Last Friday, after 5 days of living without power, ‘the improvised life’s assistant Dese’Rae L. Stage sent us this email:
I don’t think I even realized it until yesterday, when I had to jump through 10 hoops just to get ice and dinner. I was like, “god, I’m exhausted,” and it took me a second to realize why that might be. It’s amazing how adaptable we are, but there sure are limits to that.
Even having NOT been hit hard in Harlem, we feel disoriented, tired, FEEL the wound of this city, and the people who have lost so much whose reality we can’t even imagine.
Author Judy Upjohn alerted us to this recent New York Magazine cover which conveys the scope of the hurricane and also leaves out SO many people that we would discover had been slammed. read more…
Since the extent of Hurricane Sandy’s devastation became apparent, we’ve had a hard time writing posts. We’ve wondered “what is there to write about except this, with so many people in trouble?” feeling a fierce cognitive dissonance between the people we know are out there struggling to survive and reports of our nifty Ikea hacks. Like some blogs we know, we thought of going dark for a few days.
Then we got an email from a reader about our recent post about a downed tree transformed with the generous help of a stranger; it proved a timely message of possibility to someone who was dealing with loss.We get emails along those lines frequently from people going through some big transition, from cancer to job losses, to the life changes that just happen. read more…
About a year ago my father found inspiration in a friend-of-a-friend’s collection of hand-carved walking sticks and had a thought: “I could make those! And I could make ’em even better!”
And so his journey began, walking all over town, in and out of parks, neighbors’ yards, scavenging and harvesting enormous fallen branches, and then figuring out the process day by day. read more…
We really love Maira Kalman‘s picture of her worn, old-fashioned boots and it’s simple, insightful, refreshingly real-life annotation. It affirms something we practice many times daily: imagining, fantasizing, trying-on scenarios in our heads that we ultimately will never do because the reality is, well, something we don’t really want to deal with, or can’t deal with. Sometimes we can’t get with the ‘reality sandwiches’ at hand, to coin Allen Ginsberg‘s brilliant phrase from a famous poem in his famous book of the same name.
We DON’T make all the ideas we have, but we DO do some of them. Sometimes the one’s we don’t do lead to outcomes or paths we don’t expect. Just being willing to try on ideas in our heads helps us figure out which ones we really want or need to do.
Yesterday had us jumping all over the web checking out reports of Hurricane Sandy, including the startling report on Manny Howard‘s startling FB page about a Brooklyn chicken coop being mauled by the storm. (As you may remember from My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm, Manny’s fledgling chicken coop was obliterated by a tornado that picked it as its place to land in Brooklyn.)
While we were poking around Manny’s page we came across this photo of the aftermath of an al fresco dinner party — Manny is the master of fabulous impromptu, out-of-control parties. We post it as a relief from the dire reports of Sandy’s havoc and a reminder of other days to come, of ease and joy.
(Video link here.) We fully intended to spend the day working but have found it nearly impossible. We can’t help but be focused on Sandy, which comedian Louis C.K. called “monster sandy franken storm Paul Bunyon shitcloud might start throwing trees at babies in Manhattan”, “the stormatron 5000″.
We’re hunkered downwith candles, flashlights, battery-powered radios, a full larder and a bathtub full of water in case, waiting. New York City is eery: we’ve seen pictures of Times Square and Grand Central, two of the busiest spots in town, without a soul. The wind and rain have been escalating all morning, the trees in the park across the way whipping furiously, at once beautiful and disturbing. A line from the Peter Pan records we listened to as a kid popped into our head this morning: “Wendy had the distinct feeling that something was about to happen.”
At the Corner Perk Cafe in Bluffton, SC, an anonymous donor pays for the coffee of anyone in line behind them until the funds run out. Two years ago this idea caught on and now people donate regularly, or even stop by to donate without buying anything. It made us wonder about the principle of random acts of generosity — just because — with no obvious return other than the pleasure of giving freely, making someone happy, or making something better.
We recently took a walk in the park across the way and thought, ‘hmm, what would happen if we just started picking up trash?‘ We would be surprised if we saw an ordinary person doing it; wouldn’t it surprise others? Could this become contagious? What kinds of little kindnesses can you imagine doing just for the hell of it? read more…
Some time ago, Marella Consolini of the Chinati Foundation alerted us to the poignant sculpture of artist Jane Hammond. Since it is about fall and leaves, it seems the perfect time to post it. Called Fallen, Hammond’s installation comprises leaves: “each unique handmade leaf has been inscribed by the artist with the name of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq.”
The work started with 4229 leaves; Hammond continued to add leaves and names as the war went on. We find that the work has greatly expanded our view of fall/change/life, and especially, what happens when we really focus our attention on something. Hammond describes it well in her Artist’s Statement: read more…
We were instantly smitten with this kitchen, for its spareness and simplicity (on the upper East side of Manhattan no less), but especially for the marble slab table with a rough, unfinished edge. Such a simple detail to leave undone, yet the effect is bold and surprising. It could be done with any stone surface.
It appears that our Daily Email may not have been reaching ‘improvised life’s’ subscribers since we started posting yesterday. Please shoot us an email and let us know if you’ve received it or not.If not, we really apologize. We’ll work hard to get the problem with our email service fixed.
In the meantime, please come directly to the ‘the improvised life’ to read posts. We appreciate your bearing with us during this time of technological mayhem.
Not long after we posted about kintsugi, the artful repair of damaged things, we came across these photos of a worn wide-plank Douglas Fir floor patched with tin in Mindy Marin’s renovated barn Bluewater Ranch. A perfect example of modern-day kintsugi: the undisguised tin becomes part of the design on floors whose age and wear makes them both interesting and beautiful. read more…
Although our borrowed cabin in the country was not quite as spare as Charlotte’s Web author E.B. White’s enviable makeshift work space (in his boat shed overlooking Allen Cove in 1976, pre internet), we are refreshed by going minimal for a week, in nature and quiet.
We were so intrigued by White’s utterly simple, focused space, that we browsed some of his essays. We were amused and heartened to read of White’s eloquent stuggle with “stuff” in “Goodbye to Forty-eighth Street:
For some weeks now I have been engaged in dispersing the contents of this apartment, trying to persuade hundreds of inanimate objects to scatter and leave me alone. It is not a simple matter. I am impressed by the reluctance of one’s worldly goods to go out again into the world. During September I kept hoping that some morning, as if by magic, all books, pictures, records, chairs, beds, curtains, lamps, china, glass utensils, keepsakes would drain away from around my feet, like the outgoing tide, leaving me standing silent on a bare beach. But this did not happen… read more…
The practice of making a retreat – taking oneself OUT of everyday life to withdraw and reflect – has been around for eons. It is part of many spiritual traditions, and to our thinking, should be a requirement for everyone (and paid for by insurance – ha) , so filled as our lives are with doing and action. It’s something that people – including us – used to do a lot more, because life is intense no matter how you slice it and there’s much to reflect on. Sometimes retreating is the only way to see, and detach.
A retreat is a bit different than a vacation, because retreats generally are about taking refuge from the world, notdoing, and about attending to the spirit. Just being. Listening. Taking stock. read more…
We get emails along those lines frequently from people going through some big transition, from cancer to job losses, to the life changes that just happen. 
of the same name.
, Manny’s fledgling chicken coop was obliterated by a tornado that picked it as its place to land in Brooklyn.)
author E.B. White’s enviable makeshift work space (in his boat shed overlooking Allen Cove in 1976, pre internet), we are refreshed by going minimal for a week, in nature and quiet.
. We were amused and heartened to read of White’s eloquent stuggle with “stuff” in “Goodbye to Forty-eighth Street:
