Drama Queen

Since I can remember, I have had this weird, probably wildly unhealthy obsession with having some sort of major problem just to ensure that I will get attention from at least one person. At first, the issues were simple (#firstworldtoddlerproblems, if you will): the toe lines of my socks or tights weren't lined up perfectly with my anatomy; my bun for ballet class wasn't exactly tight enough to tug at the outer skin of my prematurely neurotic face; my parents had to leave behind an accessory item of clothing when they dropped me off at said ballet class because they were definitely sending me there to abandon me, but if they returned for their accidentally-on-purpose forgotten scarf, then they would also have to take me home with them. (At the tender age of five, I was already prepared for the worst case scenario at all times, even if it took all of my tiny, youthful energy to imagine up the worst case scenario.) I didn't realize yet that I didn't need to waste energy on finding reasons to be a drama queen, that my own innate awkwardness and ability to attract tragic comic situations would do the job for me. My brother hadn't yet poured orange juice over my head at breakfast, apropros of nothing, turning me off orange juice for years. I hadn't yet broken my arm running down a park hill holding hands with my first best friend Charlie Bernstein; I hadn't experienced the ensuing paralyzing fear that gripped every fiber of my being whenever someone asked to sign my cast, which resulted in me being the only six-year-old in the history of broken arms not to have a single signature or heart or doodle of any kind on her plastered broken wing.

I suppose growing up as the oldest child in a family of five kids could explain my need to get attention in the most dramatic ways possible, but if I'm being totally honest with myself, it's far more likely that I was just a born drama queen. I could turn anything into an event. I'd take a frozen bagel and put it into the microwave to defrost, absentmindedly adding a zero to the intended time, and three minutes later would have started a small appliance fire. My mother's request for me to load and unload the dishwasher could easily morph into a task on par with scaling Mt. Everest. I'd breathe heavily and whine about rinsing off the plates the remains of my siblings' downright savage attempts at eating, convinced that my idol Audrey Hepburn would never have deigned to do such disgusting, menial labor. (This was before I read her biography and discovered how great of a human she actually was, during the time when I believed she really was a princess/high class call girl/Eliza Doolittle-post-transformation. Also, I'm fairly certain karma has exacted her bitchy revenge all these years later, considering that since I've moved away from home, none of my apartments has ever had a dishwasher.) Sharing a room with my younger sister, any of her basic bodily functions--breathing, twitching in the early stages of REM, coughing--could simply ruin my evening; I was an aspiring ballerina, I needed sleep and proper rest, didn't anyone understand that I was destined for absolute artistic greatness?! No. Apparently, my sister wasn't doing anything wrong in falling asleep before I did.

As I grew up, I became slightly less of a neurotic freak; or rather, I learned to hide my crazy a little better. I was, however, that annoying, hand-raising, straight-A student who did the extra credit anyway--you know, just because. In 7th grade, I got a 98 on an English exam and disagreed with the two points that had been deducted. I went home for proof, and the next day brought in a copy of Strunk & White to my disbelieving teacher to prove that my score should have actually been a perfect 100. That same year, I had a science teacher who employed a grading system by which everyone could take exams using one page of their own notes, to be written on one's own time. I had perfected the art of miniscule, computer-perfect handwriting, and would spend hours writing down as much information as I could fit on both sides of a large index card. In his class, we all began each test with 100 points: incorrect answers would get partial or full deductions, and exceedingly informative answers or correctly answered bonus questions would get you added points. This is how I was embarrassed in front of my entire 7th grade class when Mr Snowden--a white haired, puffy, red faced man who bore a striking resemblance to an actual snowman--gave back our midterms and I had gotten an unheard of 127%. Even writing about it now, I feel ridiculous. That's not a real grade, I remember thinking. Yet another problem; I turned doing extra-well into a preteen anecdote of extreme embarrassment.

