day 6

...and i am heading to my 5th film of the festival. this next one is a documentary about anselm kiefer.

more soon.

polka dots

i can't tell the whole story tonight, but this is one sliver: the dress that saw it all today.

sensing the direction

here i am.
perched.
poised.
peeking into, over and beyond.
hoping.
and about to start production on a play i have waited years to run. produce. create into being a character named catherine who's story tenders currencies beyond numbers and figures into death and grieving and revealing and owning. her own creations become mine.

it's a good story {even a pulizer thought so} but more importantly: in this act, i feel like i've finally pointed my nose toward acting, though all the while in the back of my head, enjoying the fact that this particular piece will be an ensemble creation and we will all be invested in the process of bringing the story to stage.

so, it doesn't seem too far off the mark, as unexpected and delightful and humbling as it was to have a film director, after spending just an evening or two in my company, part ways saying {without stopping for breath}: "are you going to direct? you should direct. you know acting, you're great with people, you have the vision, passion...you would be a great director."

the first two nights of the film festival were brilliant. and this lovely, charming, wonderful soul i got not only to meet, but spend significant, connected, time with was a large part of it. the universe is a wise and generous place.

here we go...

a "way past my bedtime" sort of night filled by conversations with some lovely far away friends as well as focused productivity {i tackled three different projects!!!}.

all this so i would be ready for the film festival which starts tomorrow.

yikes & yipee!

the flock {part 1.}

it's been long in coming but the post i had in mind to introduce this project just requires more time than i have right now. i want to photograph and document each and every bird that i have received, give them their own place of honor, write a few word about receiving it, etc. but today is not that day. yet i am long overdue in presenting the contributors with some sort of reward for all their individual colors so today can be that day.

but i'm getting ahead of myself. let me put this all into perspective for the rest of you.

last october, for my 28th birthday, i sent out the following letter to 50 people around the world:


hello my far away friends,

in preparation for my 28th birthday, i asked myself who i would want to have at the perfect birthday party & each of you came up in my mind. captivated by this desire to include you all in some way, i constructed a project for my local friends when we gather on november 6th to celebrate & i’m hoping you’ll contribute.

in the enclosed envelope you’ll find a small wooden bird. the directions are simple: color it on both sides & send it back to me.

you can paint it. you can paste little pieces of magazine images on it. you can cover it in wax. you can use a sharpie, pencil or pen but just pick ONE color {it can vary a little but make sure it’s predominantly one color & that it’s the same color on both sides—yes, i know it’s a different texture, just do your best}.

color is an important dimension of life for me, not only as an artist, wordsmith & dreamer, but as someone who lives & breathes through the connections i have collected over the years. a few of you i have never met in person, others only once {probably at a radiohead concert} & many i haven’t seen in years; yet all of you have provided me with some of the most visceral colors to carry me forward & now i’m asking you to do so yet again. so give me the color you see me as, give me the color you come to me as, give me the color you would hope for me or just give me a color that’s true.

thank you so very much for playing. i hope to be in the same city as you sometime soon, whatever the country, continent or hemisphere.

till then, yours in full color,

nathania tenwolde

p.s. there is a bit of card in the return envelope. please send it back with the bird to help protect it on its way home, but also feel free to jot a note to me on it. perhaps an explanation of the color you chose, or a random thought or message. all words are welcome. ~nat

p.p.s. my impatience is legendary, so please return it to me as soon as you can so i can start arranging the flock. ~n

between the party i held here and the teal envelopes, this is what i received:

after my run

finished up with frightened rabbit's "the modern leper" on repeat.

is that you
in front of me
coming back for even more
exactly the same...

