Ameripean

pictures: me (maya) & bret (new zealander), matt (hungarian), birk (german), and sophie (french)

Lately I have been told "Are you sure you are American? You seem more European to me?"
I have been told this half a dozen times since I have been living in New York, and by Europeans nonetheless.

I wasn't sure why exactly I had been told this, so I've asked a few of my European friends. Their responses were:

"You very passionate, you don't keep anything bottled up inside, that's not very American, non?"

"You love pleasure, and don't feel guilty about it, you feel you deserve it, that's very European."

While these two items are somewhat true (especially the "I don't keep anything bottled up thing"), I do love passion and pleasure, however, I do feel guilty about these things. I am American in this way. I don't think I have been someone that has avoided the puritanical vibe altogether. Sometimes when things are so beautiful around me and I find myself sliding into "Joie de vivre" I start to feel that I don't deserve it and the guilt/gloom comes back and I think "Yep, that's more of the way I am suppose to feel."

I think this is why I have confused every European man that I have dated (which has been, ehem, a lot lately: German, Swedish, Turkish, French, and Russian) They think they are getting an American women, head strong, slightly repressed, and who will be swept away by their European ways (passion, long discussions on philosophy, politics, pleasure, food, and oh, passion); but what they get instead is what I will call an "Ameripean" (aka a New Yorker) no nonsense, slightly jaded, enjoys long discussions on philosophy, politics, pleasure, food, and passion, but just don't carried away buddy or I’ll start getting annoyed.

There is something to be said about getting rid of guilt, this idea that we don’t deserve pleasure, that it should be a reward for hard work done and that there should be a limit on it once we are enjoying our self "I've being relaxing for about 30 minuets now...I'll relax for about 10 more minutes, but then I really need to get something done." It is ingrained in most of us the we must always accomplish, always achieve. I know, this has been apart of my genetic make-up since I can remember. I still have moments of feeling anxious if I am not planning, creating, doing, working out, etc.

I am working on this, but it is easier said then done. These are the things that I have done to try and push my joy forward and to remember pleasure again:

I laid down in my living room and listened to Bach (Concerto for Two Violins in D minor) and did nothing else except listen to the violins swirl above my head.

I poured my self a glass of wine and sat on my roof and watched the sunset over Chinatown reflecting off of the Manhattan Bridge Arc.

Told a man where I would like to be kissed and how (sounds demanding, but trust me he loved it!)

Spent way to much on a pedicure and manicure just to have both my hands and feet pampered (and took and hour and half lunch doing it...damn the boss).

I still have to work on this, in the next two years I want to travel, or at the vary least feel better about relaxing and being creative. I told a friend of mine yesterday that my work environment was stressful, and that my boss is toxic, that I wanted to be more creative and I am worried that this environment is hindering it- to which she said "Maybe the environment is making you more creative that you need the stress of it to me creative." Thank God I know that is not true. I feel that if I was in a better environment more of my ideas would flow. After all some of the times when I was most creative in my life was when I was in a low stress environment. I don't believe I need adversity to be creative, only a quite room, a typewriter, and perhaps a little Bach in the background, maybe that is the European part of me.

well being

I saw on myspace today that my beautiful Ama requested something to be written on the subject of well being- so this is for her and for me.

Let your love flow outward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.
Sutta Nipata

In the past, whenever I find my strength is very low, I turn to Buddhism. I was first attracted to Buddhism when I lived in Albuquerque, NM. A good friend of mine in the 8th grade (whose name was also Maya) had parents that practiced Buddhism. She was always so annoyed with then when they did their chanting. Perhaps is it was because it was usually when Maya had friends over to watch movies, or maybe it embarrassed her. "Oh my God this is SO ANNOYING!" Maya would say while closing the doors to their meditation room.

After her parents finished chanting- they would fix dinner together, and come out and join us while we watched our movies. Her parents seemed to be so in love, peaceful, and generous. I wanted to know what that was about- what brought them that inner and outer glow. To me, it looked like Buddhism brought that element of strength in their life, and so I decided to investigate that.