I idolized typically tragic figures in history. There were decades' worth of ballerinas I worshiped, and Audrey Hepburn, of course. Amy Winehouse, already then a flailing mess of a human but embodied with the voice of a soulful fallen angel. Kate Moss, thin and beautiful and perfect, but oh all those wrong men...and remember the cocaine? Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol, those brilliant flashes of a fantasy artsy party era gone by: it was these sorts of celebrities my early teenage self felt I deeply identified with. Me, the privileged hopeful ballerina from the Irish Catholic Republican family, really felt like she identified with Sylvia Plath and Fiona Apple. I remember a particularly pathetic moment in the waiting area of Penn Station with my father, going home to Long Island after he'd been at work all day and I at my after-school ballet classes on the Upper West Side. The subject of eating came up after I walked out of McDonald's holding a large milkshake and several oversized cookies, still clinging onto the last days of prepuberty when I could literally eat like a horse and still look like a young thoroughbred. My father expressed concern not for my weight (I was a leggy, flat-chested 13-year-old after all), but more for my health: he hadn't seen me eat fruit "in a while," and just wanted to remind me that I had been born with high cholesterol and maybe should just think about being a bit healthier for my heart's sake. I took this to mean he was calling me fat, and became extremely indignant in the middle of the rush hour commuter crowd. To the dulcet background tones of a funk street band performing outside Track 21, I clearly recall waving around my large beverage, pretending my plain old winter jacket was an oversized fur, and saying, "Do you want me to end up like Kate Moss? I do BALLET. I know people who can get me COCAINE. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?" Obviously, this is not what my father wanted. And I didn't actually know anything about procuring cocaine; I had never even seen the stuff in real life at that point. I was more pissed that my father was right about the fruit thing. Distraction, that was key to dramatic living.

Eventually I toned down my melodramatic outbursts and channeled them into an actual problem--when I was 16, I became the cliche ballet dancer with anorexia. This problem was so real and so loud, I didn't have to throw any tantrums or expend any energy being dramatic. You just had to take one look at my protruding collarbones and sunken face, and you got the whole damn story. My years of the explosive Oscar-worthy outbursts were over; I had now moved into the method acting phase of my drama queen life. This one lasted a while--I didn't fully recover until about five years later--and was the closest I actually came to a major, concern-worthy problem. After those years of my siblings calling me Drama Queen, teasing me for being a "princess," mocking how easy it was for me to start crying, I'd found a way for me to just turn it all off. Anorexia was my safe haven: it gave me a superlative, finally ("thinnest"); sapped me of any extra energy for life, at last turning me into the emotionally impenetrable ice queen I'd always found so elusive and admirable in others; and it was mine, and mine alone. Like some sort of fucked up emotionally abusive relationship, I hung onto this channel of my theatrical self for a long time. I'd turned from the public tantrum to the private abyss of an eating disorder; this was far more authentic.

After five years of being hungry, repelling every heterosexual male I encountered with my skeletal frame and lack of lust for anything, and generally depriving myself of some really excellent meals, I moved to Denmark. I got the help I needed in that strange, tiny slice of the planet with the funny drunken language. I started to become a person again. Physically, because I started eating food (and, let's be honest, drinking some damn fine Danish beer); and emotionally, because I had energy to, I don't know, live. I put on weight, and with it, something resembling a personality. I started going out again. I had a couple of boyfriends. I quickly regained use of my hair-trigger tear ducts; four years later, I've become known as "an emotional one" due to the fact that my feelings seem to come pouring out of my eyes. (Recently, I've gotten much better about it, but I'm still famous for crying.) I had a couple of incidents where my inner toddler drama queen resurfaced--most memorably, one of my first drunken nights out with my new friends where I screamed at one of them for breaking a beer bottle on the street; there was also an incident during a lost weekend in Hamburg involving a pub crawl with a group of British servicemen in animal costumes, and me slapping the penguin in the face on a dare--but those sorts of performances have been channelled into other avenues. In fact, I find that after all those years I spent craving some sort of special attention, trying to make any kind of scene just to get noticed, what I want most now is a bit of stability. There are weeks where I crave invisibility, a trait my younger self would have thought horrific. But perhaps it's for the best, really--in true minimalist Scandinavian fashion, I seem to have come to the realization that all I really need (besides, you know, the basic life essentials) are my family; a couple of great close friends; just a hint of this inner peace people seem to talk about; good cheese and beer; maybe a nice man at some point; and a fresh pack of tissues, for those moments when all that inner drama queen now comes flowing out of my eyes.

love.

Personally, I'm not much for Valentine's Day. I kill flowers (unintentionally, I assure you); I already eat too much chocolate; and no stuffed animal can compete with my main elephant of 22 years, Mr. E. I'd much prefer to celebrate love every day of the year, in all the beautiful, unexpected little ways in which that indefinable four letter word can be shown. All that being said, I came across what is perhaps the most wonderful, genuine love letter I've ever read. It comes from the brilliant mind of one Lemony Snicket, to his beloved Baticeer Extraordinaire, Beatrice. Enjoy.

