The Beaches

Image: Free Spirit

"And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes."

- Kurt Vonnegut

Looking back, I see my distance.

If these walls could talk, they'd tell you how much they love me. They are what holds me. The walls of this pre-WWII craftsman style house in Hintonburg/West Wellington Village were built strong to survive the storms. They are like my grandparents -- quite unshakeable.

This is the house where my mother was born and my grandparents lived. This is the house I grew up in. With the same creaky wood floors and tired old doors. The same tangled grape vines and dusty back lane.

There's the maple tree where I learned to ride my bike. And the sidewalk where I smashed my teeth. And grandad's pear tree where we constructed snow forts. And the hole in the fence I (still) crawl through to collect lost tennis balls.

I have lived so many lives, I've forgotten my time. No longer moved by hours and minutes, I live as an ocean by the current. I flow with moments and turning tides. I seek sunlight to break a surface where I may venture into new world. I may sink, I may float, or I may swim. But no matter how far or low, how lazy or frustrated, I always find my way back to the shore.

The shore I call my home is a sacred ground with the energy of a thousand memories. Lying in bed with my fate and my free will, I'm listening to The Avett Brothers and my breathing -- inhale/exhale, just like the ebb and flow of an ocean. Two halves, one rhythmic flow. The ocean is never still. The tide is constant in that it comes and goes. But it is always there - a whole ocean.

Whatever you want, I hope you have it. For breath is time and we are the beaches. As for me, I am still working on mine.

So it goes.

If it's the beaches/ If it's the beaches' sands you want/ Then you will have them/ If it's the mountains' bending rivers/ Then you will have them/ If it's the wish to run away / Then I will grant it/ Take whatever you think of/ While I go gas up the truck/ Pack the old love letters up/ We will read them when we forget why we left here

-- The Avett Brothers

It's Mine

Image: The Always Gentleman

Spring

Image: Muddy Glam

"We would lie in those afternoon beds, afterwards, hands on each other, talking it over. Possible, impossible. What could be done? We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?"

-- Margaret Atwood, “The Handmaid’s Tale”

A little girl jumping around in the mud. That's how I feel. That's who I am.

The month of April has been happy choas for me. I've had a flat tire and car woes, money expenses and family conflict, I'm painting and taking an art class, and soon I'll even be moving houses. It's been just a little bit crazy!

Sometimes, life can be a Winter. Where months drag by slow and uneventful, and your life feels cold and isolated. But then the season changes and one fine day you wake up in Spring and suddenly your life is filled with change and surprise. New life springs up where there was once nothing; and you find yourself overwhelmed with roses and weeds that now need caring for.

We think we have such problems. How are we to know we're happy?

Truthfully, we are happy! We have no problems. There's no such thing. All of life is learning. And even the impossible is possible. We are "I am" all the same. Life is an art and it only lasts a little while before the seasons change. So we may as well play around in the muck of things.

Happy Spring!


Image: stylinonyou

How I Saved My Life (if you need some advice)

Image: Marilyn Monroe

I used to suffer from depression. The kind that makes you withdraw from the life you can't face, replace eating with drinking, and contemplate ways to end your life.

I used to suffer from Crohn's and/or Celiacs disease (the doctors could never decide which). The kind that leaves you bowled over in pain bleeding out pints in a hospital emergency room.

I used to suffer from chronic pain in my back, arms, and legs. The kind that paralyzes you and has doctors counting inexplainable bruises that cover so much of your body they test you for Leukemia only after ruling out domestic abuse.

I used to suffer from anxiety. The kind that wakes you with a mini heart attack so frightening you have to force feed yourself tranquilizer pills to ease the terror.

I survived all that in the span of 3 years as I fought my way through two breakups, family tragedy, financial ruin, personal failure, and near professional suicide. But I'm happy to report those days are over. I have no health concerns, no life drama, and I'm the happiest (and healthiest) that I have ever been. And so I wanted to share with you the how and why of my healed life.

