Process vs product is a conversation that has been pulverized in the cuisinart of pop yoga culture and beyond. Powerful in application, the action of function for function’s sake offers the makings of a paradigm shift in Western behavior. We are, however, a product dominant society. I don’t deem that entirely negative. I do think though, that there are beneficial points along a given path at which to shift a penetrating gaze away from the proverbial prize and look down (or in) to the feel of the path beneath our feet, and likewise, points that we would need to look back at the prize in order not to lose it.
I bought a co-op in 2003 in Park Slope Brooklyn. I saw it advertised on craigslist. I called the agent, she showed it to me, I was the first viewer of the apartment. My husband was at work and I had never made an offer on a property but I felt in my gut that this was our home. I went out on a limb and said a number. The owner accepted the offer, there were no irregularities along the way, the closing ensued. I delighted in the flow of the transaction every step of the way, learning, feeling powerful and learning more. The outcome, i.e., the acquisition of the apartment, almost, (not quite, but almost) felt secondary, like a byproduct of the journey leading there. This transaction shone brightly upon the gift that was my life.
Another iconic idea of “yogic” behavior, (I safe quote yogic because I am sure that this adjective is only definable through the acceleration of it’s use in the past 15 years) is to view everything in life as a gift. Truly, if one starts with the premise that the alternative of having been born is less preferable than having been born, everything IS a gift. When challenge gets involved, our ability to embrace the giftness of life recedes, and rightfully so--thank goodness our survival mechanism prevents us from running head-on towards the obstacles in our path. Chanting a gift mantra during strife? It is noble, but it hasn’t worked for me. Requires more faith than I have. It’s mostly in retrospect that we get to widen our lense of life and see how the pieces filled in, and apply the perspective that things made sense the way they played out in order for us to be where we are.
Many things happened in the following years after our first property purchase cited above--having kids, and my mom getting very sick were the most formative of those things. Kids felt like a gift, mom getting sick in no way shape or form felt like gift. For these formative things, in 2011 we sought out a new home in Maplewood NJ where many predecessors from the city and Bklyn were moving. We found a lovely, perfect home. We put in an offer, a cash offer, but a contingency cash offer which was dependent on the closing of our Bklyn coop. A contingency offer is the most precarious kind of offer. In order to make our contingency offer sexier to our sellers in Maplewood, we offered them as much time as they needed to close. They told us they would need several months. Understandably, they continued to hold open houses. I bit my nails down. Back in Bklyn, we received a fine offer on our apartment. We accepted the offer. The offeror was 9 months pregnant and needed the apartment yesterday. We agreed to move as fast as we could to help her get settled for her new baby in her new home. Between the moving out and the moving in, we had 3 separate sublets during NY Summer months, two were NY-sized (wheeensy) and all housed my husband, my kids and my sick mom. We did eventually move in to our new Maplewood home, but in the months prior, (the many, many, many, many moments of months), I hyperventilated, cursed, and fought with my family. I wanted no such thing of feeling this process any more than I already was. My vision of our destination was where it was at!
The authentic application of immersing in process begs that we keep in mind how unpleasant process can be. Ugh. Our desire to move with great alacrity towards destination when things are uncomfortable is because we have an intelligent survival mechanism. It’s also because we are resilient beings, for the most part. We know in our fabric if we can get out of the mire, we will be ok.
In recalling the Summer of '11, I have gratitude for what we gained. I am reaping and will continue to reap the fruits of the two endpoints of selling a home and purchasing a home. As well, I recall numerous memories along the way that were embraceable, despite the struggle and discomfort. I recall my mother being able to walk during that Summer and that we all went to the beach together for the last time.
