unplugged

when was the last time you were truly disconnected? from work. from email. from facebook and twitter. telephone and tv.

for me, it’s been a long, long while. when we planned a recent trip to belize, the resort promised wifi access from the pool, a plethora of cable channels on tv and all the modern comforts of home. perfect. I’d be able to relax and stay connected…

but after the first day at this tropical central american paradise, i began to ask myself: stay connected to what? the mind-numbing shows i watch to decompress from long days at work. the minutiae of people’s daily lives broadcast on facebook (which admittedly the creepster in me loves to scan to keep up with all my connections). the outlook in box and calendar alerts that keep me strapped to my desk from hours on end. the big lovely white watch that (though i love it for the beauty of the timepiece) ticks away the minutes as i move like an automaton from task to task and meal to meal until bedtime. wake up. rinse. repeat.

when you’re sitting on a deserted beach listening to the gentle waves of the caribbean lapping the white sandy shore, you have lots of time to think. for me, it wasn’t the deep, intellectual type of thoughts, but more fluid, unfettered, stream-of consciousness kind.

as i soaked in all of the “unbeliezable” sights (yes, one of their taglines actually is unbeliezable!—hilarious but actually pretty accurate if you ever lay eyes on this amazing country), one word kept popping into my mind: unplugged.

i was amazed at how easy it was to let go of all the drama. at&t’s outrageous international plan made it a no-brainer to sever the iphone appendage.  for the first time ever, i didn’t take a single peek at email. checked facebook two or three times…and i was in utter bliss.

unplugged. my thoughts wandered to mtv. (it’s amazing how a couple of pina coladas can stir up the random thoughts). anyway, at the risk of dating myself, i can proudly say i’m a member of the mtv generation.  the spectacle. the music matched to mind-blowing eye candy. who doesn’t remember waiting with baited breath for the ghoul-dancing, vincent price-laughing, moonwalking michael jackson in the world premier of "thriller." or boy george’s rainbow frocks and even more effervescent face as he shimmied his way through  “karma chameleon.” or joe elliott’s union jack and acid washed rendition of “pour some sugar on me.” or robert palmer’s slicked-back seduction with “addicted to love” (hated the song but god those ladies were fierce!). and yes, steve perry crooning “faithfully” on a dark stage lit by moving spotlights and flickering lighters in the crowd.

but i digress…all of the bells and whistle of these early videos were awesome. but one of my all-time favorite mtv moments was actually an anti-spectacle.

nirvana. live and unplugged.

no pyrotechnics. no crazy outfits. no cristal popping gangsters. no smoke. no mirrors. no noise.

just kurt cobain. in a cardigan. guitar in hand. soul on his sleeve.

simple. poetic. from the heart.

moments we all should strive for.

i found nirvana in belize. here’s to bringing it home too…

fueling your fire

some people think i have too many shoes...and you know what? they're probably right. my closet is stacked knee deep with enough shoes to sink a battle ship (those platform stilettos are heavy!). and i will admit, i may have had a love affair with certain ones over the years. there's "christian"—you should see the smooth red bottoms and kicking curves on that pair. and of course, my current favorite, "michael"—tall and strong, strappy yet supportive, always a scene-stealer :)

but today's inspiration comes from a different sort altogether. my nike id's. i made these bad boys a couple years ago because i needed a new pair of running shoes and couldn't find anything i liked. i searched all the shops, scoured all the brands, and ended up deciding i could do better than anything else i found out there.

i hopped online and went to work. shox? check. lightweight and breathable? check. fierce colors and a bit of flash? check and check. now to name them...nike id will allow you to designate a name or word that they will stitch onto the back of your shoe. the ultimate signature. your own personal brand. 

"celia"....somehow adding my name to the back of my shoe seemed so pedestrian. like taking out the black sharpie and writing my kids' names on their clothing labels so they could be rightfully returned if they ever got lost.

i saved my shoes and logged out. surely inspiration would come after i went to bed, maybe in the middle of the night, so i could jolt awake, jot down the word, go back to sleep and then wake up the next morning and buy my new shoes.

that night and into the morning...nothing. but i was itching to place the order. i went back online and pulled up my saved file. they were hot. i zoomed in, zoomed out, spun them around in a couple 360s. they were totally "me."

i clicked through to the last screen before the shopping cart.

"fill in the text box to customize your shoe."

