Thanks for visiting the words page. This is where I ramble incessantly about things of interest to me. Those things may or may not be of interest to you, and I invite you to send comments to me at jw@jenniferwinter.com. I'm always up for a little thoughtful banter.

July 2008

A Life Parceled

What an odd experience it is, dismantling a life. Once beyond the obvious, those things that served as memory-keepers begin to surface, and the process is somewhat disconcerting.

Clipped articles of a person never mentioned, a complete stranger to all of us, but obviously important to our dad, as he has taken the time to clip and store these articles in flat plastic envelopes carefully stacked in a long narrow trunk.

 Fathers' Day cards from a time when we couldn't properly spell our own names. Letters saved from loves gone bad, our mother being one of them.

Making the choice to save or discard these bits of life is odd. He wanted to remember these people and events, but do we? I will remember some, my sister others, and some we both prefer to forget or simply have no basis for remembering.

Bit by bit we reduce him to boxes, trunks, and bags. His movie collection divided between us, absorbed into our own, loses its cohesive structure and his particular sensibility is dissipated. It will now be up to us to remember his delight at sexy young people doing sexy young things, his collection showing a definite leaning toward offbeat soft porn.

My dad was tender, deep, and raunchy, all at the same time. He loved chocolate, martinis, sexual innuendos, and deeply heartfelt conversations long into the night. He needed privacy, but loved company. He was a mentor to many. I can't say any more right now.

I miss him horribly.

June 2008

Love is a slippery beast. Even at my advanced age it seems possible to be rendered completely helpless by it. The thing is, I'm pretty sure it exists entirely inside me. I can have a shared experience with someone who also feels it (this would be the ideal), but it does not depend on another person's participation in order for it to exist. It does appear to depend on at least the idea of another person, someone to project all that emotion toward. However, it's not enough to invent someone inside my head, I'm too smart for that and see right through the ruse. No, it has to be a real person.

Maybe it's electrical. Maybe with another person there's a complete circuit, and thus the electricity can move and, in essence, live. And Lordy be, what an electrical storm is created when that other person does not ground the charge with an oppositional projection of their own zappery! Oh, the electrocution of unrequited love. That one's a bitch, my friends. It feels like the moment you die, and you see the white light in the tunnel and suddenly realize that this is it, it's OVER, and you reach out behind you trying to stop the steady tractor beam of death dragging you away, screaming "NO!! I'M NOT READY!!!". It's a horrible, out of control feeling, knowing that something is good and right and you want to touch it so badly, but when you reach out there's just nothing there. Like a hologram of Princess Leia begging, "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobe, you're my only hope!".

I do believe I just reduced unrequited love to a Star Wars allegory.

Time for a cup of PG Tips. One sugar, with cream.

May 2008

Every 3 years. That's how often I have updated this "blog" page of mine. It's not often enough I suppose. But then again, who even reads these things? I tell you what: if you DO read them, pick up the phone - go ahead, pick up the phone and dial 415-302-1313, then say "Macaroni" and hang up. That's it - no questions asked. Just "Macaroni" and hang up. That was easy, now wasn't it? Bonus points if you know what movie I stole that from.

Zoe, my 10 year old daughter, studies at the School of Rock Music, affectionately known as "Rock School". Check out the movie, NOT starring Jack Black, but the documentary. The kids are amazing. It's the kind of thing that makes you say "Damn, I wish they had that when I was a kid..." Come fly the horns with me sometime. They play at the Make-Out Room in SF every few months.

I sometimes wonder what the bay area would be like if we all had studied at the Rock School when we were kids. It's gritty, it's dirty, it's loud, and it's overflowing with love and glory. The entitled snobbery that permeates this culture would be softened a little. Or hardened. The perfectly crusted creme broulee around here is making me nauseous. I just wish people could smile at each other as they pass on the street and say "Good morning!". Or at least fly the horns. Although, according to The Onion, the horns have been suffering some overuse.

Allow me to leave you with a few Spam haikus:

Blue tin of pink meat
What promise do you hold?
Salt flesh, so ripe

Twist, pull the sharp lid
hurts, and cuts me deeply but
Spam, ah, my poultice

Pink, beefy temptress
I can no longer remain
vegetarian

January 2005

Religion. Politics. Relationship. I'm just worn out on it all lately.

It's not that I don't have an opinion about these things, I do. It just seems overworked and underpaid, if you know what I mean. I've done so much therapy, I'm bored to death of it, and I still have my shit to dig through. George W. Bush is the President AGAIN and I just can't stand to even think about it. And frankly, I don't really care what you believe in, every single religion is a construct to protect humanity from the possibility that we just don't really matter in the big picture.

Why is it that we feel such a need to matter? To have a purpose. For something (anything) to be "meant to be"? WHAT IF there is no master plan? WHAT IF there is not a god who is waiting for us like an expectant father? WHAT IF when you die, there's nothing? What difference does it make to the way we live? Is it possible to make choices based on our experience right now, not what the repercussions will be after we're dead?Isn't it enough to have a conscience just for the sake of being nice? Is it possible to be okay with the idea that "fate" is a human construct, and enjoy it anyway?

I don't have any answers. I used to, lots of them. But I've learned that there is more than one answer to almost every question, so it's best not to be attached.

I'm short winded today. So off I go to spend some time with friends and make choices that I can enjoy the fruits of right now.

May 2002

I grew up celebrating Christian holidays, but don't recall ever going to church unless someone died or got married.