Chronic unhappiness. I believe all of my dis-eases were manifestations of my misery. My life and the people in it were toxic. I was serving other people and abandoning myself. The physical and emotional responses I was feeling were extreme cries of help by my self (mind, body, and soul) to make changes.

The realisation that I was chronically unhappy should have been obvious. But when you're in it -- it isn't. The self-awareness of my situation didn't just occur to me. I learned it. It had taken me years to create all these unhealthy habits, to change them would take time. Years. A forever in fact that I'm still working on.

The source of this understanding came from a remarkable set of people - healers, spiritualists, and survivors of real life and plenty of personal trial and error. I learned to save myself from myself and for the first time in my life, I abandoned everything and everyone I had been carrying and chose to care for myself instead. My life profoundly changed almost as soon as I began to place my own well-being first.

I learned that I would always have myself and I learned how to listen to myself. I became the force of change in my life. I learned to accept that I would never be able to change other people but it was within my power to change myself -- my thoughts and my actions.

Then, I detoxed my life. And by this I mean more than a diet. I got rid of everything and everyone toxic around me. Every source of pain, grief, guilt, sadness, and anger. I eliminated the relationships and people that drained me, the job and work that pained me. I realised I wasn't as essential as I liked to think I was or as people had led me to believe I was (to get their own way).

My healing work with Algonquin shamans taught me that our wounds are not free -- we pay for them. That resonated with me. We are free to choose whether we deal in a currency of love or pain for gain. According to shamans, we all want to be victims. We learn at a young age that it's the easiest way to get our way. The people closest to you are likely the worst victims in your life. But the biggest obstacle to your own happiness is believing this lie about them and/or yourself. There are no victims. Only unhappy people who carry the pain of the past into the future (most of the time) by being victims in this moment now instead of letting go. Most of us happily waste energy complaining and fueling surface problems we create to mask the real issues we avoid. The truth is we don't really want to fix and heal our lives. The solution is always so easy: change! Admit and eliminate the real problem. But then what?! Then you have to face your self.

Finally, I learned to avoid random relationships and time fillers that were filling the empty spaces in my life. I realised I didn't want other people to complete me. And I didn't want to feed and foster addictions. I learned that empty space is good. In fact, it was divine because it's where I finally found myself.

To all my teachers, I offer deep heartfelt thanks and the humble hope that one day I may repay you. To my greatest spiritual teachers - the people who caused me the most pain in life, I thank you for our experiences and wish you every happiness.

For anyone looking for recommended reading or holistic healers, feel free to send me a message.


Image: fight like a girl

Missing: The Speakeasy Blogger

Image: Lady Gaga, "Born This Way"

Hi!

I know some of you are wondering why I've been missing on the blogosphere lately, friends.

I have something new brewing and it's taking loads of time to set-up. So yes, I will be taking a breather from blogging over the next few weeks. But I will be coming back fierce with something... très avant-garde.

I want to thank you for following me. I know many of you religiously follow The Speakeasy blog and I appreciate your ongoing support. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. And I look forward to sharing my new project with you soon.

I'm on the right track, baby. I was born this way! You can look for updates here and on Facebook.

xoxo,
Aster

P.s. I'm also learning Lady Gaga's new dance! Check out her new video. It's holy hella good.

Wise Guy

Images: Ryan Gosling

"…men walk past each other, they pass each other without looking. Or then they stalk a woman. A woman is standing there and four men direct their steps more or less toward the spot where the woman is standing. It occurred to me that I can never make a woman in any other way than motionless, and a man always striding; when I model a woman, then motionless; a man, always walking. It’s the totality of this life that I want to reproduce in everything I do."

— Alberto Giacometti in discussing his bronze “Places.”

This morning I was brushing the snow off my car when a random stranger began belting out a serenade to me from his balcony.

This is what a lot of men do.

You're writing your life's work at a coffee shop and some wise guy asks for your number. You get on an elevator at a hospital and some funny romeo offers you a lame one-liner. You're late for work and some clown decides he's going to serenade you.

Yes, it's flattering and funny. But it's also incessantly annoying. I have a life and men who weasel their way into my day are not part of it.