I will love you with no regard to the actions of our enemies or the jealousies of actors. I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the world’s cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in a blurring, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you no matter how your soccer team performed in the tournament or how many stains I received on my cheerleading uniform.
I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you if you cut your hair and I will love you if you cut the hair of others. I will love you if you abandon your baticeering, and I will love you if you retire from the theater to take up some other, less dangerous occupation. I will love you if you drop your raincoat on the floor instead of hanging it up and I will love you if you betray your father. I will love you even if you announce that the poetry of Edgar Guest is the best in the world and even if you announce that the work of Zilpha Keatley Snyder is unbearably tedious. I will love you if you abandon the theremin and take up the harmonica and I will love you if you donate your marmosets to the zoo and your tree frogs to M. I will love you as the starfish loves a coral reef and as kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them.
I will love you as the pesto loves the fetuccini and as the horseradish loves the miyagi, as the tempura loves the ikura and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness in the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged print of the document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms.
I will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey. I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of the people who talk too much. I will love you as a cufflink loves to drop from its shirt and explore the party for itself and as a pair of white gloves loves to slip delicately into the punchbowl. I will love you as a taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock.
I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong. I will love you as a battlefield loves young men and as peppermints love your allergies, and I will love you as the banana peel loves the shoe of a man who was just struck by a shingle falling off a house. I will love you as a volunteer fire department loves rushing into burning buildings and as burning buildings love to chase them back out, and as a parachute loves to leave a blimp and as a blimp operator loves to chase after it. I will love you as a dagger loves a certain person’s back, and as a certain person loves to wear daggerproof tunics, and as a daggerproof tunic loves to go to a certain dry cleaning facility, and how a certain employee of a dry cleaning facility loves to stay up late with a pair of binoculars, watching a dagger factory for hours in the hopes of catching a burglar, and as a burglar loves sneaking up behind people with binoculars, suddenly realizing that she has left her dagger at home.
I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguished and until every home is rebuilt form the handsomest and most susceptible of woods, and until every criminal is handcuffed by the laziest of policemen.
I will love you until M. hates snakes and J. hates grammar, and I will love you until C. realizes S. is not worthy of his love and N. realizes he is not worthy of the V. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple, and until the apple hates a tree and the tree hates a nest, and until a bird hates a tree and an apple hates a nest, although honestly I cannot imagine that last occurrence no matter how hard I try. I will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time, except for the clocks that people have forgotten to wind and the calendars that people have forgotten to place in a highly visible area. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively.
I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from skim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and no matter how I am discovered after what happens to me happens to me as I am discovering this. I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else – your co-star, perhaps, or Y., or even O., or anyone Z. through A., even R. although sadly I believe it will be quite some time before two women can be allowed to marry – and I will love you if you have a child, and I will love you if you have two children, or three children, or even more, although I personally think three is plenty, and I will love you if you never marry at all, and never have children, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights I prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios I have mentioned. That, Beatrice, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.

"Il n’y a que deux endroits au monde où l’on puisse vivre heureux: chez soi et à Paris."

After a very long, very difficult roller coaster of a month--and a fantastic tour to Paris--we dancers now have a much-needed three week winter holiday. Some (lucky) friends of mine are going to warmer climates, others are going home to family; I, for one, am having a staycation, in the hopes of rediscovering the fun and goodness in Copenhagen. But for now, a photographic look back at a wonderful week in one of my favorite places on earth, a city I fall more in love with each time I visit...Paris.


The wonderfully Parisian view from my hotel balcony.


"Toutes les femmes": Our dressing room at Palais Garnier.


My favorite hallway ever.


The view on the way up to the class studio.


Seriously, I needed to give myself an extra twenty minutes to go up to class each morning, for picture-taking like this.


I'd let Chagall paint my ceiling.


Palais Garnier. Speechless.


Even the pigeons were fabulous.


Helping hands.


Reception after the premiere performance. I would go back to this moment in a second.

And for those who missed it, my very good friend and fellow dancer Charlie Andersen and I made a little project during our time in the City of Lights...

An Ode to the Royal Danish Ballet

I planned to revive my blog after the New Year--after taking a prolonged hiatus from writing publicly, I decided that one New Year's resolution I could gladly keep would be to bring back this virtual project of mine. However, current circumstances have inspired me to fulfill this self-promise a week earlier than planned, and with a more serious post than initially intended.