Returning in our minds from individual trips along the way, each sporting its own illusory conclusion, over and over again, it is likely that each of us at some point will feel the essence of a more encompassing journey. Where does process end and product start? In yoga asana practice, I do my best to encourage folks while they struggle with bakasana, a tricky arm balance, that they may as well full-on feel the placement of weight in the palms, knuckles and finger pads, realize the seconds through which a shift of weight occurs, and fall forward with a pillow in order to learn where the point of balance is, because there is always a more advanced variation right beyond this acquisition. it really could go on indefinitely.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
history through home
My Grandfather who arrived here from Poland in the early 1900’s settled in Brooklyn. He was a mild-mannered, repetitive-storytelling gent who had a great widow’s peak. I never met my dad’s mother but she looked tough. They worked in the textile industry and were comfortable, but not wealthy. My dad grew up in the Sheepshead Bay part of Brooklyn. He became a designer by trade and a collector of beautiful objects. I could go on about how my dad and his obsessive aesthetic, and Jewish-Brooklynese philosophy influenced me but instead I’ll encapsulate him as a true artist and character.
My mom was the daughter of an impoverished, depressed and sickly couple who moved back and forth from California to Michigan. They were Irish, English and Sicilian, collectively. She left Michigan to move to NY in her late teens and worked at various magazines as a Copy Editor. Though I remember her as a lamb, she had some tenacity to move to NY so young, knowing no one.
She and my dad met working at the same magazine in the mid sixties and married in ‘67. They lived in Greenwich Village together. I was born in ‘69 at Mt. Sinai.
In the first year of my life we outgrew our Greenwich Village apartment and moved to what is now the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn, which at that time had no name other than “bad neighborhood”. I spent my first 4 years in apt 12A at 41 Eastern Parkway, The Copley Plaza, a once opulent 1920’s apartment building directly across from the Brooklyn public Library, that still had a hand operated elevator run by a man named Chris who actually wore an Elevator Operator’s hat. Apartment 12A was a sweeping 2000 square foot, 3 bdrm 2 1/2 bath with a formal dining room and maid’s room, numerous closets and a view that reached the Verrazano Bridge. It was my dad’s pride and joy. He envisioned grandeur restored to the once dignified address and worked diligently to return the building to it’s splendor, regularly polishing the lobby banisters, mirrors and sconces. Unfortunately in the ‘70’s, the notoriously rundown neighborhood competed with my dad to win over The Copley Plaza.
My mom and dad divorced in 1974. I was five. My mother wanted freedom and a brownstone in the neighboring community of Park Slope. She had caught wind that the majestic trees, ornate 1890’s brownstones and 585-acre Prospect Park made it a popular nesting destination for young professionals seeking more everything for less money. The area culled an attractive balance of affluence and earthiness while maintaining it’s diverse demographic foundation, and she was smitten. My dad would not leave The Copley Plaza. In 2003, 28 years later, he died there. Years after my dad’s death, a golden plaque he had engraved still graces the marble wall between the elevators in the lobby. It boasts “The Copley Plaza, 1926, One of Brooklyn’s treasures”.
After the divorce in 1974, my mom and I inhabited a 1-bedroom brownstone basement apartment in Park Slope on 2nd St btwn 7th and 6th Avenue less than a block off of the main drag of 7th Avenue and across from the PS 321 schoolyard (the zoned public school for Central Park Slope dwellers). Our upstairs neighbors were lesbians who imparted unto us guinea pigs and taught me that “nothing in nature is gross” after I squealed in disgust at a large slug trolling our shared backyard. My mom romanticized the brownstone cache and while the apt was small and modest, it had an iconic charm I still relate to the particular aesthetics of mid 70’s divorced Brooklyn--the weathered hardwood floors, the inoperable fireplace, the paint-chipped bay windows, the challengingly narrow floor-through kitchen, the one bathroom off the only bedroom which looked out onto the communal backyard which begged for someone to plant some basil, and a ghastly linoleum-floored workroom leading out back.
In 1976 my mom decided that we needed more space. We moved to 75 Prospect Park West, apt. 4C. The building was an average looking prewar, in fact one of two average looking prewars that flanked the mouth of Prospect Park at 3rd street. The lobby had the wrong shade of yellow paint lit by fluorescents, and felt unloved. The apartment was a larger one-bedroom with sizeable rooms including a generous formal dining room. It had a flowy layout with abundant light. Though it had shameful bright polka-dotted yellow linoleum in the kitchen and an original 1920’s bathroom which would not be renovated for another 35 years, it was a good space. Over my mom’s 31-yr residence at 75 PPW she redid the kitchen linoleum, finished the hardwood floors, replaced the kitchen countertop and eventually favored French-ish country decor to 1970’s bohemian, but the space stayed essentially the same--the light, the smells, the sounds remained and felt the same.
