deep thoughts

Random acts of kindness

Sheila LoringLeave a comment

First, I want to admit to you that I’m in a long-distance love affair.

With New York City.

It’s a magical place for me — full of energy and possibilities and history and renowned architecture. Just walking around Manhattan makes me happy. I’m really into photography and constantly visualize photographs whether or not my camera is handy. NYC is full of great photographic moments. Here’s one such moment I captured in Washington Square Park, one of my favorite places:

Handsome man in Greenwich Village
Handsome man in Greenwich Village

On my second trip to NYC, my friend Leah and I were walking in Chelsea. It was about 6 p.m. Two scantily clad young women and a guy were arguing. In particular, the blond with twig-like arms and low-slung skinny jeans stumbled toward us, drunk, crying and yelling at her friends. She appeared to be incredibly distraught.

“I just want to die,” she screamed.

With the bitterness of a scorned woman, I said “I bet this drama is over a man. Let’s go talk to her.” We’ve all been there, right, ladies?

Leah’s motherly instinct took over. We ended up talking to the anorexic woman (let’s call her Marie) from Denmark, sitting on the sidewalk, for about an hour as the sun set. Leah stroked Marie’s hair and arm and listened to her plight. She explained why suicide wasn’t the answer, that the guy wasn’t worth Marie’s time. Marie had been hospitalized for anorexia for six months. We knew she was in bad shape.

Marie planned to move into a house in Brooklyn, where she lived for free with other young women. The only requirement was to hang out at the owner’s bar a few times a week. I asked “Do you have to have sex with the customers?” She said “no”, however, I knew. Later I learned that my hunch was probably right on. Sex trafficking is a big problem in NYC.

I was most impressed with Leah’s compassion towards this stranger. While I would have stopped to talk and listen to the woman, I probably wouldn’t have touched her. I have to know a person fairly well to go that far. Haaa.

We ended up persuading this young bony model to eat dinner at a nearby diner. Marie first ordered a wedge of iceberg lettuce topped with plain tuna fish. “I don’t care if I get fat!” she repeated in her Danish accent. “It doesn’t matter” as she ordered a piece of chocolate cake. To “get fat”, this woman would have to eat a cake a day for two months. Leah and I tried not to laugh.

Marie’s friend from Brooklyn picked her up from the diner, and Leah and I caught a cab back to the hotel.

We spent three hours trying to help Marie, and yet I knew her future looked bleak. A few weeks later, Marie texted Leah a photo of her with the sleazy boyfriend. Some lessons are hard to learn.

I Don’t Know

Sheila LoringLeave a comment

How often do you wonder why?

I wonder why a lot, trying to make sense of all kinds of things. Usually, an answer makes itself apparent. Now, I’m flummoxed.

On March 16, 2013 at Artspace in downtown Raleigh, I walked into a gallery to find a wall lined with dozens of small watercolors, each fastened with tiny nails. Several things about this art struck me as unique. The simplicity of nailing unframed art to a wall. Vivid color breezily layered over nostalgic photos. Sardonic, some suggestive, subtitles penciled in all caps. Obscured faces and headless bodies and bodyless heads.

The painting below, in particular, captured my imagination. Why?

painting by Pete Sack
Everyone Has a Riot Inside Them by Pete Sack

I don’t know what this painting signifies for me. But it made such an impression, I took this photo and posted it on Flickr and Pinterest. The image has haunted me ever since.

That was several years ago. I later wandered into Artspace and discovered the friendly artist in his workshop. (I expected a menacing man with a dry, dark sense of humor.) And the painting shown above — Everyone Has a Riot Inside Them — was buried in a stack. Now it’s hanging on my wall, fastened atop a white matte in a simple black frame.

Now that I think about it, Warhol’s more interesting portraits come to mind. Elizabeth Taylor with her smeared red pout and Marilyn with the Pepto Bismol mask. Could this explain the fascination? No, it’s not that simple.

The best art captures one’s imagination and doesn’t let go.

p.s. The artist explains what inspired him in this article.

