Beginnings

During the Asian American Writer's Workshop Open Mic tonight, featured poet and artist Carla Ching spoke about new beginnings and the Lunar New Year as a fresh start. A new year to etch beginnings, embroider new memories, stitch a patchquilt of happiness and smiles with friends and family. When she delivered the words "new beginnings," I thought of Felicity and I thought of the film Beginners. I did not immediately think about my new beginning, that is, my one week course of changing myself into a new person. This is an interesting morph because it is a becoming of self; it is a change that I am still undergoing. I don't have a certain endpoint. Because an endpoint would mean that I am only striving towards that endpoint and meeting it exactly while forgetting that my prime purpose of becoming someone different is to appease myself, my friends, and ultimately my nature of self. I want to be a happier person, and so I took the extra mile and began this metamorphosis. It was not easy at first, and it is still not easy. I feign happiness sometimes, especially at night, when all my living terrors and insecurities peek out into the open.

At the workshop tonight, I was more open than usual. I can't say that I was open entirely, because I was not. I entered the small corridor with a feeling of claustrophobia. Mind you, the Workshop space is fairly small and narrow. The seating arrangement is extremely uncomfortable because all the chairs are pressed against each other. There is literally no space to move between aisles, and people are literally sitting with touching laps. This makes me extremely uncomfortable because I am shy and I am awkward. This is the natural side of me which tends to close up and block out everyone around me when I have relatively little personal space. When I have so little space, I focus on protecting whatever is left of my personal space. I focus on myself twice as hard which causes a forcefield around me. This is simply for security reasons and so that I do not provide excuses in case someone irks me, "Mind your own business." This would not happen because I did not give them any excuses; I was clearly staring into my own lap and not caring for others around me.

I introduced myself to Angel Yau, a terrific, innocent, talented, cute, sweet artist who presented her journals to the audience. I Youtubed her last night and realized that she is a unique individual. Clearly, she radiates the pure rhythm of happiness and the rays of optimism. She also praises nostaglia and she places a high emphasis on recovering memories. It was incredibly soaring and uplifting for me to introduce myself. Usually I do not do this. But I acted myself and I let my reigns go. I was exposed and I was ready to fall, just like Teddy Geiger wrote "and not be afraid to fall." Besides it's not speed-dating, it's a simple compliment and introduction of my name and hobby. I got her Facebook and I left. I was clearly sending the correct vibes and the proper waves which was "Hey I like your stuff, you're really talented, thanks for sharing, do you have a website because I am intrigued by you!" This is the way to go, as Claudia stated, be myself. Being myself and channeling the right intentions that are not seedy. This is the path.

I spent two hours last night concocting a piece for tonight; I did not use the piece at all, and instead, I read a piece from a month ago. I was elated with the reception. But this was because I soothed my expectations of the audience. I did not have expectations of audiences clapping hard. I also downplayed the importance of the audience's acceptance of my piece. It did not matter whether they displayed their enjoyment of my piece. Perhaps they did not enjoy it because of my tone and because of many other subjective factors that were exposed to them when I was reading. There are a multitude of factors that cause my reading to be skewed or misinterpreted. For starters, I was reading in a monotonic voice and I was incredibly unable to make eye contact with the audience. Already I am aware that I have lost my audience partially.