When my morning jester's musical number was met with my mediocre response he chivalrously called down, "What, no response? Nothing?! Aw, c'mon. Where you going anyway, honey?"

Charming.

I couldn't have been more disinterested in the cute-wise-guy romeo who steps out onto his balcony barefoot in the middle of winter to sing to pretty strangers who are obviously on their way to somewhere. But I realised, many women would have been charmed. He was being charming. There was a definite appeal to him - he was spontaneous and cute and funny and not half-bad as a singer.

I'm quirky and bohemian and I like doing stupid/silly things that have nothing to do with seriousness. But when you get right down to the heart of it, I want a gentleman. I am most attracted to a well-dressed, well-mannered man of integrity and talent who is able to carry himself in serious conversation and tell witty jokes in equal measure. If he manages to have some musical ability, all the better.

But I realised this morning that what I want is a man. A real man. And real men have somewhere to be on a Friday morning that doesn't include clowning around on balconies for pretty passing strangers.

I know Ryan Gosling managed to get the girl in The Notebook fellas, but you're not Ryan. And this isn't a movie. And if your ex-girlfriends ever forced you to sit through the movie, you'd know that Ryan was actually very romantic and dead serious.

In other words, gentlemen need only apply. So beat it, wise guy!

Never Say Never

Image: Steven Spielberg's An American Tail

When I was a little girl, I was enthralled by the story of the little Russian immigrant mouse Fievel, who bravely journeys West to New York City on a lonely and seemingly hopeless quest in search of his missing family. Fievel is afraid he will never find them and sings this little song, "Never Say Never" that helps him to believe.

Somehow at the age of 5, I connected to this story. Maybe I knew it would be significant to my life. Everyone remembers a miniature 5 year old me singing, "Never Say Never" over and over and over again.

Children are remarkable little beings with innocent hearts that bleed and believe. If you pay attention, you can almost see the grown up person he or she will become. Because they already are. And if you pay attention to their remarkable interests and individualistic personalities, you can glimpse the significance any child will become.

As I grew older, I forgot all about Fievel and his little quest but something about his message stayed with me. It sometimes seems my whole life has been about finding family. Every now and then when I stumble upon the word "never" I remember the little mouse Fievel. And after all these years, I never can say never. I still believe.

Absolutely No Regrets

Image: La Vie Boston

"I feel like men are more romantic than women. When we get married we marry, like, one girl, 'cause we're resistant the whole way until we meet one girl and we think I'd be an idiot if I didn't marry this girl she's so great. But it seems like girls get to a place where they just kinda pick the best option... 'Oh he's got a good job.' I mean they spend their whole life looking for Prince Charming and then they marry the guy who's got a good job and is gonna stick around."

- Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine

I watched Blue Valentine tonight. The horror movie love story begs the question: Where does love go?

My answer: Where it exists in the first place.

The best decision I ever made was calling off my engagement.
I was settling. He was enabling. I loved my fiance, but I wasn't in love with him.

I'd never been more terrified or alone.

Thankfully, I believed we both deserved more. I hoped there was more. And what can I say - I'm a brazen girl.

For once, I was right. I have absolutely no regrets.


Image: Bohemea

The Object of His Obsession

Image: Flikr

It's an old folktale.

A man becomes infatuated with a very beautiful woman. He pursues her until she agrees to marry him. She cautions him to never question why she wears the ribbon around her neck. He agrees - he'd agree to anything to be with her.

Until one night, when he lies awake in the dark marvelling at her mysterious beauty. His curiosity consumes him. He is obsessed. On impulse, he wakes her. He persists until she is overcome. She allows him to tug at the tie.

You already know what happens.

As the ribbon unwinds, the truth unfolds. Her head falls off. The woman comes undone.

His obsession unravels her beauty.

The Road

Image: open road

"A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world." - Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Ours is a road. It is scattered with goodbye.

