There's No Business Like Resistance

This day, or late morning I should say, turned out better than I thought. Though I didn't make it to the gym as I'd been hoping, I did some work on a short script and then, as hunger struck and I had only my roommate's food to contemplate easting I took myself on a walk to Whole-Paycheck which for some reason never seems to last a whole week.

The imminent rain still held off and I was armed with my empty bag ready to be filled with groceries and music streaming in my ears thanks to slacker. My Frank Sinatra channel, created when I typed in the artist's name on an earlier day and got nothing by the artist but rather things like Cake's Frank Sinatra
was playing, which I didn't mind because I love Cake- both the band and the food group. Hence the need for the gym but I digress.

I stepped out onto a sidewalk dappled with the white fallen petals of the blossoming nearby trees. I like to think of this as spring snow. Freshman by The Verve Pipe was playing... "For the life of me, I cannot remember what made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise...". Genius.

Those lyrics were playing as I looked across the schoolyard that gives way to the back of my Ex's building and I thought, I've let it go. It was like remembering a childhood romance, something far in the distance behind me. Though he and I are both far from being children I was able to look back at it, at least for that moment, and see how naive I was for thinking that it would have ever worked in the first place and laughed at myself for all the pain I caused myself trying.

As my friend Hoods (Heidi) and I rehashed our similar recent experiences with the noncommittal, I told her that some good comes out of even the worst relationships and that HE gave me a gift. If nothing else he got me writing again. Not that that was ever his intention-probably far from it in fact.

But the numbness of that "corner office" I was talking about before wore off and for a moment I had clarity on who I was and what I was doing here. Not just on this planet but in NYC. Why I was now living in a walk up building after having had a doorman for the last 5 years. I was alive with love and loss and beauty and jealousy and for the first time in a while, purpose.

I've been reading The War of Art by Steven Pressfield given to me by one of my dearest friends in the world. It's about conquering that thing called resistance- that thing that keeps us from doing what we really desire to do whether it be, write, paint, open up a business venture or start a weight loss plan. He delineates the differences between an amateur and a professional and in this case professional is not synonymous with success. It is however synonymous with a way of thinking and acting.

He sits and writes everyday for about 5 hours. He doesn't care what ends up on the page, he can deal with that later. The hard part is the doing. The simple act of sitting down to write or to do whatever it is that's in you to do. Finally, I'm getting there.

And, as I walked along the snowy street singing aloud and waving to the 2 elderly men in the laundromat window next door, I couldn't help but smile. Literally, I couldn't have stopped myself if I wanted to. In this one perfect moment, my purpose seemed stronger than any will.

I crossed the street to face that building that haunted me ever since moving into this fabulous East Village neighborhood that still holds a little bit of grit from what I imagine NYC used to be like when when this wasn't a safe place to live. I crossed the street and I stared down my resistance. It was just a building after all.