Tag: Shaista

Gratitude: a Retrospective, 2011

This year is waning fast, so I wanted to reflect a moment and try and find some final thoughts before the book is closed on 2011.

Like most years, 2011 was a year of bitter and sweet. It had its tragi-comical moments, but ultimately I find it a year that was full of creativity. What more can I ask than that?

* In 2011, I developed this blog. My father suggested several times that I write a blog, but my first attempt was lame and half-hearted, because I didn’t know how to write the blog I wanted to read. This time around, I visualized it better. I wanted a place on the internet with beautiful music and art, one with interviews of people I was curious about, a tiny spot of serenity where true hearts could feel at home.

Arthur Rackham, Feeling Very Undancey

I wanted a blog of unabashed romanticism, one that celebrated the beauty in the world, one that put words to the yearning that all lost souls feel in this increasingly mechanized and digitized world. I hoped these people would find my little watering hole. And they did. Because of my blog, I got to interview such kindred spirits as writer Sarah J. Stevenson, writer/artist Paul Ramey, poetess Shaista Tayabali, writer/marketing guru Frances Figart, humorist Gordon McCleary, writer Alissa Libby, sculptor Cynthia Cusick and musician Ananda. If you have not read the 3QV’s of these amazing people, please go do so. They make the world a more beautiful place.

You can also see our Facebook page or enjoy our whimsical bits and bobs on Tumblr.


* I started writing for Blogcritics.org, which has gotten me published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer regularly (such as my Elegy for Amy Winehouse), as well as giving me opportunities to interact with such luminaries as Neil Gaiman.

* I gained and lost pets. My sweet Pippa ran away, scared off by feral raccoons. I thought I found her again, but instead it was Sephi, her doppelganger (Read more: Little Cat Feet). I found Sephi a good home. My dear old boy Ramses is staying with my friend Paul for the moment, because I know he is having a happier life there.

As well, we lost Salvador this year, my dearest kindred spirit in canine form. (Read more: Remembering Salvador). There can be no replacing of animals like these. All you can do is bid them adieu and marvel at the fact that the universe sent them to you at all. Paul Ramey wrote and illustrated Zen Salvador, a beautiful tribute to Salvador that all animal lovers would enjoy, and the proceeds benefit the Jacksonville Humane Society.

* I discovered Twitter. I am embarrassed to admit my social media snobbery and it’s all Sarah J. Stevenson’s fault (@aquafortis)! On Twitter, I discovered a whole interlinked community of artists and writers that I would never encounter on Facebook because they would not be in my circle of acquaintances. I couldn’t possibly list all of my favorite Tweeters, so instead I did a Wordle of you all. Click to make larger.
Wordle: Favorite Tweeters 2011

* In a related note, I also attempted National Novel Writer’s Month (NaNoWriMo) this year. After years of forgetting about it till Thanksgiving (oops!), I finally committed to doing it…as though life in November weren’t exciting enough with a retail management job. I did not win it, but I did write 20,000 words on a new manuscript that super excites me. That itself is a major win. I don’t believe I’ve written 20,000 words of fiction in my life, let alone in four weeks.

More exciting, I have developed a writing habit and now actually do write on a semi-regular basis. NaNoWriMo was not without its fallout (almost no blog posts). Given that the main reason that I started the blog was to force me to write on a regular basis, it seems like success!

* I revived Super Secret Spy Girl. She now has a Facebook page. You can go there and like/comment to receive your Super Secret Spy Name. Burn after reading.

To close, I am grateful for all my new friends and experiences. You each contributed to my year. Thank you so much.

Shall we continue on this road together?

3 Question View – Shaista Tayabali

This post is the third of a new series, highlighting talented artists whose work I admire.

I call it ‘3 Question View’ because it’s limited to three questions (Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three) and it’s a rather truncated inter-view, designed to elicit three compelling answers from each artistic mind.

3 Question View – Shaista Tayabali
Writer and Poet, Lupus in Flight www.lupusinflight.com

Shaista Tayabali

 
Anna:
I’m quite envious of your delicate touch with words. You conjure evocative imagery with just a stanza. What brought you to poetry as a way of expressing yourself? In your writing, how do you feel about the economy of poetry versus the expansiveness of prose?

