"learn more, not earn more"

Julianna Margulies' commencement speech to Sarah Lawrence Class of 2010

While the overall message of the passage of this speech one might not be able to identify with directly (who after all, makes that kind of money these days?), I can't help but hear her words and find them somewhat resonant.

Everyone wants to know their mission.

I've made my own choices-- have followed my heart-- against the grain only to be mocked, hurt...   I think (and hope) that everyone has done this at some point in their lives. I have turned to my dad so many times. "Dad, what should I do?" And only to hear sound advice.  "When is enough, enough?"

 And while I am not one to be religious, this past month I have turned to churches, meeting houses, temples. I think I've been to nearly every church and cathedral in the borough of Manhattan.

"I realized my mission in life was to learn more, not earn more."

At the end of the day, at some point in time, we should look back and see evidence of value, and that value is not monetary, nor is it fame. Both are empty. I am blessed to have the things I have, and the experiences I have had. But the lessons I have learned this past year have been tremendous, decisions at times torrential, however looking back, they all have meaning.

Perhaps most importantly, I have learned that despite heartbreak, you can't stop your heart. But it is this that makes us human.

I would much prefer a life of lessons leading to happiness and love than all the money or nice things or fame in the world. A family.

Fin.

FIN - ending #1

Those of you who have stumbled upon this blog by chance:
I only hope you will find evidence of a story, a little bit of jewelry I call my own collection,  the things I have seen or have loved: inspiration which I hope will lead one to new ideas, and some of the most talented people who I have called...or still are... my friends. Take from it what you will. It started with THIS.

Because receiving an education is a lot like being a snake that swallowed a chicken egg: It's in you, but it's going to take a while to digest it. I had come to Sarah Lawrence after 12 years of Catholic girls school. I had thought it was the most ludicrous, antiquated, sentimental secondary education in the history of education. We were taught modesty, humility, and how to make a good white sauce. The white sauce I could have done without, but I'll tell you something: Modesty and humility go a long way when you are down on your luck. 

I had studied writing at the Iowa Writers workshop, I had studied writing at Sarah Lawrence College with Allan Gurganis and Grace Paley and Russell Banks. It wasn't  until I got to Fridays and I had to work the dish wash station because the police came and too the regular dish washer away- that I finally learned how to stare. And at the end, it was the staring that got me that novelists job that I had wanted. Because as I scrubbed out the soup pots and the margarita pitchers, I figured out that for me, "what now?" -- always going to be a work in progress. "What now" is never what you think it's going to be, and that is the thing that every writer, every person- has to learn.

 I came to come to understand that fiction writing was like duck hunting. You go to the right place at the right time with the right dog. You get into the water before it's light outside, wearing a little protective gear, stand behind some reeds,  and you wait for the story to present itself. This is not to say you were passive; you chose the place and the day, you picked the gun and the dog. You have the desire to blow that duck apart for reasons that are entirely your own. But you have to be willing to accept not what you wanted to have happen, but what happens. You have to write the story that you find in the circumstances that you've created. Because more often than not, the ducks don't ever show up. The hunters in the next blind begin to argue and you realize that they're in love. You see a snake swimming towards you and your dog begins to shiver and whine... and you think of this gun in your hands that belonged to your father.... And in the end, you will have written a novel so completely devoid of ducks, it will startle you.

 It took me a long time of standing still and being quiet to figure out what in retrospect appears to be a pretty simple lesson: that writing a novel and living a life are very much the same thing, and the secret is finding the balance between going out and getting what you want and accepting the thing that actually comes your way. If you're trying to figure out what what comes next, I urge you to turn off everything that has an off switch and listen. Make up some big plans and be willing to change them on a dime. Identify your heart's truest desire and don't change that for anything. Be proud of yourself for the work you have done; Be grateful for the people who helped you do it. Write to us, and let us know how you are. You are- every one of you- someone's favorite unfolding story. We cannot wait to hear what happens next. 

Ann Patchett's Commencement Address to my Class of 2006, Sarah Lawrence College

spencer bell

yesterday, spencer would have turned 25.

Though I wasn't one of his closest of friends, some of my good friends at  Sarah Lawrence College lived with him...  and so while I was there, I spent quite a bit of time around Spencer.  Nobody could deny Spencer's talent, and when I heard the news of what had happened, my heart sunk in my chest.

rest in peace

 

white oleander/girl interrupted scenes from sarah lawrence

sarah lawrence 2006:

lindsey doleshal and meghan farrell

self-respect

"To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love, and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we do not respect ourselves, we are the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out – since our self-image is untenable – their false notion of us. We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gist for imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give. Of course I will play Francesca to your Paolo, Helen Keller to anyone’s Annie Sullivan; no expectation is too misplaced, no role too ludicrous. At the mercy of those we cannot but hold in contempt, we play roles doomed to failure before they are begun, each defeat generating fresh despair at the urgency of divining and meting the next demand made upon us.It is the phenomenon sometimes called “alienation from self.” In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands to much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the specter of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that answering it becomes out of the question. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves – there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home."

Joan Didion, 1961

read the whole essay under the cut:

ode to the sea by elizabeth perrin

"Ode to the Sea" from elizabeth perrin on Vimeo.
A mythical love story between a young woman and the sea.

eugenie styled this little video directed and shot by her cousin elizabeth perrin. they used my jewelry, so it excited me when I finally received the e-mail that it was completed today.

you also might recall these shots they took a little while back :)

way back when, when I took lots of pictures

sarah lawrence college 2003

me and jess

jess and jake

jake

room

family

caroline in paris

heathrow

london

puppy

paris

college

london!

sisters

taylor, tate modern