"i-n-s-p-i-r-e"

from the time i ordered them through to today, every time i put them on, i smile. even when i feel like a slug, on they go and there's a hop to my step. the shox, you ask? perhaps...but it's also from the fit. not just how they fit my feet but how they fit "me."

inspired by fashion. inspired by flair. inspired by being fit. inspired by the fire under my ass when i put these babies on to run.

what lights your fire? i'd like to think that my shoe fetish goes beyond the superficial (but if you're calling me imelda marcos jr. as you read this, i probably deserve it). and yes, the guy who was watching me in the park gyrating to shoot pictures of my shoes in a field of clover and holding them up to the heavens like simba being presented to the pride on "lion king" must have thought i was a cuckoo, but nonetheless, here i am, writing about them in sea glass, and stitched on the back of them many years ago is my mantra: "inspire".

the moral of the story: find ways to snap out of the slumber of routine, or boredom, or everyday life. find some motivation, fuel for the fire within. for me, it's personal expression, creative exploration, food, family and fashion. for you, perhaps it geekiness or gadgets, decorating or dreaming, music or muffin-making, toiling in the garden or trolling for adventure.

there is no dress rehearsal. every day can inspire. to quote one of the best and admittedly most overused taglines of all time, "just do it." true now as it was then.

sun and moon

have you ever heard something so beautiful, so chill-inducing that it moves you to tears? perhaps not, but i've already established in previous posts that i am an unabashed sap, so i thought i'd share a little gem that i discovered today.

with young kids, sleeping in on the weekends is sadly not an option. saturday mornings are an exercise in stealing tiny moments of "me" time in between firing up the coffee maker, feeding the baby, tuning out the cartoons, moving the next load of laundry to the dryer, and clearing up the week's clutter. but sometimes a moment is all you need to find a little nugget of inspiration.

while making breakfast this morning, we started talking about "saigon cinnamon"--how it's much more flavorful than regular cinnamon and how it would be perfect for the new banana walnut honey pancake recipe we're trying out. in typical stream of consciousness form, my mind meandered over to thoughts of "miss saigon," one of my favorite musicals. so off i went to youtube, to watch a little snippet of "sun and moon."

in my grey fleece bathrobe, with a ponytail and glasses on, sure, i belted it out along with kim and chris, the main characters. trust me, it was a sight to behold. but then i found the real gem: an audition clip of lea salonga trying out for the part of kim in front of claude-michel schonberg, nicholas hytner, cameron mackintosh and alain boublil, the writers and producers of the musical. it was astounding.

here was this sweet, simple girl, who asked for an autograph before she  started to sing, and happened to bring them to their knees after she  sang.

it was a great reminder that the people you admire, who have achieved fame and fortune, are still real people: chasing their dreams, pounding the pavement, and doing the best with the gifts they've been given. in her case, that gift just happens to be a voice like an angel, as ethereal as the sun and moon about which she sings.

the meaning of grace

when i was in grade school, one of the old school dogmas that i can recall vividly was having to memorize the baltimore catechism. yep, it was catholic school, and we had to take tests in which we would write down the meaning of the basic concepts of our faith.

somehow robotically spitting back the definitions of the "trinity" and "penance" doesn't seem like a surefire way to get people on the path to righteousness (at least for me), but there was always one concept that intrigued me: grace.

besides being, simply, a beautiful word (and the name of my sweet cousin), the concept has been running through my mind as of late. scary that i can still remember the definition buried deep in the recesses of my brain: "the state in which you are truly able to accept god's love." ok...but what if you don't believe in god.

well then you look to good ol' dictionary.com (what could be more agnostic than that!). "grace: -noun- elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action." 

now i start to see why this word keeps hounding me...

seaglass is a quest for inspiration in the everyday. leave it to one of my all time heroes, bono, to give me the words to express it..."grace finds beauty in everything."

the power of anthems

last week, i wrote a post about an alan watts video that equated life to a symphony. it got me thinking about the role of music in expressing human emotion and, at the core, making us feel. love, hate, joy, sorrow, suspense, excitement, connection, loneliness, defeat, triumph—there are few things that can move us, that can truly capture our raw feelings, like music.

so this post is about anthems. what do i mean by "anthems"? not the songs they play on the radio ad infinitum, on ten different stations, nearly every minute of every day, so by default they are seared onto your brain, and your lips mouth the words, whether voluntarily or not ("p-p-p-po-ker-face...").

no i'm talking about songs that stir you. that make you stop in your tracks. that interrupt your pattern of daily existence and rock you...to the core.

anthems can be motivating, inspiring—but the true power lies in the fact that they're timeless: they are at once emblems of where you came from and the spark to get you where you're going. when you're in a funk, they can fuel your fire. when you're running out of gas and you can't run another minute, an anthem comes on and you can run another mile.

i could list off countless anthems that move me, in just about every genre from rock to pop to r&b and punk, but i'll pick one of my all time favorites, and it's not just because it was the sopranos' swan song (i was after all in the journey fan club back in the day). it's an oldie, but still such a goodie: "don't stop believing".

this song had all the essential ingredients for a killer anthem: great lyrics, a catchy hook, sweet guitar riffs, big hair and bad outfits. but just in case you'd beg to differ, that's another reason anthems rock: because they're personal.

they sum up you, your ethos, your call to arms...and they make great fodder for "best song ever" debates. so fire up your lighter, put your pinky, thumb and index finger in their best devil horn formation, or throw on your dancing shoes if that's your flavor...and rock on!