I stayed at 75 PPW until I left for College in 1988.
I returned to Bklyn with my fiance in 1995. We rented an 800 sq ft loft on the corner of Wythe and North 4th. It was a sheet rock dream come true and the area was in its pre-renaissance stage--raw but burgeoning. We were both visual artists and word had it that we must move to the region called Williamsburg (where I used to shop at used clothing mecca “Domsey International” in the ‘80’s). It was a very ugly area, no denying and I’ll spar with anyone who says differently. The building stock felt cheap in comparison to the Brooklyn I was used to. That said, it was an exceptionally vital place to be at that time in the mid 90’s.
Btwn 1999 and 2001, I briefly separated from my husband and moved to a very small studio apartment in Carroll Gardens. Separated from Park Slope by the Gowanus Canal, Carroll Gardens, a once predominantly Italian-American area still retains plenty of flavor in Italian-American pork stores and specialty shops that pepper the two main drags of Smith and Court Streets. The home stock of Carroll Gardens is more architecturally similar to the ever illustrious Brooklyn Heights, (across Atlantic Avenue), than to Park Slope, with townhouses sporting flat facades and a more stately countenance. Unique to Carroll Gardens is the “front garden”, creating a setback of 30-40 feet from the sidewalk to the stairwell up to the front entrance in which residents grow flora. Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens’ more elegant neighbor, and Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens’ more urban neighbor are to the West and East respectively. These communities are all contributors to “brownstone Brooklyn” and compare to Park Slope in that their assets were unearthed by potential residents of NYC riding the alternative wave to Brooklyn in the 1970’s, ‘80’s and 90’s.
Meanwhile, back at the Park Slope Food Coop, founded in 1973, the authentic, scrappy and dogged community of Park Slope attracted more of it’s kind through the 70’s 80’s and 90’s gaining momentum towards it’s next mutation.
My husband and I eventually reunited in 2002 and moved together to Clinton Hill Brooklyn, another institution of Brownstone Brooklyn. We lived in a fine bright apartment in what I consider to be, (along with neighboring Fort Greene), among the most beautiful neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Very disgustingly though, the elevator smelled so heavily of piss that I alternately gagged and seethed every ride I took. I can still feel the amonia in my nostrils and marvel at the extreme juxtaposition of gorgeous abundance and nasty negligence that befalls the area.
My father passed in 2003. With inheritance we purchased a humble one-bedroom coop on Montgomery Place in Park Slope. As a parlour floor apartment in a brownstone it took well to renovation. Then came a first baby in 2006. We traded my mom her 75 PPW one-bedroom apartment with formal dining room (aka second bedroom) only 4 blocks away, for our Montgomery place apt.
On a nice ride of fate we lived at 75 PPW, apt. 4C, from 2007 to 2011. The apartment that I had spent the majority of my youth in was none other than that which I introduced my (2) sons to life in. Eventually, They were bouncing off the walls. We sold the apartment to move with my mom, who fell ill and needed help taking care of herself, to Maplewood NJ. I followed many other Brooklyn families there and felt the safety of a trodden path.
I joke about three generations of Brooklyn washed out in one fell swoop to New Jersey. I miss my friends but haven’t looked back.
My mom was the daughter of an impoverished, depressed and sickly couple who moved back and forth from California to Michigan. They were Irish, English and Sicilian, collectively. She left Michigan to move to NY in her late teens and worked at various magazines as a Copy Editor. Though I remember her as a lamb, she had some tenacity to move to NY so young, knowing no one.
She and my dad met working at the same magazine in the mid sixties and married in ‘67. They lived in Greenwich Village together. I was born in ‘69 at Mt. Sinai.