The present economic woes wreaking havoc across the globe have finally, unfortunately made their way to the little country of Denmark I currently call home. As you can easily guess, this means financial cuts in all professions...and big ones, as recently announced by the Danish government, in the arts. The most recent reports indicate that Det Kongelige Teater will be hit hard by sweeping government cutbacks totalling nearly 100 million kroner, to be implemented over the next four years.

I am not writing to provoke political change (for that is a ship already sailed), or to imply that an artistic profession is above any other. I only write this in the hopes of painting for you a picture of the kind of environment in which I find myself privileged to work, and why it would be incredibly heartbreaking to lose even one part of such a fantastic group of people.

The dedication and work ethic required to become a professional ballet dancer is pretty unbelievable. Most of my colleagues and I have devoted most of our childhoods, teenage years, and adult lives to this one art form. We missed out on normal educations, lazy summers, proms, normal boyfriend and girlfriend experiences. We spent--and continue to spend--hours in front of a mirror every single day, taking class and rehearsing, attempting to create with our bodies an unattainable physical perfection, an impossible beauty. We are the kids who fell in love with ballet and never grew out of it, in the best sense.

There are some people who would argue that ballet--perhaps all artistic endeavor in general--is a frivolous profession in comparison to law, medicine, science, etc. I know this for a fact because I am related to several people like this. I am not writing to declare that what I do is "better" than what anyone else does. I am merely here to say what I, as one corps de ballet member, believe, which is this: for me personally, my profession is not just a job. It is my religion, if you will; it is my hardest, most love-hate relationship, my reason for getting out of bed in the morning. Whether you believe it to be "important" or not is up to you, but regardless of your personal opinion, please know this: ballet is difficult, and not only physically. Other dancers have had different paths; personally, mine has not exactly been spoon-fed. For one, I was not altogether built for ballet (very few, very lucky people are!), and I had to almost work my ass off to get where I am today. I gave up school, much to my parents' and relatives' chagrin; I sacrificed my sanity and physical health for what basically amounted to a four year period in my mid- to late-teens; I matured very early in some ways (discipline; focus; sense of responsibility) and simultaneously fell emotionally behind in many others (boys; puberty; self-esteem).

As a profession, ballet is not an easy world in which to work. As dancers, we are paid very little for a lot of work. We spend most of our days physically and mentally exhausted. Most companies can be cutthroat or catty, and ballet can leave mental wounds as harsh as the physical ones. (Furthermore, we can all throw dreams of becoming foot models out the window.) But we all dedicate a good chunk of our lives to this art form because we truly, deeply, insanely love it. In my case, I know that what I do for a living may not cure cancer or discover a new planet. But in this messy modern world of ours, filled with so much hate and destruction, if I can make a theatre full of people forget their problems for a couple of hours by dancing onstage two or three nights a week with others to create some sort of beautiful escape among so much global ugliness, then I have damn well done my job.

The events which led to my employment at the Royal Danish Ballet were actually quite similar to what we dancers here are facing now; my previous company in America was facing a huge financial crisis, and in a rather unfortunately mismanaged firing process, I was one of the unlucky victims. I found it difficult to leave my friends there, but not impossible; as an apprentice, most of my closest friends from the school were also moving other places as we all found jobs elsewhere, which somehow made parting ways a bit easier. I packed up my life to move to a foreign country where I knew virtually nobody, and found myself with a whole new life notebook to fill.

I quickly discovered that the Royal Danish Ballet is unlike any other company I have ever worked with or heard about. This may read like a Hallmark card, but in my two and a half years here, I have found in my colleagues a second family. To be sure, we are slightly dysfunctional, but most of the best families are. I arrived in Denmark a severly underweight, insecure person with an impenetrably thick emotional wall built up around her heart; I wasn't exactly the type to let people in (or, for that matter, food). A mere two and a half years later, I am physically healthy. I have friends who are as close as, or in some cases closer than, family. I have somehow managed to build myself a veritable life here. I have found someone wonderful to love, and who--miraculously, wonderfully!--returns the feeling. And to top it all off I'm now probably one of the most emotional people working at the ballet. (As one of my good friends put it early on in the season: "Carling cried! The season has officially started.")

