Love Note #8: Take a Fresh Look
Hello Beloved,
I’ve been going out a lot more lately.
In some ways I feel like a ‘familiar-newcomer’ in the place I’ve called home for almost 15 years. There’s an awkwardness of rediscovering what interests me and trying new things and finding new places.
I notice I still feel drawn to live music and experiencing art, one of my long-term past times. I especially love venues where the interlude between artist and audience is intimate.
On Friday I saw one of my favorite local bands in a coffee shop and on Saturday I attended an exhibit and panel for an artist-led collective who is piloting a project between artists in Los Angeles and South Africa.
Sitting in the audience I felt the tingle of the thaw in my chest, the parts of me quietly cocooned over these last years were melting open, overflowing out of my eyes as warm, fresh tears.
It felt good to be among people (even as introverted as I am).
Meeting them, letting them meet me as I am today.
Seeing things, familiar things, again for the first time.
It is not that LA has become so dramatically different – but I have.
As we change, moved dramatically at times by life’s joys and grief, our perspectives and values shift. When we are present to what’s shifted inside us, we invite life to reveal something previously unexperienced.
Yet when we are fixed in perspective, holding on to what was - we can find ourselves living in the shell of the experience, in an outdated version of our lives, which can have things feel flat, lackluster or melancholy.
This applies to ourselves, our environment and also includes our intimate relationships.
Are we interacting with the person as there are? Or are we interacting with the phantom of who they once were, our fantasy of who we wish they were or could still be? Too often we hold on with fear instead of looking freshly at what is, and being with what is. (I’ve been guilty AF of this one!)
I think fundamentally most of us want to be seen. To be known for who we are and appreciated and loved there. When we can offer our attention we step into the present connection.
This time of emergence is an invitation to offer fresh sight to the place we live, the people we interact with and ourselves.
To do this we can ask ourselves – is what I’m seeing habitual? What are my current desire and interests? Am I meeting this person, this place in the present moment? What is here that I previously haven’t seen?
This last question elicits a curiosity, an acknowledgment that there something new to see, a great practice to keeping things fresh and alive.
This pairs well with last week’s invitation – to Adjust the Pace because when we take a breath, and look with curiosity we will undoubtedly see something we hadn’t seen before.
Don’t take my word for it – try it. Let me know what you discover.
And if you need some help shifting viewpoint– take yourself on an artist date by finding some art in your local community, or create something yourself.
As always…
Let Love Guide the Way,
Angela
PS: Check out the music of Inglewood, CA based band, Katalyst Collective
Also Botho Arts Collective will be back in LA Spring 2023.