In the first year of my life we outgrew our Greenwich Village apartment and moved to what is now the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn, which at that time had no name other than “bad neighborhood”. I spent my first 4 years in apt 12A at 41 Eastern Parkway, The Copley Plaza, a once opulent 1920’s apartment building directly across from the Brooklyn public Library, that still had a hand operated elevator run by a man named Chris who actually wore an Elevator Operator’s hat. Apartment 12A was a sweeping 2000 square foot, 3 bdrm 2 1/2 bath with a formal dining room and maid’s room, numerous closets and a view that reached the Verrazano Bridge. It was my dad’s pride and joy. He envisioned grandeur restored to the once dignified address and worked diligently to return the building to it’s splendor, regularly polishing the lobby banisters, mirrors and sconces. Unfortunately in the ‘70’s, the notoriously rundown neighborhood competed with my dad to win over The Copley Plaza.
My mom and dad divorced in 1974. I was five. My mother wanted freedom and a brownstone in the neighboring community of Park Slope. She had caught wind that the majestic trees, ornate 1890’s brownstones and 585-acre Prospect Park made it a popular nesting destination for young professionals seeking more everything for less money. The area culled an attractive balance of affluence and earthiness while maintaining it’s diverse demographic foundation, and she was smitten. My dad would not leave The Copley Plaza. In 2003, 28 years later, he died there. Years after my dad’s death, a golden plaque he had engraved still graces the marble wall between the elevators in the lobby. It boasts “The Copley Plaza, 1926, One of Brooklyn’s treasures”.
After the divorce in 1974, my mom and I inhabited a 1-bedroom brownstone basement apartment in Park Slope on 2nd St btwn 7th and 6th Avenue less than a block off of the main drag of 7th Avenue and across from the PS 321 schoolyard (the zoned public school for Central Park Slope dwellers). Our upstairs neighbors were lesbians who imparted unto us guinea pigs and taught me that “nothing in nature is gross” after I squealed in disgust at a large slug trolling our shared backyard. My mom romanticized the brownstone cache and while the apt was small and modest, it had an iconic charm I still relate to the particular aesthetics of mid 70’s divorced Brooklyn--the weathered hardwood floors, the inoperable fireplace, the paint-chipped bay windows, the challengingly narrow floor-through kitchen, the one bathroom off the only bedroom which looked out onto the communal backyard which begged for someone to plant some basil, and a ghastly linoleum-floored workroom leading out back.
In 1976 my mom decided that we needed more space. We moved to 75 Prospect Park West, apt. 4C. The building was an average looking prewar, in fact one of two average looking prewars that flanked the mouth of Prospect Park at 3rd street. The lobby had the wrong shade of yellow paint lit by fluorescents, and felt unloved. The apartment was a larger one-bedroom with sizeable rooms including a generous formal dining room. It had a flowy layout with abundant light. Though it had shameful bright polka-dotted yellow linoleum in the kitchen and an original 1920’s bathroom which would not be renovated for another 35 years, it was a good space. Over my mom’s 31-yr residence at 75 PPW she redid the kitchen linoleum, finished the hardwood floors, replaced the kitchen countertop and eventually favored French-ish country decor to 1970’s bohemian, but the space stayed essentially the same--the light, the smells, the sounds remained and felt the same.
I stayed at 75 PPW until I left for College in 1988.
I returned to Bklyn with my fiance in 1995. We rented an 800 sq ft loft on the corner of Wythe and North 4th. It was a sheet rock dream come true and the area was in its pre-renaissance stage--raw but burgeoning. We were both visual artists and word had it that we must move to the region called Williamsburg (where I used to shop at used clothing mecca “Domsey International” in the ‘80’s). It was a very ugly area, no denying and I’ll spar with anyone who says differently. The building stock felt cheap in comparison to the Brooklyn I was used to. That said, it was an exceptionally vital place to be at that time in the mid 90’s.