At some point you realise you've gone too far. You have to go in a different direction. The only possible thing left for you to do is to stop. To leave the person you love alone and go another way. Not because you're giving up. Not because you don't want to try. You have to draw the line. Deep down you know what is truly yours, would be yours. And what is not, no matter how hard you try, would never be.

And with that realisation, I drew a line and I buried the father I never had. The father he never wanted to be. And years later I drew another line and I sent my lover away. The lover I never had. The lover he never wanted to be.

We don't belong to people. We belong with people. You belong with the people who want to belong with you. You begin where they end. You end where they begin. There are no dividing lines. There are no exit signs. Just an open road.

Falling in love and being in love are not the same thing. Are you capable of real love? Or do you hurt and fear too much? Letting people go is easy. Anyone can do it. Letting them in is harder. Not everyone is capable. Establishing an unshakeable unbreakeable connection is hardest of all.

You always hurt the one you love. The one you shouldn't hurt at all. Because you love them most of all. And the people who love you, who belong with you, they never leave you. They travel with you. If they leave, they never loved. If you never loved, you leave.

If it's real, when you get to the crossroad you stay together. Your love is enough.

Nameless

Image: Breakfast at Tiffany's

"Did I tell you how divinely and utterly happy I am?"
- Miss Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffany's

Happy New Year!

Image: Paris

My 27th year was probably my toughest yet. My optimistic naivety was my saving grace this year (I do make magnificent mistakes). But I'm grateful I learned so much.

Apparently, I look for safety in the most dangerous of places. It's when I feel most safe that I'm most in peril. This past year, I wasn't safe. It's no wonder the skizo virgo in me was a panicked mess. 2010 was filled with the unknown, great loss, and me searching for the best way out.

Apparently, I'm also a brazen girl. I take great risks. I'm brutal in my honesty and I boldly go after my desires. (Authenticity, baby!) I follow my heart and I make it happen. I'm a shaker. I need to see physical action and movement. I define the world and myself by what acts we do and how we act towards each other.

And apparently sometimes, I "make it happen" a bit too quickly for the rest of the world (and myself) to catch up. I move quicker than most people blink and I often forget to leave time to think. (Must be the hot-blooded Italian in me).

But this is my chosen path, and I believe it takes a certain amount of bravado/stupidity to walk in my over-the-knee black leather stiletto boots. I have no regrets. And I hope you will continue to follow me.

And so my resolutions for 2011:

1. Be true. Tell the truth to myself and others.

2. Be bold and brave but never afraid. Never give in to my fears.

3. Begin. Rebuild and conquer.

4. Be calm. Take the time to pause.

And to the palmist, the voodoo priest, and my psychic life coach (yes, I'm aware I'm a crazy kook) who all told me that I'd lose everything at 27, suffer losses that would profoundly change me and the way I lived life, and then gain everything and more back... In hindsight, I'm sorry. I don't think I really believed you. But since the first part of your prediction proved true, I'll raise a glass at midnight tonight to toast a hope that you're right about the rest of it.

5. Faith. Trust and have more faith! ;-)

Don't spend your life chasing miracles. Don't spend your life living regrets. Be brave. Make love and change.

I wish you a year filled with happiness and adventure.
The Speakeasy is 1 years old!

Happy New Year!

xoxo,
A. Esterina


Image: the champagne is in the tub

Merry Christmas

All ye ladies and gents, have a Dickens Merry Christmas Day!

Happy Christmas & love,
A. Esterina
xoxo


Images: Whiskey Soaked Cherries

A Long Winter’s Nap

{This is a short, meditation on Christmas that appeared in the Editorial section of The New York Times last year...}

Some years, the holidays seem to bustle right past, and you’re hurled into the new year — flung onward by the gravity of time — before you know it. There are also years, and this is one, when darkness seems to pile up in drifts as the nights grow longer and the day goes down into its burrow earlier and earlier.

Even at its highest, the sun reclines low along the horizon — resting on its elbow, so to speak — and you can feel the coming of dusk as soon as the day slips past noon. This season, Christmas is the pivot of time, when the sun comes to its solstice and we come, too, to a place where our hearts can rest.

