The Deja Vu Project

Sometimes we are the hardest on the people who are the closest to us. Sometimes we get too comfortable with those people that we cease to expand our minds and creativity. I realize that in the aftermath of my two breakups, my brain is overflowing with thoughts. My ears are more attentive to others. My heart is more open. My mind is more alert and pensive. I’m sure in some way this is a result of the loss of intimacy after a breakup, but on the other hand, these are qualities that I possess, aspects of my personality that were perhaps less vivid when my energy was largely focused on the happiness of one other human being. I know that achieving a balance between individuality and being a supportive, caring partner is possible. I’ve seen it in my parents and my grandparents. For now, after the experience of two tremendous heartbreaks, I’m enjoying the inspiration I feel to write about anything and everything. 

And with that, here are my thoughts on Memorial Day. Pictured is my grandfather Francisco Pabon who is a Korean War veteran.

MEMORIAL DAY:

Memorial Day has been weighing on my mind since a recent conversation with a friend. For people my age, the changing face of warfare and the rhetoric we use to talk about war has been a significant part of our lives. I am someone who has never been in the military and cannot conceive of battle or witnessing loss of life in that environment. The question that I have been thinking about is: how do we, as unique individuals with different experiences and opinions, relate to war? I know that the answer to that is not finite and will continue to evolve as wars end and begin or live on, but I think it is important especially for those like me to consider this and how it affects how we treat our veterans and honor those who have passed. The reality is that today most citizens are at the beach and enjoying barbecues. As one Huffingtonpost writer put it: “one holiday, two countries.” Another wrote, “For veterans, there is no day of the year when the civilian-military divide feels greater.” Reading this made me massively sad.

The following is an excerpt from an email I wrote after my conversation with my friend.

Below is a link to a short story called “How to Tell a True War Story”. It’s a part of a longer book called “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. Ironically, I read this the week the war in Afghanistan started, which was spring break of my freshman year at NYU. Everyone had gone home, and I was alone. I spent most of the week glued to the television in shock, knowing that as cliche as it sounds life would never be the same. Later that week I was having lunch with a friend during the middle of an anti-war protest, and we ended up having to run as fast as I’ve ever had to run to escape the cops who were clubbing the protestors and anyone else around and chasing them down with horses. It was brutal, and of course none of it ever showed up on tv or online. I moved to New York when I was 18, less than a year after 9/11. I remember the first anniversary of 9/11, I woke up early for class. The streets were completely silent, a silence so piercing and almost suffocating. Everything was slower. People walked almost aimlessly as if they had nowhere to be. Everyone met each others’ eyes as if to say, “I know.” I had a dance class that morning where the first thirty minutes began on the floor. It was my favorite movement from any classes in college, and it was something we all knew by heart. Our pianist, who was here when the Twin Towers fell, improvised music that seemed like it had been written for that particular moment. It was perfect; it was surreal. While we were dancing, the church bells chimed at the hour the towers fell. When we finally finished and came up to a seated position, there was not a dry face in the room. Sometimes I wish I could capture that moment in time, but I think its ephemerality is what makes it so strong for me. That is my memory, in brief. Having been here so soon after, having had two grandfathers and friends fight in various wars and personally having no concept of the true reality of war, I guess I have always been really interested in different people’s relationship to and thoughts about war. Even war movies, how do we relate to something that is so disturbing and upsetting to watch knowing that the gruesome realities on the screen are no match to the experience in real life? And as an actor, how do you get behind those characters? Playing a soldier’s wife was one of the most challenging experiences for me mainly because I was determined to do the experience and the story justice. The way I found myself into the character and the story besides hours of research was being able to connect to the experience of having loved someone so deeply, having them return or having an experience separate you and to look at them and feel that you don’t know them anymore.. the emptiness inside yourself, the hollow relationship, wishing you could fucking shake out all the memories you don’t know in your partner’s head, knowing they probably want to erase them too, wishing you could take their pain away and know them again, looking in their eyes and knowing they are so disconnected and miles and miles away, knowing deep down that you will never have them back the way you knew them before. I guess if there is any truth in storytelling it’s that there is some universality in every story we tell, and that’s what we have to uncover and bring to life as actors and as people in order to transcend ourselves and to connect to and relate to each other. 

I hope you enjoy the story. It appeals to the writer, thinker and artist in me, and I hope it does for all of you as well. I also hope everyone takes the time to tell their own stories today or to pause for a moment of remembrance.

http://bit.ly/1aNopb

Sometimes goodbyes are heartbreaking, and sometimes goodbyes are liberating. I’ve learned how good it feels to set yourself free when you know you’ve reached a dead end. Set yourself free and then go write about it, paint about it, dance about it, sing about it. I have always been of the opinion that there is a storyteller and artist in each of us. The gift that our creative faculties offer us is the knowledge that none of our painful experiences go unheard, that in sharing and realizing the universality of love and heartbreak, we slowly begin to heal.

I’ve had the great pleasure of working with my dear friend and colleague Mike “ReX” Dingler for several years now. Mike founded NoLA Rising, a post-Katrina community and street art campaign that has garnered international attention. In his last visit to New York, he gave me a copy of his zine. On the first page, is the following passage about goodbyes.

Goodbye to never knowing if the things I do are good enough for you. Goodbye to feeling like I lost you before the end. Goodbye to feeling abandoned by you. Goodbye to feeling like my hobbies and interests weren’t as important as yours. Goodbye to the letters we wrote one another. Goodbye to how well we used to talk. Goodbye to your smile. Goodbye to seeing my daughters on a regular basis. Goodbye to the way we used to hold one another. Goodbye to our kisses, our hand-holding and the use of the word fuck. Goodbye to looking at Christmas lights with you. Goodbye to the neighborhood walks to the library. Goodbye to the dream that we may have one more child. Goodbye to the expectation that you would have one day wanted to know me the way you felt you didn’t. Goodbye.

For more information on NoLA Rising, please visit http://nolarising.org

Photo from the Great Outdoors Gallery Opening.  Art by Darkcloud.