In the heart of the biggest city of this tiny, cold slice of the planet called Denmark, is situated a stunning royal theatre. This old building has become my second home, and is filled with a group of dancers unlike any other. I have never in my life come across people so brilliantly talented, warm, funny, creative, and incredibly loving outside my own immediate family. I lack a vocabulary adequate enough to describe how amazing it is to work here, or exactly why. I can only say this: I remember my very first company class, when I was in my worst place physically and a very wobbly second worst place mentally, thinking, "God, I'll never fit in here." Two and a half years later, I found myself in company class this morning thinking, "God, it would absolutely break my heart forever to leave these people."

And so, I would just like to say a deep, heartfelt thank you to the Royal Danish Ballet. I may be known as something of a cry-baby and perhaps not exactly one of the "normal ones". Despite this, you have welcomed me, and I have never felt more "at home" away from home than I do now. I can only hope that this post makes others realize how amazingly unbelievable and world-class this company is.  To be a bit more blunt about it, I hope it inspires the Powers that Be (you know who you are) to work creatively to keep together this lovely, fantastic workplace.

badass swedish coffee

So, sometimes your very best friend helps make a short movie for a clothing company that you think is really awesome. And the star of said short is an unbelievably badass guy with an earring and a farm, who clearly possesses a love of coffee that rivals your own. And on top of that, the clip has excellent tunes. Naturally, then, you share the wealth:

NORD Spring/Summer 2012 from NORD on Vimeo.

"why are you crying?"

I am a person who can occasionally be one who procrastinates--an eternal believer in the promise and opportunity of "tomorrow" (particularly when it comes to my absolute least favorite chore, cleaning the toilet!). But I broke my personal slowpoke streak and finally got developed the last batch of photos from my trip to Greece this summer. This is a major event.

You see, after a little more than a week enjoying the Greek "mainland," we took a boat trip out to experience island life. After a day and a night on the very popular isle of Santorini (complete with a rented ATV and black volcanic beaches), we took a friend of a friend's tip, and a calculated risk, and made our way to a very small, decidedly non-touristy island a couple of hours from the aforementioned tourist trap. The boat ride from Santorini took just a couple of hours, and suddenly we found ourselves on a slice of paradise with slightly more than 300 residents, but an ample amount of relaxation, sun, clear waters, and general loveliness. What was planned as a one or two day trip turned into a four day adventure, accidents and all.

We left the boat and found a room near to the harbor area--and pretty much everywhere else, considering the fact that walking the entirety of the island took 3-4 hours at most. After settling into the hotel room and enjoying the waterfront balcony view, we rented bicycles and set out with the intention of exploring the tiny slice of heaven we had discovered. Let me preface this tale by saying: I am by no means a very coordinated human being outside the confinements of a ballet studio. I trip over my own oversized feet on a daily basis; I have gotten my shoelaces caught in my bike pedals; most recently (and by this I mean two days ago) I stubbed my third toe into my bathroom floor landing and ended up mopping up blood off the floor for the next fifteen minutes, like something out of Dexter. So renting bicycles with hand brakes on a tiny island in Greece, when I normally teeter-totter around Copenhagen on a mostly-broken Drescoe equipped only with foot brakes, was taking a big chance to being with.

That being said, once we'd settled into the hotel and met the unbelievably genial man-about-the-island (whom we saw countless times over the next few days, performing all kinds of island duties), we set out with the handbrake bikes to explore the island. The sun was shining, the temperature was well above average Scandinavian levels, and everything was hunky-dory. Until I encountered a slight hill. I forgot the handbrake feature of the bike I had rented, and ended up falling sideways and upside down and every wrong way possible, getting sand and gravel in my lovely wounds in the process. In the middle of nowhere, with no one else around to help or witness my moment of extreme klutziness, we managed to find the island health guy. Who turned out to be an older, unshaven, barefoot, absolutely-no-English-speaking man wearing a red jumpsuit and driving a severely fender-bendered vehicle. Regardless of his personal hygiene preferences and his knowledge of my native tongue, the wonderful man with the beard and no shoes got me to the island doctor in less than fifteen minutes; I was literally hyperventilating and could not even faintly recall any of the 89 Greek words I learned during my trip, but my meeting with the flip flop-clad, early-thirties island doctor resulted in a strict prescription to "go in the water." I was dubious, but took a leap of faith. (And, to be perfectly honest, healed my gaping hand and leg wounds faster than I could have wished for!).