What should we feel today on this new morning?

That is the question Christmas always poses. But our feelings know no “should.” We feel what we feel, as one after another the Christmases go past. Over the years, it adds up to a medley of all our emotions, joy, gratitude, compassion, generosity, love, hospitality — and sometimes also loneliness, mistrust, miserliness and even despair.

This is the season for rejoicing at the hope of our own redemption, and yet rejoicing doesn’t always arrive on schedule, any more than hope or redemption do. The fact is that we make what we can of Christmas each year, and some years Christmas makes something entirely unexpected out of us.

Breakfast will come late this morning because we were up, most of us, late into the eve of this holiday, savoring how festive the darkness can be. And before breakfast is long over and the first toy has been broken, the first tears dried, dusk will be gathering outside again. That is the unfailing gift of this season — to comfort us with so much nightfall, to gather us together, and hold us close.

—New York Times Editorial Published: December 24, 2009. A version of this article also appeared in print on December 25, 2009, on page A30 of the New York edition.

Source: lukestorms.wordpress

The Piano

Image: Johnny Depp

"I've only dared to take to an extreme that which you haven't even dared to take to halfway." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Underground Man

I went to visit my old piano today.

And there I was tinkering away on the keys of my out-of-tune upright in a dark and cold storage unit, surrounded by ghosts in neat stacked boxes, playing what I could remember of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. I can hardly play anymore but every now and then a classical piece will come back to me.

And now here I sit on the Eve of Christmas Day with an open bottle of wine and a deep love for a dark and brilliant man: Dostoevsky. I'm in the midst of reading his life works. Wine. The Brothers Karamazov. And me.

And the travelling scents of the makings of our Christmas Eve feast coming out of mom's kitchen.

And so I wish you a Happy Christmas, darlings.

It Was a Wonderful Life

Image: It's a Wonderful Life

It was the same every year... Nanu prepared the castagna's (chestnuts) while watching, It's a Wonderful Life. Grand-maman watched Jimmy Stewart (her favourite leading man) from the kitchen as she fried the cudderieddi (potato fritter doughnuts). Sounds traditional, right? My grandparents were anything but...

My grand-maman Esterina was elegant, fiery, and original. She was ahead of her time. Not a traditional nonna at all. In fact, most people wondered if she was even Italian. She only wore Chanel No. 5, she fashionably dressed in pearls and pumps, she avidly discussed politics, she spoke with a soft lilt of a British accent, and she was the only person that could go head-to-head with my grandfather. And win.

My grandfather Valentino was a long lost member of the
Rat Pack. He had an effortless cool. Nanu was a real gentleman, and he never left the house without donning a hat. He told the best stories, he was always the life of the party, and he was a generous man with a heart of gold that could make anything grow. And O Dio he was stubborn.

The conventional part about my progressive Italian-Canadian grandparents was their sense of family. And it shined every Christmas at their authentic Calabrian Christmas Eve feast
(la viglia) that would include thirteen dishes centered around seafood. The baccala (salted cod) was nanu's personal favourite. But lobster and crab, scallops and oysters, and always broccoli with shaved parmesan would be served with an abundance of vino and cheese.

The ladies would mix drinks (gin and tonic my grand-maman's favourite) as everyone gathered in the kitchen to cook, talk, and laugh. Nanu would pass around shots of brandy or cognac. My cousin Vince, my brother Adriano, and I would put up the last of the decorations and set the table. All the while, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. would be playing in the background.

My family always lingered around the dinner table long after the meal was over. And Nanu would tell us tales about our family history and Italia. Grand-maman would tell us anecdotes about nanu, our parents, or us as kids. And we would talk and laugh over the vino. Eventually, nanu would get the castagna's, some pannetone (sweet bread), and champagne to toast our blessings. Even in those moments, I knew I was lucky to be part of the scene: My family gathered around the table, the freshly fallen snow, and grand-maman's decorated tree.