Overcome labels and change the world

Sheila LoringLeave a comment

Last Sunday, I listened to a string of Harvard Business Review podcasts while raking the yard. This was the first raking of the season. Even with a tiny yard and a wide rake, I was out there until sunset.

Bill Gates' mug shot
Photo ~ Bill Gates, dyslexic and a criminal. There’s hope for everyone.

HBR interviewed cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman regarding his latest book, Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined. The most important point is that labeling kids as “dyslexic”, “shy”, “autistic”, etc. disregards their innate gifts. And dysfunctions can trigger a different area of the brain to compensate. Today’s dyslexic child might be a new incarnation of Bill Gates.

Some kids never get past the label. Others fight hard to overcome the barriers erected by family, friends, and society.

I’d been thinking about the topic of overcoming labels after watching the documentary Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, the story of the infamous and fabulous fashion editor.

Diana (pronounced dee-ahna) Dalziel was labeled the “ugly” sister. Alexandra Dalziel bore the traits of a classic beauty — symmetrical proportions and sunny blond hair. Diana, with her dark hair and large nose, never measured up. Her mother proclaimed, “It’s too bad that you have such a beautiful sister and that you are so extremely ugly and so terribly jealous of her. This, of course, is why you are so impossible to deal with.”

Fashion editor Diana Vreeland
Photo ~ Fashion editor and icon Diana Vreeland: the “ugly” sister

Diana spent life promoting the innate beauty and unique qualities of women, and celebrated her own uncommon beauty. The pages of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue featured women with prominent noses and gapped teeth rather than only cookie-cutter beauties.

Undaunted Diana Dalziel Vreeland overcame the “ugly” label. The women who pored over those magazine pages were forever changed.

Don’t stop at “dyslexic”, “special needs”, “ugly”, “slow”, “worthless”, “evil”, “doomed”, “lazy”, “dummy”.

Prove the labellers wrong.

What is or was your label?

Masterful monologue from Masters of Sex

Sheila LoringLeave a comment

The fascinating new Showtime series Masters of Sex is based on the story of Bill Masters and Virginia Johnson, pioneers of research about human sexual behavior.

The truths of intimate relationships abound in this show. Here’s just one example.

Allison Janney in Masters of Sex
Photo ~ Margaret Scully’s pained plea

The wife of the university provost, tired of being ignored, stumbles into her own affair. Recently dumped by her lover, she sits recovering at the bar and, by chance, strikes up a conversation with (unknowingly) her husband’s young male lover. Her husband walks in to meet the guy, and the truth silently reveals itself.

Allison Janney, who plays the provost’s wife, shined tonight with her pained plea to the young man:

Stay single.
I only say this to you because, when you’re young and in love, everyone thinks they’ll be the exception.
Sure, maybe Mom and Dad slept in separate beds and then separate rooms.
Maybe the older couples you know bicker or fight.
At your age, you can’t imagine it will ever be you
but it will be,
which is bad enough, but what’s even worse
is how much you’ll feel like a failure.
Because when the person who knows you best loses interest
that really takes something out of you
like surgery almost
and you really start to wonder
if you’ll ever be whole again.

Even those of us who don’t miss a single minute of those old relationships can identify.

Keep it simple: cast nice people

Sheila LoringLeave a comment

Have you ever compared your life to a movie, for which you are writer and director?

Who are your co-stars?
Who’s in a cameo role?
And which actors should be fired?

Appreciate Oscar-worthy co-stars. I’ve learned invaluable lessons from Jessica, Sally, Pamela, and Kellen. For example, avoid interrupting a story with your own anecdotes. Don’t judge. Balance your desire to protect one from pain with the knowledge that life is pain. We’ve made some great movies together.

Some actors in cameo roles deserve Oscars. Betty is cast in that role. Wicked sense of humor, a great listener, full of wisdom, and, most importantly, boldly herself. She inspires me to be a more generous, compassionate person.

Keep it simple. Cast nice people.
Photo ~ Or keep it simple. Cast nice people.

In lieu of an Oscar, learn how to give good hugs…a hard lesson for some of us.