To calm my ballerina-related injury fears, the good doctor sent my best man pal out to the island pharmacy for some goopy brown cleansing cream. I waited by the side of the road, perched on a short brick wall, crying and sniveling and waiting for the aforementioned wound tonic to arrive. After half-heartedly petting a couple of (admittedly awesome) stray island dogs, a barefoot, bald man with sunglasses happened to be passing by. I tried to hide my tears, but as anyone who has seen me seriously cry before will attest, this is no easy feat. The man was not an idiot, and saw past my snot-nosed, red-eyed, hiccuping appearance. He stopped and came over to sit down next to me. As a native New Yorker, I just looked at him, raised eyebrows, boogers, sadness, pus-filled wounds and all. And then in broken English, he said, "Girl, why you crying? Look around you!" I looked around, searching for a doctor wearing closed-toed shoes and a white coat, but instead found only sunshine and happy people. He saw my face and continued: "Don't worry. You are in paradise!"

And from that moment forward, I swear to god, I became an island lady. I embraced the sunshine, the lone island ATM, the generally slower approach to life. I enjoyed the fact that internet was not readily available. I learned to love the long walks around the island, especially when they resulted in stumbling upon a tiny private sort of beach. The saltwater was good for my skin, my hair, my feet, and I (literally) soaked it up. The fresh fish on this teeny tiny slice of magic; the Nightmare Before Christmas sort of dead-but-alive plants; the goats and roosters peppered about the island; the hidden sea caves and water in more shades of blue and green than I ever dreamed of; the shocking magenta flowers that popped against the blue-and-white backdrop of the architecture...I loved it all. The idea of camping, of having a boat, of living this slow-motion version of real life, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, became so frighteningly appealing. I left this island with tight jeans, hands and a left leg healed from the saltwater, hair tamed into those seemingly unattainable beach curls, skin softer than I'd felt in years, and an attitude more carefree than I could have ever imagined. There was something about the laid-back, happy-go-lucky nature of the islanders that made me able to spend a good chunk of time on one of the beaches, lying there doing absolutely nothing, and completely enjoying it.

This particular teeny piece of paradise will forever have a place in my heart; both for the warmth and generosity of its people, and for its incomparable natural beauty. I have never before encountered such an unbelievable piece of Eden, and I will definitely leap at the chance to escape to this happy place of mine again. I lack the vocabulary (in any language!) to adequately describe the enchantment of this island, and so I leave you with a few pictures, which will hopefully suffice...


The island, from the dock.


Playing in the (incredibly perfect!) waters...


There were tons of these magic coves along the island.



Well-fed and windblown on "the deaf island."



Daily magic.

the elements of style, or: my meditation

There are many things people do to calm down. Some people take a walk, others count to ten, very practiced serene people meditate. I've tried all of the above, but none work as well as my own personal favorite: editing.

When I was younger, I read Strunk & White's famous guide to American English writing, The Elements of Style. The book outlines eight "elementary rules of usage," ten "elementary principles of composition," and "a few matters of form." William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White also provide a list of forty-nine commonly misused words and expressions, as well as a record of fifty-seven words often misspelled. It's not a perfect guide, and in fact has received criticism on both sides of the pond, but for my elementary school self, there was something beautiful and calming about the simplicity and purity of grammar laid out within its pages. In its first edition (1918), William Strunk wrote: "Make every word tell." I fell in love with this, and with the idea that the free, fluid art of writing did have structure and a set of rules. (I also believe that this sentence is the reason I very rarely use Internet short-hand. Acronyms do not have the same look or tell as properly written words.)

I have not read The Elements of Style in years, but the basic principles have stuck with me. And while some people can't stand a slightly crooked painting on a wall, or grow faint at the sight of one unlit bulb in a string of lights, my OCD centers around spelling and grammar. Give me a written paper, a red pen, and some time, and I am happy as a clam. There is something extremely soothing about correcting spelling mistakes, fixing punctuation, improving word order and the flow of writing, and amending errors in grammar. Once everything is in order, when every word of every sentence serves a purpose in an aesthetically pleasing and correct way, I can literally sleep better.

I do not often have the opportunity to edit. To be sure, I edit my own writing; most often, my biggest problem is following E.B. White's recommendation: "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell." I have had a couple of chances to hack away at others' papers with a beloved red pen. But sometimes, when I am very tense (or extremely bored), I will take an old pamphlet laying around or one of the magazines shipped over to me by my parents, and flip through, quietly putting the page--and my mind--in order.