A year after that, my mother died. My world was shattered. Mothers are our universe. My anchor was gone and all control in my life disappeared. The ground felt like is was cracking open, I felt like I was floating away, and drowning all at the same time. My mind, my heart, and my soul where all in a tremendous amount of pain.

What Buddhism brought to me was hope. It told me there was no such thing as control- so don't look for it, do not seek it. That everything was temporary. That scared me at first, but then I welcomed that idea, because that meant my pain, my suffering was also temporary, and that peace, and serenity would be mine again. Although that meant those things would also be temporary, I looked at it differently- that while pain might always come, joy, love, and peace would also always come.

Conquer the angry man by love.
Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness.
Conquer the miser with generosity.
Conquer the liar with truth.
The Dhammapada

Work has been hard for me lately.

Not my creative life, but the work that pays my bills, my day job.
I work for a very difficult man. He loses his temper sometimes on an hourly basis. He calls his associate that has worked for him for 20 years "a moron" and "a f*cking f*ggit." It's painful to me that he talks like this to someone. That it is acceptable for him to treat others with such disrespect.

I have watched him slam his phone so hard that he has broken it. I have heard stories of him choking people,I hear him yelling at the top of lungs on almost a daily basis. He makes his personal assistant do ridiculous things like order peanuts in bulk for him so he can save 10 cents a packet and to find out what type of hair dye Richard Gere uses to he can dye his hair that color.

My boss is intimidated by me, because I am an intelligent, attractive, aggressive women. It bothers him. It bothers him that I know this business better then any man that he has hired in his past 25 years, it bothers him that I stand up to him.

This past Thursday he talked to me like I was a child. Sometimes he does things like that to try and bring me down "a notch or two" as he would like me "to soften" and to me more "feminine." I walked into his office.

"Don't you ever talk to me like I am a child again." I said to him firmly.

"You need to listen to be better!" He barked at me.

"I can't but help listen to you, because you are yelling at me." I said back.

I reminded him that I am doing the job of three people, but that he was paying like one person, a very poor person.

"Maybe you need to find a job that will pay you more then Maya." He threated.

"No problem. Four weeks notice." I said with icey calmness.

This scared him. I had called his bluff and he now realized the women that has been running his contracts department and production coordination for three of his artists had just tenured her resignation.

"Come on Maya! Listen, we're both tired. We are both stressed out!! Let's just pretend this conversation never happened." He said with a smile and a nervous laugh.

I wanted to say to him, "Which part should we forget? That part where I asked for more money, or the part where I quit?" Those are the parts he wanted to forget about.

Buddhism asks that we answer the questions with positive energy. Bring calmness to calamity, bring generosity to poverty, bring love to hate. Sometimes it is hard to do those things, sometimes it feels downright impossible. With my boss I feel anger toward him, but if I wanted to be more compassionate to him I would have to really think about what is at the root of his anger. I would also have to recognize the things I dislike in him that are probably a part of who I am too.

He is controlling, so am I. He losses his temper quickly, so do I. His personality is edgy, so is mine. But he has moments of being generous, and so do I.
When I get sick, he doesn't want me to come into work, he wants me to feel better, and to take my time getting better. He loves his wife, and takes good care of her. He didn't get to pursue his original dream of becoming a musician, but he became one of the most profitable producers in the classical music industry.

One day, when he was feeling especially down and vulnerable, he said to me, "You know Maya, you and I are cut from the same cloth. We are the kind of people that make things happen in this business, but sometimes, I hate this business. It's too late for me to do anything else, but it's not to late for you."

Those words are the words of a man that never became of father, and I am a women that never had a father. Maybe that is why we are so sensitive to each other, we each have that element missing in our lives. I think my boss and I genuinely wish each other well, it's hard to admit to your weaknesses, but perhaps well being is about recognizing your strengths, which is what I wish for for all of my friends and family: strength, courage, and well being.