But last Christmas, my nanu was diagnosed with cancer. I spent much of the holiday taking care of him until the day after Christmas when he collapsed and was taken to the hospital where he died three months later. My nanu was a strong man and a brave fighter to the very end, but he left us suddenly as my grand-maman had only a few years before. His passing marks the end of an era for my family.
Of course there will be new memories in the making, but Christmas will never be the same.

This Christmas Eve will be the most difficult and strange. I am most looking forward to midnight mass in Italian where I can light a candle and pay my respects. I'm a girl whose made a life (and a blog) out of making the most of everything but this Christmas, I simply don't have the heart for it.

What I admired most about my grandparents was their ability to adapt to change. They left their old country behind and embraced their new life in Canada without clinging to the old country as most immigrants did. And yet, they always retained their culture. I know they'd expect me to do the same. Next year.

I miss my extraordinary grandparents. It was a wonderful life.

Perspective

Image: Flikr

I can't shake this feeling I have. It's been nagging at me all day. Today has been unremarkable and yet... something's strange. I feel I'm down side up.

I have a tendency to live life at a different angle. That often requires me to have a little creative perspective. Especially since my destination is often unknown.

But though I may admit I have no answers, I do have plenty of perspective. I trust myself. I live on instinct. And I let gravity tug and pull me a way.

It's not exactly a science... But I do encourage you to try it.

Burn, baby, burn

Image: Serra de Leba Road near Lubango, Angola

May the bridges I burn light the way.

Heavier than Heaven

Image: Anna Esterina, Panama

"The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?"

- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Named after it's own abundance, Panama overflows with fullness and demands more. The land felt alive with hunger, thirst, and desire. Panama seemed an abyssal appetite.

I lacked the appetite but I fed on it anyhow. The people were engaging. The landscape was breathtaking. The sightseeing and activities were plentiful.

I pressed my ear to hot beach sand and heard a drumming heartbeat. I swam in warm Pacific waters and felt blood rushing fast. At night, the whispers on the thick air infected my dreams. Panama was voracious and I was at its peril.

I could feel my temperature rising. Panama was a fever burning away at my toxicity.

This Panamanian paradise was the epitome of lightness. The resort life lacked any burden. It was a pleasureable existence that voided the mind. And I needed it.

Appropriately, I was carrying Milan Kundera's, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, with me at the insistence of my philosopher friend. Kundera's existential plot is written opposite Nietzsche's concept of eternal return. The characters treat love and sex lightly and as based on coincidence. Their linear lives of lightness lack the happiness that comes with the heavy burden of making decisions in lives of repetition.

In Panama I found some center of gravity that I'd been missing. I became grounded. And I found myself missing the weight of being. For the first time in a very long time, the girl who is always in flight longed to return home.

I'm happy to be home, darlings.

xoxo,
ae

Manifesto

Image: Eugenio Recuenco

I did something.

A year ago, on the counsel of a shaman and coincidentally on the eve of All Hallows, I made this list. You could call it a "wish list" but two single-spaced pages (front and back) addressed to: The Universe seems more a letter.

At the time, what I wrote seemed impossible. But that was precisely the point. It was supposed to be the most I could imagine. And as silly as it may have seemed, it was my honest and genuine wish for my highest and greatest good.

Just last week, I moved out of my apartment on October 31, 2010 -- Halloween night when I stumbled upon my boudoir's little secret. Hidden between my mattresses, I found my long forgotten letter. I got chills. It was a year to the day that I wrote it. As I read it, my heart skipped actual beats. It was impossible but my letter had taken corporal form.

I'd been blind to my own good fortune.

Time changes everything. Even a very short time. What I wanted -- the most I could imagine is absolutely possible and right in front of me. It manifested.

It wasn't a wish. It wasn't a list. It wasn't even a letter. It was my manifesto. My declaration to the universe of what I intended to have. And I still want it in my bones.

Believe and make wishes come true.

the key

Image: whisperingwillow

Your significant other doesn't know. Your parents have no clue. And your boss couldn't care. The key is in your hands.

You don't need an instruction manual or a road map to live a life. You just need to keep moving forward to make it.

It's in your hands.