When I was ten, my mom remarried a Presbyterian minister, which necessitated baptism and youth club and Christmas Eve holding candles in church. I remember weeping at the Christmas Eve service, almost uncontrollably, for Jesus Christ and how he is misunderstood in all his glorification. People have just missed the point. Wars are fought over whether he was or wasn't, and I want to scream mightily at his proponents, "Lay down your swords, you fucking idiots!!!" Remember when he said, 'Why are you obsessed with fighting?', 'Turn the other cheek', blah blah blah, just fucking be NICE to each other, is that so hard?!" It seems an insurmountable task for us puny humans.

My stepfather went back to the Seminary to get his doctoral degree, and wrote about the Spiritual Journey to get it. It took him, and later me, on a quest through the various religions and traditions (with the help of Joseph Campbell) to realize that it's all the same stuff. It's the hero's journey, a reflection of humanity's journey through life on earth. It is a reflective myth, not the "Gospel Truth", and the religions change according to geography and a given peoples' socially paradoxical experience.

A God is a Goddess is a God. Take your pick. I like some things about all of them. I actually have a pretty hard time with the Christian God, particularly the Catholic one. He is a hard God, a picky God who makes strange demands of his Priests and Nuns, then doesn't notice as long as they don't get caught. The whole Vatican thing reeks of Mafioso to me. I know I blaspheme to say such things, but I take very little as Holy. That is to say, I take everything as holy, including sarcasm, blasphemy and profanity.

MY God made us in his image, which means that (s)he has a sense of humor and an appreciation of the absurd, the dark, the sexy. I believe that it is ALL part of the same thing, that there is no "Good and Evil". The light cannot know itself without darkness. Where you put your focus is up to you and defines your life, that is our choice and greatest honor and responsibility as humans or "Children of God", if you will.

Recognize the darkness, incorporate it even, but if you choose light as the path to eternity, you will experience light. Choose darkness and that will be your experience. No judgement, it's just a matter of preference. Join a Fight Club if you have to, but in the end be nice to each other, notice the way the sunlight reflects off the trees, and you have the best of both worlds (if that's what you choose).

I personally experience darkness through other peoples' twisted artwork. I appreciate it, sometimes even like it, but don't choose to live my live in the dark, smelly pit which is the birthplace of such art. At least not every day.

I'm into the crossing over point, where people realize they don't have to be miserable, don't have to hate themselves or others anymore, don't have to be unhappy and afraid. Emerging into light, stepping over into the realm of hope, turning faith into reality, Awakening. I love that shit. It's empowering (there's a word that's been raped of its meaning through oversaturation in the media). Far as I can see, there ain't no such place as heaven and hell except in your own mind, and there it's more powerful than Morphine and chocolate combined.

Damn, I'm on fire today. See what happens when you bring up subjects like Religion? And this is just what my fingers want to talk about after my first cup of coffee. Just imagine what it's like when I get to start flappin' my jaw instead ("Holy shit, who changed HER batteries?").

Oh, hell, who knows? It's one of life's great mysteries, and deserves the utmost pondering. Whatever is true for you is the truth. It's all an illusion anyway. What is not an illusion is the emptiness of this cup which was once filled to the rim with coffee. Think you that I need more? Ha! I shall fill it in pursuit of epiphany, or at least a little head rush.

Beltane approaches.

December 2001

It's Now, Baby

"Finding a balance between letting go and control, awareness and abandon." -Willem DaFoe on why he studies Yoga.

For Mr. DaFoe, this sense of balance is something he brings to bear as an actor. It allows him to execute a piece of dialogue without seeming to know what comes next. He tells himself how to react, then reacts, as honestly as he can, as that person he has become for this role. This is different from appearing to react, which is what many people do. It necessitates forgetting that you have already decided how to be.

It brings to mind a piece of direction I got from dance pioneer Alwin Nikolais, who said, over and over, "Don't indicate". Many years later I learned more deeply what he meant by that (it remained a mystery for a long, long time): It's about being genuine and authentic. It's about feeling something inside, and allowing the expression of that feeling to be absolutely yours. Not what you've seen your parents do over and over again, not what they do on "Friends", but what YOU would do.

When you cry, do tears come out? Does your chin quiver? Do you convulse all over? Do you stay perfectly still, but tears pour out? When you're angry, do you shake? Do you yell and stomp your feet? Do you find a sense of deep, burning calm?

Everyone is different. Every one of us is different from time to time. Who are you right now? Who do you choose to be, RIGHT NOW? Are you content? Successful? In Love? At peace? Frustrated? Angry? Rich, poor, indifferent?

It reminds me of a poem I wrote when I was a teenager. The body of the poem was rather melodramatic as I recall, but the last line always stuck with me:

"It's your last chance to be what you want to become"

I don't necessarily support the notion that this really is your last chance, but that this moment is all you have. It's all about right now, baby. Choose your life right now. Do you want to be successful? Okay, how does it feel to be successful? Can you emulate that feeling in your body right now? How would you carry yourself? How would you breathe? What would you eat for lunch?

The more you emulate that thing you want to achieve, the more easily it will manifest in your life. But more importantly, if you feel successful, then you are. That is to say, what you want from success must be the feeling you have from it. Freedom, peace, no-worry, whatever. If what you want is a certain job title, what will you get from that? If what you want is a million dollars, how will you feel when you have it? Unhurried, rested, relaxed? Confident, powerful, in control? Whatever it is you want from that thing, go after that, not the thing.

There's no guarantee that a million dollars will bring you peace. In fact, many people who manifest that million dollars still feel trapped, anxious, late, unloved... So figure out what you REALLY want, and go for that. Write those qualities down and feel them in your body, then let go of what form they may take. Be honest about your feelings, about what you want in your life. Be what you want to become.

It reminds me of a limerick:

See the happy idiot,
he doesn't give a damn
I wish I was an idiot;
My God, perhaps I am!

Words to live by.