Shaista:
The art of economy is a discipline I learned at university. Up until then, I had been a fairly indulgent prose and poetry writer. My composition of language was often deeply emotive, highly subjective and heavy with the influence of romance and Keatsian turns of phrase. Often, but not always. There has also been a trend in my writing, since childhood, towards describing a snapshot visual, and towards epiphany. I began university with the shadow of a complex illness already threatening to obscure me, so I was determined to excel. 

This proved difficult for two reasons – I liked to answer questions in my own merry, meandering way, and I did not know how to edit myself. My Professor, Simon Featherstone, taught me this: “The line that you are most attached to, is the line that has to go!”  In learning precision, I learned economy. And I think, perhaps, my poetry has begun to adapt to my rather fragile body. These quick brushstrokes of poems serve me well in and out of hospital.

Delicacy aside, though, sometimes I yearn to write a tome in the style of Tolstoy; an epic blockbuster of a novel packed with 108 Dickensian characters. Yearning is what we artists and writers do best! 

The Names of Things

Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes

gazes out at me
behind the window frame;
Half content to be
in Billy Collins’ world,
half wishing to be me –
Cross legged in the evening sun
drinking rose petal tea.

I can name the Yellow Rose,
the frilly Poppy, the Bee
longing for that same tea;
the half-eaten bruised cherries,
the guzzling, drunken, blackbird feast.

Deep in the shadows,
lazy snakes of ivy curl
and the wind is a Tempest again –

I walk among the unnamed things
the secret, hidden lives,
I pronounce the names of Latinate things
and trip on the words
and smile –

Cerastium tomentosum,
snow in summer,
Galium odoratum,
stars in spring,
Lavandula angustifolia…
where the herb garden sings.

 Anna:
When you begin writing a poem, do you focus on an image? A phrase? A song? What inspires the act of picking up the pen?
Shaista:
A line comes to me. I focus on a few words, a phrase, that forms the first line of the poem-to-be. Blog posts require titles, which  I often enjoy for their brevity, but my poems never used to have titles. Do poets think of titles first? When do the titles come? I prefer the idea of that first line being the clue to the poem. My inspiration as a poet is simultaneously influenced by the subtle and the obvious. Hospitals are waiting rooms filled with both. 
Two artists who have influenced my work are my parents; they paint their lives in very different ways. Father’s watercolours are mysterious, floating worlds, echoes of Turner and Monet; impressionistic – my Mother’s work is magnified detail, bright, strong, clear – O’Keefe comes to mind. Father talks in riddles, Mother is incredibly literal – I flit between worlds in my life, and make sense of it all when I write. 
Crocuses
My father knows
when the crocuses 
are out
And when the snowdrops
And when the bluebells
And how to listen, carefully,
to the nesting birds,
trilling
between our rooms.
Daisies will come
And roses will grow
And perhaps we shall walk
And reminisce about the snow
And kick up some leaves
And weave up some dreams
While the world passes by
My father and I.

Anna: 
I love ‘The Year of Yes’; it’s deeply inspirational. It speaks of great positivity, despite the challenges you face with lupus. How has keeping your positive energy and happiness been instrumental to your life and your writing? 

Shaista:

Have you read Victor E. Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’? He says, “Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.” I marry this idea with the engaged Buddhism teachings of mindfulness, and try to achieve ‘Happen-ness’. Living in the now, the here and now, is not easy with a sneaky systemic illness like Lupus. Lupus is an embodiment of many human fears: the What-Ifs and the If-Onlys. So the secret to happiness is being present for the happen-ness, the saying Yes! in gratitude for our ability as humans to be present. 
My friend Dr. Ho tells me to embrace pain, particularly the physical manifestations of it, because feeling pain means you are alive! And he is right – physical pain does not exclude twinkling eyes, sparkly smiles and the playful impulse to tease and be teased. The act of writing is instant happen-ness for me. Just holding the pen, the feel of my book of poems, the moment of connection between the physical materials and my soul, my thoughts, my sight… yes! yes! yes! It is the best of me. 
  
The Year of Yes
I wish I had said Yes!
beloved
When you asked me out to walk
among the leaves
the turning leaves
You were offering me
the sound of dreams, 
And I turned you down 
politely.
Not today, I smiled
Perhaps,
Maybe, tomorrow?
But I wish I had said Yes!
beloved
I wish we had shared this light.
Next time don’t ask
Just take me!
Order me to dress!
I am going to need your help
beloved
To begin the Year of Yes.
Visit Lupus in Flight, the serene home of Shaista’s writings and poetry: http://www.lupusinflight.com