Btwn 1999 and 2001, I briefly separated from my husband and moved to a very small studio apartment in Carroll Gardens. Separated from Park Slope by the Gowanus Canal, Carroll Gardens, a once predominantly Italian-American area still retains plenty of flavor in Italian-American pork stores and specialty shops that pepper the two main drags of Smith and Court Streets. The home stock of Carroll Gardens is more architecturally similar to the ever illustrious Brooklyn Heights, (across Atlantic Avenue), than to Park Slope, with townhouses sporting flat facades and a more stately countenance. Unique to Carroll Gardens is the “front garden”, creating a setback of 30-40 feet from the sidewalk to the stairwell up to the front entrance in which residents grow flora. Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens’ more elegant neighbor, and Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens’ more urban neighbor are to the West and East respectively. These communities are all contributors to “brownstone Brooklyn” and compare to Park Slope in that their assets were unearthed by potential residents of NYC riding the alternative wave to Brooklyn in the 1970’s, ‘80’s and 90’s.
Meanwhile, back at the Park Slope Food Coop, founded in 1973, the authentic, scrappy and dogged community of Park Slope attracted more of it’s kind through the 70’s 80’s and 90’s gaining momentum towards it’s next mutation.
My husband and I eventually reunited in 2002 and moved together to Clinton Hill Brooklyn, another institution of Brownstone Brooklyn. We lived in a fine bright apartment in what I consider to be, (along with neighboring Fort Greene), among the most beautiful neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Very disgustingly though, the elevator smelled so heavily of piss that I alternately gagged and seethed every ride I took. I can still feel the amonia in my nostrils and marvel at the extreme juxtaposition of gorgeous abundance and nasty negligence that befalls the area.
My father passed in 2003. With inheritance we purchased a humble one-bedroom coop on Montgomery Place in Park Slope. As a parlour floor apartment in a brownstone it took well to renovation. Then came a first baby in 2006. We traded my mom her 75 PPW one-bedroom apartment with formal dining room (aka second bedroom) only 4 blocks away, for our Montgomery place apt.
On a nice ride of fate we lived at 75 PPW, apt. 4C, from 2007 to 2011. The apartment that I had spent the majority of my youth in was none other than that which I introduced my (2) sons to life in. Eventually, They were bouncing off the walls. We sold the apartment to move with my mom, who fell ill and needed help taking care of herself, to Maplewood NJ. I followed many other Brooklyn families there and felt the safety of a trodden path.
I joke about three generations of Brooklyn washed out in one fell swoop to New Jersey. I miss my friends but haven’t looked back.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
yoga is applicable
I am writing this blog on the suggestion of several colleagues from various milieus. I've been resistant to blogging thanks to my friend Devon Dikeou, an artist, with whom in 1997 I witnessed a dull, self-indulgent autobiographical performance piece depicting something or other. Devon leaned over to me and whispered “if you are going to do autobiographical work, you’d better be interesting”. Since a blog is a direct or indirect autobiographical work, and since being interesting is a debatable relativity, I'm still questioning.
The container of this blog is the relationship of two popular subjects that I am interested in--yoga and real estate. To me this relationship is neither remote nor plain, as yoga, depending on the way you define it, (see lower down) is not insular but at best applicable to all endeavors.
Let’s start with some connections through definition:
“Real” Property (the “real” in “real estate”) is basically land and what comes along with it--things that you can’t take with you. The opposite of real property is personal property, a.k.a., your stuff that you pack up when you move. Doesn’t the word “real” have a distinct weight to it? After all, “real” in other contexts means authentic.
“Estate” means interest (right claim or privilege) in property, (real or otherwise). “Estate” also infers what happens to that property, real or otherwise, when death occurs since at the end of the long day you can’t take anything with you. In that sense, estate points to the expectation that “real” things will outlive a life.
“Real Estate” is land (and what comes with it) and one’s claim to it. Didn’t Scarlett O'Hara’s dad tell her that land was the only thing that mattered? Yes he did. Much of our personal property or “personalty”, (not to be confused with personal*ity), or “chattel” if you want to be all 19th century about it, will fall apart before we do. But we will fall apart before our land does. Our species might fall apart before our planet does due to the strain we’ve put on the resources we need to live. Our planet probably won't outlive the universe, and on.
Yoga is a more slippery word to define. The way I first heard it is that the root of the word is “yuj”, related to the word “yolk” as in “to yolk a donkey to it’s cart” (*way back*) thereby connecting two things to make one thing. Thus many people define the word yoga as “union”. Union of what? I teach hatha yoga which is the form of yoga practiced through physical poses, postures, seats, etc., called “asana”, and through hatha yoga it is a popular quest to seek a union between the experience of the body and the spirit.
