Interests and inspiration

Finding and losing them

In times like these, I fantasize about having a driver’s license. I feel very disconnected with myself, because I’ve been too connected to the internet.

For some reason, I’ve been hyper independent all my life, yet I didn’t work towards that clear symbol of independence - learning how to drive. But it’s something so alluring, the idea that I could just pack and leave without telling anyone. And the big one: turning off the internet. Ok, maybe just social media. I still am horrible at geography, so I need maps.

I long for a time in which I won’t need internet to reach, showcase, connect with people. Ironic, I know, as I am typing this and sharing onto a platform that does exactly that.

To kill time and maybe forget all the inadequacies in my life, I started reading DV - Diana Vreeland’s memoir, and I just cannot get enough. I pause whenever I can because I don’t want it to end. It’s so incredibly well written, it’s exactly like you would be having a conversation with your flamboyant favorite aunt that visits once every few years, and shares stories so outrageous and marvelous that you can’t even believe she is real.

What a life! Born at the beginning of the 1900, she lived constantly on the move, between France, UK, Germany, America, between dukes and barons and kings and queens and diplomats and oddballs. Just remarkable how much the world has changed in 100 and some years.

She experienced the world exactly as a high society member should.

With no formal education (boarding school was a nightmare and then she decided to become a dancer and studied with an important Russian ballet dancer whose name I forgot), she became an avid reader, and reading, compounded with a cultural education that was expected from a person of her status, resulted in this singular and explosive personality that ruled the fashion world for a few decades. She knew art, architecture, history, fashion, was obsessed with Japanese culture.

Once again, i am reminded - books can be of more help and can fill the gaps in anyone’s life more than any university diploma.

She knew Josephine Baker and met with her at the opera where Baker brought her pet cheetah on a leash. She was vacationing in Germany while the night of the long knives happened, she fled Paris right on the brink of World War II (she had a fitting at Chanel, and refused to leave with her husband). I am not saying that there aren’t some question marks - one of her sons later became a diplomat and CIA agent, so take it with a grain of salt.

I don’t know why I am so delighted by this way of life. I don’t think it’s really the money, but more of the ease and access and quirks that financial freedom can grant someone.

Also, people used to know about quality of life. Meaning, how to spend their money.

And not like the forever Peter Pan creeps who don’t want to die (totally absurd, but that’s another issue). More like champagne for lunch, shopping in the daytime at a specific store for a specific item, getting dressed up for dinner every day, having coffee with friends weekly, sending handwritten notes and letters, hosting parties (and knowing how to host). An elegant way of living. It’s just… gone. Everything is tech and tacky (good title, by the way).

That’s why I wanted to create some art prints of my work, because I needed something palpable, not only a virtual thing. And hopefully giving a piece of something I made with my hands to someone. Basically, making an impact. Yes, that’s what I am striving for. But I don’t think it’s enough.

Gary V posted this week that social media is dead and it was taken over by interest media. Very true. It’s the time to find your group. The internet is kind of like high school now, if you think about it.

These are the things I find interesting. How a socialite, wife of a banker and stay at home mom, became editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, and later worked at the Met. And not through strings pulled, but because she was ready for the job, she knew clothes, and style and how her life worked. I was stunned by this quote:

“That’s why I could go to work for Harper’s Bazaar when I left England - I knew how to work because I knew how to run a house.”

Blew my mind.

For generations, we’ve run from the housewife role (myself included) and despised mothers, wrongly believing that it’s demeaning, degrading and stupid, when it was in fact the opposite. It prepares you, and it shapes you as a human. Of course, you get to choose what to do with the life you have, and maybe some don’t get to choose, but things compound, every day. What you do and believe in the mundane, may lead to that great epic moment.

Maybe. The epic moment is not promised.

I think a trip will help and inspire me to get some clarity and paint again, without me ending up consumed by the internet.

I don’t know when I will return here, do with that what you will. Unsubscribe, even, if you feel like and it’s not of interest what i’ve posted in the last few years. I just need to actually separate my self-worth from whatever feedback I get (or don’t) via wifi. I am too old for this to be so entrenched in my life and I am tired of the unnecessary baggage.

Good night and good luck!