...just you and me
starting again
you can tell your worth
what you did today...

tied...

to the back of my head tied to the back of my head tied to the back of head...from the back head tied to the back of my head...

apartment update

it's sunk in today that i will have to move once my lease ends. the gentle rate increases we all hoped for are not happening and even the fact that my check was lost by the us mail has been met with very little grace on their part.

yet i am dealing with it better than i ever have before. my home is always a center for so much of my peace. a grounding place. a haven. but already the spirit of the building is changing and i am finding my center within myself more reliably these days so it matters far less.

standing here in the sun, at the end of a long day at work, i already feel the opportunities opening and am in touch with the certainty that this will all work out and my time at the corner of terry and jefferson can come to a graceful close over the next few months.

in the meantime, i have a flock of birds from a good many of you, slowly turning in space, equally curious about the next place we will all land to rest our wings.

i'm the blue light

this song found me through shuffle. i don't even know how i got dm stith came to my music collection, but as of tonight, we are friends. and this song, braid of voices, and i are best friends.

and tonight: i am well rewarded for staying up past my bed time, for having patience and listening to my spirit when it speaks in the deep and confident voice. she leads me forward. she helps me keep faith. and asks me to fly farther for less. but she knows. she knows.

and so do i.

you can go here to play the song as well.

when the ghosts of me refuse to speak

and in my dreams i watch tv

i'm blue inside, i'm the blue light

i'm blue inside, i'm the blue light

i'm blue inside, i'm the blue light

i'm blue inside, i'm the blue light

and i need this town, this white town

and i'm the red blood of this white town

parade in someone else's crown

parade in someone else's crown

parade in someone else's crown

parade in...

from the back of my head tied to the back of my head tied to the back of my head tied to the back of my head tied to the back of my head....

a braid of voices: david, david

a new hair cut and black dress

gearing up for the film festival and arranging my feathers. eyebrows: done. hair: done. opening night dress and ewan mcgregor toting around dress: found. still need shoes for one of the dresses, but one thing at a time....

after several demands, here are a few photos i took myself in the black dress. no one photo gave a good sense of either my hair or the dress, so please indulge me as i post a few from a spontaneous bathroom shoot {which is a silly location because while it's the only mirror in my apt, i don't actually use it to shoot, so i don't know why i limit myself there}.

oh, and the dress falls straight below the lovely gathers and folds around the bodice and hits right above my knees.

{an accidental close up when i zoomed in the wrong direction--

a rare clear gaze into the lens}

words on peace

so, i am not usually political in this space, but i can't help acknowledging my response in the wake of osama bin laden's death. i was not really finding any words in me to post until i came across another's. these are the words of one of my oldest friends. a dear one from my days at mariner high school. this is what she said:

It's hard to know what to say about today, but I do feel the need to say something about recommitting to finding ways to make peace through peace.

A lot of people are excited about bin laden's death; after 9/11 how can we as a nation not feel the need to celebrate any amount of closure that we are able to make corporeal? How can we not want to put quantifiable milestone markers on the road to ending the cycle of war that we are now in? How can we not feel relief?

But before instinctively starting to rally and celebrate, I think it's vitally important for us to remember that frenzied excitement over "getting the bad guy" is where all extremism comes from.

All extremism.

We have a responsibility to inspect our relief at bin laden's death and also to honor the people who work tirelessly to keep us feeling safe; but we also have a responsibility to work toward making our future world a place free from insidiously hateful and violent conflicts; against us and against others. Killing is never a good option. Never.

War can't remain the default option for so many of the situations that we as a nation find unsolvable or threatening. We are a nation of genius. We have great tools in our hands to avert violent conflict and we need to develop them because not using these tools is hurting us.

Ask anyone who has killed another human being if it didn't inextricably change them or do damage to their spirit. It did. And these people who fight to keep us safe deserve better from our national and individual goals than to be relied upon to keep damaging themselves because we are too disorganized or too impulsive or too lazy to commit to figuring out better ways to make safety and peace happen.

It's so important for us to remember that we want to be more steady and more stalwart in our pursuit of truth and beauty than what we now are--that we want to be more honorable and more compassionate than whatever or whomever threatens us while we are in these pursuits. Look at any kid and say you want differently for them.

So perhaps in lieu of a celebration over this one admittedly relieving and also admittedly temporary 'win,' we can use this time to thoughtfully recommit to work TIRELESSLY toward making a world where we honor our protectors, peers, and selves by developing our capabilities/capacities to find lasting justice through nonviolent actions. let's recommit to teaching ourselves and all the kids in our lives community, love of difference, and communication because what we keep finding out in moments like this one is that we'd like ourselves and every kid we love to be able to be safe without having to compromise anyone else's safety.

No war in our future.

-- sea-oh mcconville