal for the month (Ok, year) and also to write that NANOWRIMO thing.

One did happen. With the exception of an occasional Sunday that I took off there is an unfinished novel on my free 30-day trial Scrivener but a record of attendance I have never before achieved.

Writing a novel is hard but waking up before 5.30AM is harder! Kudos to me. My so called novel will have to be postponed. If anyone out there is willing to play editor on me and demand writing deadlines I think I would be willing to work out an agreement ;)

Anyways, even though November definitely takes first place as the greatest month of 2014, I have to say last year was pretty epic.

I went back to Costa Rica, stayed for a month while I took two yoga trainings. I came back and guided my very first yoga workshop. We took a month off to travel through California, drove 1368 Km  with a road trip as an excuse. Had a quick flight to London to help out my sister with her sustainable fashion line (Have I mentioned she's really talented?) I finished reading 10 books which is only two books short of having read one each month!. Heinz and I watched unaccountable movies from which I must point out that Norwegian Wood was exactly what I would have expected from a Murakami story. I wrote one unfinished novel  a very promising novel draft. I assisted my first teacher training, spent another month in Costa Rica, gave away more than half of my clothes (in an attempt of doing the Capsule wardrobe thing) and finally this was the year we welcomed our furry baby to our Kobernik Family.

To finish the year strong we traveled to Florida to meet with Heinz's side of the family. New year's eve is my favorite in the entire world. I don't care much about birthdays or anniversaries but New year's I love!. That whole new beginnings feeling. Nothing can beat it. Well, maybe Ice Cream.

Looking back and looking at the word I chose for last year I'd say I was pretty fearless in a lot of things. There is still one thing that I fear the most and that is writing. 

I know, I would have thought snakes or spiders would have portrayed me as a more rational person but the truth is that when it comes to writing I tend to freeze. I still struggle to sit down and type. Although it is one of the things I enjoy the most.  Making and giving sense to a sentence has got to be the biggest game of Tetris one can play. Unveiling feelings and thoughts is the tricky part. That's why I'm really proud of this little place I call IMakeMyself.  Even though I'm not as constant in posting as I would like to be it's still here. I'm still here. Three years and counting. 

This little cyber space still draws me back and makes me want to write. Face each letter and type. I'm really proud of that, of this place that I've built. A place where I can be a yoga teacher but not write about yoga postures, where I can be a runner and not post my millage, where I can love to cook and not post my recipes. So really, this is the place where I come back and face my biggest fear of all. 

I just made mine a very public struggle, but isn't that everybody's fight? To be authentic and not hide our "not-so-perfect" bits? I believe the more public we make our struggles and our in-between,  the more tolerant we become with ourselves and thus the more tolerant we are toward others.

I hope everyone has that little place. May it be a blog, a practice, a something! because the truth is that there is nothing more liberating than to sit down or run forward to face those parts of us that scare us most. May we all find a place where we allow ourselves to just be. As frightened, as imperfect as we are.

Namaste y'all.

 

 

 

Days of heaven

by Terrence Malick

It's weekends like this / A quiet saturday afternoon.

It's movies like this / An unnoticed love story.

I've watched this movie twice now.