There is an over arcing conversation in yoga regarding what has value; what is real and what is less real. For instance certain lineages suggest that since our physical body is impermanent it is distinctly separate from spirit and is intrinsically less valuable. There is a lineage that offers that the permanent is real whereas the impermanent is an illusion--this model connotes that our worldly life is false. For the record, I am not crazy about placing a lower value on our time living in this body because through this life we can and do have experiences of the spirit. I would also prefer to believe that our time here is real, not illusory. However, I do concede that there is a spectrum of value in life and a vast gradation between real and superficial.
Another way of understanding yoga is in the realm of transaction--how we relate to and with our world. Professor Douglas Brooks speaks about how most everything in life involves transaction. Thinking along those lines can be quite entertaining and revealing. What do we desire? What are we willing to put forth for our desires? What do we hope to get back from our efforts? In this model we are in the proverbial driver’s seat and we can learn to transact with more skill if we choose to. I like this model very much. It breeds empowerment and accountability and increases the probability of navigating gnarly emotions, behavior and outcomes that inevitably befall each life.
Real...value...transaction. All words that are interchangeable between discussions of real estate and yoga. Hmmm.
The container of this blog is the relationship of two popular subjects that I am interested in--yoga and real estate. To me this relationship is neither remote nor plain, as yoga, depending on the way you define it, (see lower down) is not insular but at best applicable to all endeavors.
Let’s start with some connections through definition:
“Real” Property (the “real” in “real estate”) is basically land and what comes along with it--things that you can’t take with you. The opposite of real property is personal property, a.k.a., your stuff that you pack up when you move. Doesn’t the word “real” have a distinct weight to it? After all, “real” in other contexts means authentic.
“Estate” means interest (right claim or privilege) in property, (real or otherwise). “Estate” also infers what happens to that property, real or otherwise, when death occurs since at the end of the long day you can’t take anything with you. In that sense, estate points to the expectation that “real” things will outlive a life.
“Real Estate” is land (and what comes with it) and one’s claim to it. Didn’t Scarlett O'Hara’s dad tell her that land was the only thing that mattered? Yes he did. Much of our personal property or “personalty”, (not to be confused with personal*ity), or “chattel” if you want to be all 19th century about it, will fall apart before we do. But we will fall apart before our land does. Our species might fall apart before our planet does due to the strain we’ve put on the resources we need to live. Our planet probably won't outlive the universe, and on.
Yoga is a more slippery word to define. The way I first heard it is that the root of the word is “yuj”, related to the word “yolk” as in “to yolk a donkey to it’s cart” (*way back*) thereby connecting two things to make one thing. Thus many people define the word yoga as “union”. Union of what? I teach hatha yoga which is the form of yoga practiced through physical poses, postures, seats, etc., called “asana”, and through hatha yoga it is a popular quest to seek a union between the experience of the body and the spirit.
There is an over arcing conversation in yoga regarding what has value; what is real and what is less real. For instance certain lineages suggest that since our physical body is impermanent it is distinctly separate from spirit and is intrinsically less valuable. There is a lineage that offers that the permanent is real whereas the impermanent is an illusion--this model connotes that our worldly life is false. For the record, I am not crazy about placing a lower value on our time living in this body because through this life we can and do have experiences of the spirit. I would also prefer to believe that our time here is real, not illusory. However, I do concede that there is a spectrum of value in life and a vast gradation between real and superficial.
Another way of understanding yoga is in the realm of transaction--how we relate to and with our world. Professor Douglas Brooks speaks about how most everything in life involves transaction. Thinking along those lines can be quite entertaining and revealing. What do we desire? What are we willing to put forth for our desires? What do we hope to get back from our efforts? In this model we are in the proverbial driver’s seat and we can learn to transact with more skill if we choose to. I like this model very much. It breeds empowerment and accountability and increases the probability of navigating gnarly emotions, behavior and outcomes that inevitably befall each life.
Real...value...transaction. All words that are interchangeable between discussions of real estate and yoga. Hmmm.
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